Mistakes. They come in all shapes, sizes, and varieties.
From the basic “Whoops, I forgot to email that information” to the
high-on-the-Richter-scale magnitude of “Oh crap, I just emailed the entire company’s
compensation file to the wrong person.”
There’s the kind that are accidental slips of the fingers on
the keyboard, usually caused by being too rushed or not paying attention. Quite
often there’s a gun to the head involved, either a deadline or a freaking out
client. Or not enough caffeine after too much alcohol the night before. In some
cases it’s caused by a number of martinis at lunch time, which I’ve seen before
from a former colleague, but that’s a whole other story for another day.
There are mistakes that are made, that we couldn’t have
possibly anticipated, despite all the planning and calculating of minimizing
risk. After weeks of exploring, analyzing and background checking, you take
that new job or hire that new employee and low and behold, weeks later, you
discover you’ve made a terrible mistake. Or in one instance in my game of
career move checkers, the first day on the job I realized I’d misjudged and
made a mistake. The first clue in a series of incrementally expanding ones was
being handed a time-card to punch, and this was a mid-level professional,
salaried job. Uh oh.
Mistakes. We all make them, we all face them, and we all
deal with them. Usually we move on from them. The paths we take are shaped by
them. And oftentimes, the baggage we carry down those paths is related to our
feelings around our mistakes, the choices that led to them, and the
consequences of them. That and the grudges we sometimes carry from mistakes;
more often than not, we beat ourselves up over and over again about our
mistakes while “Oh, that’s okay, could happen to anyone” flies out of our
mouths easily to those who screw stuff up for us.
So how can we navigate through life, steering around and
sometimes into mistakes, those icebergs that inevitably pop up unavoidably? And
after slamming into a mistake iceberg, how do we move on, still afloat, without
going down in icy waters in the middle of the night like the Titanic? And how
is it, by the way, that despite there being enough room on the raft for two
people, that Jack froze to death while Rose survived? Because he made a mistake
in being chivalrous and not insisting that she shove over and make room. And oh
my GOSH why did Rose make the decision to toss a huge diamond into the ocean?
Now that, in my opinion, was a monumental mistake. But I digress.
So I’ve hit a mistake iceberg. What do I do now?
First off, I’m going to own my mistake. It’s hard to do it,
but owning it, claiming it by admitting it to myself first and then
communicating it to any impacted party who needs to know (like my boss, because
no surprises is the best way to operate) in a non-blaming, forward-thinking,
solutions-oriented conversation, is the necessary first step. “Here’s what’s
happened, here’s what should have happened, here’s how I’ve fixed it (or will
fix it), and here’s what I’ve done to ensure this kind of thing doesn’t happen
again.” There’s no need to beat yourself up, especially not in front of others,
however, if you normally have real, honest conversations with your colleagues, occasionally
admitting to having been a dumbass or effing something up actually increases
your value as a trustworthy and honest individual, rather than a jerk who hides
their mistakes. Seriously. Dumbass – toss it around a couple times a year about
yourself (save it for some whopping screw ups) and your credibility factor
increases. Owning up to our mistakes keeps us on the path of authenticity and
there’s freedom to getting the truth of the situation off our chests. Just
don’t make it a daily or hourly thing, or
then you really are a dumbass.
Once I own my mistake, I need to release it. I’ve done it,
I’ve acknowledged it, I’ve rectified it, I’ve learned from it, and now I am
going to release it. Releasing it means not beating myself up over it, all the
way home in the car or on the GO train or wherever I am. Releasing it means not
talking about it again to my colleagues or my boss. And it definitely means not
raising it again for another discussion at performance review time. There’s a
huge difference between owning a mistake and torpedoing one’s career with it.
That’s why we need to release it. It’s in the past and we need to focus on the
present so we can avoid making new mistakes. Or the same mistake again.
After I’ve released my mistake, I move on. Again, not
resuscitating it for further analysis. Oh that screw up? That was ages ago.
Years ago. I was far more inexperienced when that happened. (Okay, maybe it was
only last week, but I have matured and grown from it.) Release it. Let it go.
It’s over, it’s gone, it’s in the past, like a bad ex-boyfriend.
This process is scary as it makes us vulnerable. Let’s face
it – when we admit mistakes, we expose ourselves to others’ judgement of us.
But if we handle our mistakes properly by admitting, rectifying, and resolving
them, the judgement is limited. Chances are, we’re not going to get fired. But
there’s honesty in vulnerability. There’s actually greater vulnerability in not
admitting to the mistake because by burying it, chances are, you’ll be facing a
larger and scarier version of the situation down the road, and then you’ll be
more than vulnerable, you'll be stuck. Or effed, depending on the magnitude of the mess.
This leads to the next point – it’s important to be truthful
in admitting our mistakes. There’s truth in the admission itself, but beyond
this, by speaking the truth about what’s happened and how you’ve sorted out the
situation, it’s liberating to get the mistake off your chest. It’s out there in
the world now and chances are, however badly you’re seeing the situation, if
you’ve handled it with grace and professionalism, it’s nowhere near as bad as
you think it is.
By following these steps through the process of handling
mistakes, we create trust. We trust ourselves more and others trust that we
will be honest in our work. We all can trust that when we make another mistake,
we can handle it properly. When there’s greater trust in the workplace and in
our relationships, we can better focus on what needs to get done. We can do our
work well and enjoy what we’re doing. Because really, isn’t that what it’s all
about?