Quite often our pride gets in the way of what we should do before we are ready to make decisions. Don’t allow pride and arrogance to keep you from putting in place a decision making framework.

Perhaps we ought to think about Ethics in terms of the myriad of choices and decisions we make every day. Not all are potentially earth shattering but some may have significant impact. It’s those we ought to spend more time thinking about before we make them.

As fallible and imperfect humans, we will make mistakes. Each one of those missteps and blunders are opportunities to demonstrate our humanity, to show transparency, that we are accountable. And that we own and fix things when we make those mistakes.

As this insanely bizarre year draws to a close, and you begin planning for 2021, consider carving out a piece of your agenda to focus on ethics. Do the right thing. Be accountable. Walk the talk.

Why is holding ourselves accountable so difficult? I have a theory. It’s tough to admit we screwed up and sometimes even embarrassing or shameful.

We are imperfect by nature. We can’t prevent all mistakes. We can put in place preventive measures but we won’t catch them all. So what do we do?

Part of our decision making framework is having access to a circle of people we have vetted, and who walk their talk.

Complex decisions require a much different process, to ensure that the choices we make are consistent with our guiding principles and core values. And to ensure we don’t suffer negative consequences as a result of our decisions.

Are you mistake proof? Do you make decisions as if you were? Let’s start out thinking and talking about how we make decisions. And what we do, despite our careful planning, when something goes wrong and we make a mistake.

This is the trailer to my new podcast Missteps and Stumbles. Join me, your host, Henry Fiallo, and explore the perilous world of mistakes. Discover how small blunders can develop into bad habits that in turn can result in deadly mistakes. Tune in and learn how to avoid them, and recover when you do make a deadly mistake.