Why Do Human Beings Make Mistakes and What Can We Do About it?

Date: 3 April 2024

What has life taught you about making mistakes? Not the errors in judgement that are the stuff of agony columns and Hollywood blockbusters, but the ordinary mistypes, misreads, lapses of concentration that we all make day-to-day? 

One of the biggest myths we hear at The Accuracy People is that accuracy skills – or the lack of them - are innate, a part of who we are. At school, we were told to “check our work”. If we were lucky, we had a teacher who not only got us into good habits with checking work but showed us how. Most of us, though, did not. 

People who work in finance handle vast amounts of data every day and the repercussions of errors can be both costly and time-consuming to rectify. Accountancy, by its very nature, demands precision and even minor mistakes can have a big impact.  

You’ll be relieved to know that making mistakes isn’t down to laziness, stupidity or a lack of caring. The good news is that accuracy – getting things right first time, data checking and proofreading - is a learnable skill. It is possible to significantly reduce the frequency and impact of errors once we understand why we make them. 

In our presentation, we are going to explore four of the main reasons why we do make mistakes: The first is to do with how our eyes move. The physical structure of the human eye means that it cannot move smoothly across a string of digits or characters, so we don't always perceive information accurately. 

The second is to do with how we process visual information. From an early age we learn to recognise word shapes rather than each letter or character in its exact location – wchih is wyh you cna rdea this perfectly. This inbuilt ability to ‘autocorrect’ what we are reading makes checking a document for completeness and accuracy more challenging. 

Thirdly: - often the one we are most aware of - is our tendency to be distracted too easily. Developing and nurturing habits to concentrate more effectively can result in fewer mistakes and greater productivity. 

And the fourth reason is that we use our memory ineffectively. The mind is a wonderful tool for thinking, but a dreadful place for storage. Relying on our memory, particularly under stress, is a recipe for making mistakes. 

It’s encouraging to know that central to attention-to-detail and accuracy are a set of skills that can be learned, practised and even measured. We don’t have to accept expensive and stress-inducing errors as an inevitable part of work. 

In our presentation, we will explore all of this in more detail.

We’ll cover: 

• What we mean by mistakes 
• What they cost you 
• Why we make mistakes, and what you can do about it. 

If you would like to learn more about The Accuracy People and our training, visit our website or call us on 0330 133 5456.