Keeping the fault list honest

The fault list stays, and nothing in this book renames a fault. But once the second list exists, the first can be looked at with a little more care, because it's no longer carrying the whole conversation.

Does it need saying? Some faults do. The wrong total needs saying, because it'll go to the board otherwise. The pan needs washing but doesn't necessarily need saying, because you could wash it, or leave it for whoever cooks next, or say it tomorrow. A useful test is whether saying it changes anything. If the remark leads to a fix, it's information. If it leads to nothing but the other person knowing you noticed, it's commentary, and commentary is what this book is about reducing.

To whom? If your daughter got two wrong, she's the one to tell, and she's ten, and she'll learn more from being shown the two than from being told about them. If a colleague's total is wrong, tell the colleague, not the meeting.

When? Not in the same breath as the thanks. Not as the first thing on walking in. Not at bedtime. Faults land best when the other person isn't already braced, and the way to have people not braced is to have spent the previous week saying what was fine.

Fix it or drop it. For the small ones, the pan-sized ones, there are two honest responses. Fix it, in which case it's done and there's nothing to say. Or drop it, in which case it's left and there's nothing to say. The third option, leave it and mention it, is the one that costs the most and does the least, and it's the one the scan reaches for by default.

This isn't a ratio. You may have heard that there's a right number of fines per fault, five to one or some such. I'm not going to give you one. The ratios that get quoted come from research that's been disputed, and in any case a target turns thanks into bookkeeping. The aim is simpler. Every fine you see gets said, and every fault you see gets the three questions. The proportion will look after itself, and it'll look like the room.

Some things aren't faults. A fair number of what the scan flags are differences, not faults. The dishwasher stacked a different way. A paragraph written in a style you wouldn't use. The child's room tidied by the child's idea of tidy. Before a difference goes on the fault list, ask whether it's wrong or just not yours. A great deal of commentary is a person's preferences read out as standards, and the people hearing it can tell the difference even when the person saying it can't.