… a 6 step recovery process.
More than anyone I really have f—–d up at work. But I always managed to tell my Boss and survive.
But, no matter how big or small you are, no one wants to admit when they’ve screwed up, especially at work.
The first thought that explodes into my mind along with embarrassment, even for me, is to either hide the mistake and hope no one notices or find someone else to blame. Acknowledging you’re to blame, even for mistakes in your personal life, isn’t easy.
The more open and honest you are about the work related mistakes, the higher the chance of resolving them quickly without getting into major trouble, and the way you do it could assist build your reputation.
Here are my suggestions for a process how to tell your boss you’ve screwed up:
1. Assess the damage and work on an action plan. Calculate the potential damage of your mistake before any conversations. The more information you can bring regarding what happened and what the potential impact may be, the better. When you take time to fully assess what went wrong and the potential consequences, it’ll show your boss that you care and want to learn from this mistake.
2. Admit your mistake immediately. Sure, it is painful in the beginning, but as soon as you get it over with, the healing can start. Your boss may be angry and upset, but she will eventually cool down. The sooner you identify and admit the mistake the sooner you can start to fix the problem. especially when you admit it, you have completed step one and can assess the potential impact. Admit the mistake clearly like ” I missed the submission deadline for our client by two hours because I misread the instructions and was unaware they required us to submit the application by 5 p.m. Sydney time, and since we’re in Singapore, I thought we had two more hours.”
And avoid saying something like: “Well, their deadline said 6 pm, and it was submitted at 6 pm, how were we to know that it was Sydney time even though the client and us are here in Singapore, so the application was filed two hours late, they should make the small print bigger.” Why? Because you blame the other side plus it’s ambiguous who created the problem.
3. Understand how it happened and why it won’t happen again. Let your boss know exactly what happened and why; take full ownership; and let them know why and how it will not happen again. Acceptance, even forgiveness, is much easier if your bosses are comfortable that the error won’t be repeated. And if it could happen again, that there is a system component in the problem, point this out and set to work addressing the process related problem.
4. Don’t throw others under the bus. Blaming others will only make you look petty. Not taking full responsibility will only worsen the situation, and can lead others to distrust your abilities in the future.
5. Do everything in your control to make it right. Whether it’s contacting Sydney to explain your error or working late to correct the problem so others are not impacted, or swallowing your pride to apologize to those affected, you’ll need to do whatever you can to stop the problem from spreading and to control the damage.
6. Prepare yourself for the consequences. Admitting mistakes doesn’t mean you will be immune to the repercussions. Even if you do everything you can to be upfront, apologetic, and to fix the problem, you should know that that there may be fallout from for what happened. You will need to rebuild trust, but the best thing you can do is to document lessons learn so the mistake is not made again by you are anyone else. And Learn from what happened. While you shouldn’t be too hard on yourself you will need to reflect what you should have done differently to avoid the screw-up.
Don’t be fearful of making mistakes, as Albert Einstein once said, “Anyone who has never made a mistake has never tried anything new.” Mistakes can often lead to innovation; to breakthroughs; can create new policies; and can turn into opportunities.
So how have you coped with mistakes? Are you too embarrassed to share, no? I didn’t think so… comments are open.