Abby (my youngest daughter) walked over to me and said, “Dad, that is Jenny’s grandma” and, very stealthily, nodded in the direction of an elderly woman waiting (like we were) for her car to get done with its oil change.  I said, “Well, go up and say hello!”
Abby looked at me incredulously.  Being somewhat shy, she knew that I knew that this action was a little out of her comfort zone.  Then she said, “I should get a picture of her and send it to Jenny.”  (I must stop here and explain that these are some of the things I don’t get about how our younger generation thinks or communicates.)  However, wanting to be a “cool Dad”, I said, “I’ll get the picture for you….I just pretend like I’m texting, take it, and then send it to you.”

Feeling much like James Bond on a secret mission, I set the camera on my phone, pretended to text and took the picture.  As soon as I snapped the picture, Abby turned and walked away from me.  I followed her and asked what was wrong.  Wasn’t she happy that cool Dad got the picture she wanted?  She responded…

     “Yea….maybe next time you’re gonna take a stealth picture…you should turn your flash off.”

WHAT!?  In my haste to bond with my daughter I had forgotten to turn the flash off when I took the picture…NO WONDER JENNY’S GRANDMA LOOKED AT ME WEIRD!

How many times have I had something like this happen in my life!?  I rush in, forget to do something, and then, after, the step I missed hits me like a ton of bricks.
Granted, this was something goofy (and I don’t think I breached any Fourth Amendment rights) but the step I missed was very simple.  How about you?  Have you ever forgotten that one simple step that ended up making you look like the village idiot?  I’ve done it repeatedly throughout my life.   When I manifest these situations, I do two things:

 1.  Laugh it off (and apologize, if necessary).
    2.  Don’t make the mistake again

In this case, I did laugh.  I laughed really hard at the complete idiocy of my mistake.  I couldn’t apologize because Jenny’s Grandma had already left.  Truthfully, I don’t know if I would have anyway….it would have been too hard to explain through the tears of laughter.      Further, I’ve never made that mistake again (not that I take a lot of stealth pictures but….once in a while…).

We all make silly mistakes…so do our team members.  We can sit and beat ourselves up for them or we can push forward.  I’ll think you’ll find the latter as being more productive.  Cut yourself and your team some slack by laughing it off and moving forward.