Use of the word "wrong" in causal learning exercises

I am an "event learning" consultant and practitioner and have been since 1974.

When something goes "wrong" -- an injury, explosion, loss of revenue, etc. high hazard industries are required to learn from them.

Almost all events of these sorts can be traced to people who did something "wrong," IN RETROSPECT. That is, I'm NOT talking about intentional harm, or morally or ethically "wrong" here. I AM talking about, in retrospect, "I should not have flown my drone in those high wind conditions because it ended up crashing my drone."

I'm trying to use "retrospection" to get people to realize what they DID, and then get them to acknowledge that whatever they did was "wrong." "I flew my drone in high wind conditions, and in retrospect I acknowledge this was wrong."

There are parts of our behavior that are"wrong" in the sense that they will either harm us or other people -- even though we are not aware of them at the time.

But in using the word "wrong," I am getting a lot of push-back these days from people thinking "it's a finger pointing exercise." Far from that, we're asking individual people to look at themselves as part of an incident and SELF-ADMIT what they did that contributed to an incident.

I need to know the kinds of things I do that are "wrong," so that I can change those kinds of things.

So again, can anyone thing of a better word to use instead of:

Who did what WRONG? A word that does not imply morally or ethically "bad?"

Thank you

Solution 1:

Who did what WRONG? A word that does not imply morally or ethically "bad?"

I would simply say that something was done incorrectly:

2 a : INACCURATE, FAULTY
// an incorrect transcription
b : not true : WRONG
// incorrect answers

And shift the emphasis away from who and put it on what.

What was done incorrectly?

This doesn't imply intent, nor does it imply fault. Something can be done incorrectly without anybody being aware of what the correct method is. Perhaps they were never shown the instructions—or instructions were never written.

And if you ask it in a what form, it leaves it open for people to talk about the event, not about the person. (Anybody who claims they did it incorrectly would be taking responsibility themselves rather than feeling judged by somebody else.)

Unlike words such as error and mistake, where the implication can be that something was known but not followed and that somebody was to blame, incorrect is a purely objective statement. Although the dictionary definition associates it with wrong, it's not in the normative sense that is normally associated with it.

In corporate jargon, a common way of expressing this is not to say anything negative at all. Instead, people ask, "How can we improve things next time?" or "What opportunities for improvement can you identify?" The statement about the situation is reversed into something positive. I can see how it has some value, although I've personally felt it slightly disingenuous—a kind of politically correct way of avoiding the actual issue.

Solution 2:

In engineering, we often talk about the "cause" of a failure. We might talk about the "root cause" or several "contributing causes" for an incident or a failure of some kind.

For example, in the drone example, we might say that flying the drone in high winds was the root cause of the drone crashing. (And the next step would be to implement a "corrective action" such as always checking the wind speed before flying and not flying the drone when the wind speed is above some specified value)

Solution 3:

I gather from your question that you are seeking for others to learn from their previous experiences, utilizing reflection methods that put situations in retrospect.

The best way to express this notion would be to put an emphasis on the lesson learnt rather than what went wrong. Recognizing the wrongdoing becomes implicit when the process and emphasis is put on growth and the lesson learnt.

It seems as though your method and process is correct, but the means of communication, packing your message in a more positive and constructive manner, (instead of just trying to find a nicer word than wrong) may be a more successful path in this situation.

"You cannot travel back in time to fix your mistakes, but you can learn from them and forgive yourself for not knowing better" - Leon Brown

Solution 4:

There's a number of ways to say something like this (conjugate the verb for the appropriate personal pronoun and inflect the verb for the appropriate tense/mood):

I made a/the [noun]. (error, mistake)
I [verb]. (messed up, erred)
I was [adjective]. (wrong, mistaken, erroneous, guilty)
I was [phrase (prepositional) or idiom]. (at fault, to blame)
(most likely more)

You talk about "SELF-ADMIT" and acknowledging. If for example, the building burns down, saying:

I admit I left the oven on.
I acknowledge I left the oven on.

If there is any responsibility for the fire named in either of these statements, in my opinion it's only obliquely. It doesn't necessarily say "The building burned down because of me; I'm sincerely sorry." I really have no idea what's happening in society that you feel the pressure to replace "wrong" with terms that don't even directly attribute fault. The argument that "wrong" is necessarily tied to morality isn't true. 2 plus 2 equals 5 is wrong. I see no morality in this fact. Another example might be a NASA rover programmer who gets an "algorithm" wrong and makes an entire mission fail. In this case I'd argue he/she has done something wrong. Even in this example the only way morality can come into it is (arguably) reckless negligence (acting without due care).

I'm NOT talking about intentional harm, or morally or ethically "wrong" here.

Yes, I think most people get the idea.

A thesaurus will give similar terms you may consider. If the problem is specifically that the word you use can be associated with morality or ethics, then just simply use a word that's less associated with morality and ethics. It may be no similar word is never used in this way, but it seems certain words are less associated with morality or ethics.

Comparison on an NGram.

Google search:
moral mistake - 8,900 results
moral fault - 48,200 results
moral error - 72,000 results

I don't know what more to say. Will saying "making a mistake" allay these people's concern? Does it essentially mean the same as "being wrong" or "doing something wrong"? I personally think "mistake/n" is a good term given the description of the pushback you've experienced. Everyone makes mistakes, and if someone says you shouldn't use it because it COULD involve moral or ethical considerations, then I give up.

Solution 5:

Causal learning exercises? They sound more like debriefs that can decide your continued participation in the industry. You are asking them to play the blame game (on themselves), you're just forgetting to use subterfuge, just like mom used to : “What should have been done differently?”

"I should not have flown my drone in those high wind conditions because it ended up crashing my drone."

What would be different about a perfect world where this never happened?

"Drones should come with air speed indicators, because they are extremely susceptible to wind."

Read between the lines and you can put the blame squarely where it belongs, however it admits no wrongdoing. Surrender but don't give yourself away. In a perfect world, that's the best you can hope a company told their employees to tell you.

These people are in cover your ass mode, and you're asking them to pull their pants down. You have to ask leading questions like, are they too tight? Should we be importing them from Europe? Get the company to blame the employees and vice versa, and all secrets will be unintentionally laid bare. Your job is to then sort it all out.