Oh S#$@, Now What? You Made a Mistake, Now Make the Best of a Bad Situation
We have all done it. Even if you don’t want to admit, we have all screwed up at work. Whether it was misspelling a clients name on a letter, forgetting to put an engagement letter in a file, or just plain old missing a deadline, we have all screwed up at some-point. But how many of us are big enough to admit it. Here is how Jared Sandberg of the Wall Street Journal suggests it all works:
To excel at never admitting mistakes, you have to take care to burnish your unaccountability and sorrylessness. It helps, for example, to have a fall guy, someone who has responsibility for a project who is less known to your boss than you are. Also, any mistake made under time pressure can be blamed on a lack of time. Soon enough, you’ll combine elements, blaming the lack of time you had because of the sluggishness of the fall guy.
I’ve always prided myself on being honest, often too honest, but that’s another post. I’m even willing to admit that I have blamed stuff on a fall guy and/or time. When I do screw up I really try to analyze the situation and find the best solution (don’t we all). Below is three events that are imperative overcoming a mistake and moving on:
1. Distinguish between excuses and reasons - Ask yourself whether you really screwed up for a reason or you just wish it were so. Was the mistake due to not having enough time or was it because I left work early to have a few beers with a friend? Once you realize the reasons for the mistake you can begin to learn. Remember what reason means:
“A sufficient ground of explanation or of logical defense“
And excuse:
“to try to remove blame from”
Which one do you want to go to your manager with?
2. Only give reasons for mistakes, not excuses - Come on people, everyone one of our parents have called us out on giving excuses: I didn’t get to my chores because I figured there wasn’t enough dishes and I would do them later. Teacher, I didn’t get the paper done because I had an exam in another class.
Our elders are not stupid, they can see through our excuses. Don’t waste a managers time by giving them both your excuses and reasons, jump to the chase and save some time (and possibly face).
3. Give a solution - When you made a mistake, and own up to it, and provide reasons, not excuses Be sure to provide a solution for the mistake. In addition, it is not a bad idea to record what you took from the experience. In my experiences a manager appreciates it when you pro actively fix your mistakes, acknowledge them, and take steps to prevent it in the future.
A Utilization Mistake and Solution
Maybe the best way to explain this is by giving an example. In public accounting it is possible that you work on several clients throughout the day. This requires extensive time reporting that generally uses a code system; separate codes for separate clients and work. Some days you may work on 20 clients, some as few as .1 hours some as much as 1.5 hours during a day.
During our mid-year reviews, my utilization came in below that of many of my peers. I was approached by my manager/coach with the question “why, I always see you working and no one has ever complained about your timing, how did your utilization come in so low?”
The reason was clear to me and it wasn’t that I was too busy to record my time and time reporting is not to complicated or time consuming to do on a daily basis. The reason was that I was to lazy to take 5 minutes a few times a day to record my time in our system, just a mundane task.
Once I got around to recording my time I would forget about the little projects throughout a day; email here, letter, scanning, copying, it adds up. This caused me to come up short on chargeable hours, the difference in the day I would charged to General and Administrative time (non-chargeable) causing my utilization to be lower than in reality.
When I replied to my manager I told him “I do not track my time well during the day and when I go to do my time (often at the end of a two week period) I have to plug several hours to non-chargeable codes.”
This is a fairly significant issue. Our time is used for billing, next year budgets, performance reviews, and profit margins for jobs.
He understood and related. I then added “I think I am going to start keeping track in this notebook daily and make this a priority.”
I have since greatly improved on precision and my utilization is way up. I screwed up with my time keeping, I admitted the mistake, I didn’t give an excuse, proposed a solution, and learned from the mistake. My manager has since positively commented on my progress.
What can you learn from my story? Mistakes are not the end. Your manager will appreciate and respect your candor. But most importantly, we must learn from our mistakes and correct them in order to improve.
What is a mistake you were called on? How did you deal with it?
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Tags: Career Development, Management, Young Professional
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January 29th, 2008 at 12:43 am
This is an awesome post. Very good points and excellent tips to follow. One item you overlooked and is often needed after making a mistake is a . Its not always needed, but if you hurt someone or someone and have regret for it. Apologize. It can go a long way.
January 30th, 2008 at 6:43 am
Mike - Great point. Apologizing can be very important. I’m a little careful throwing out to many apologies though. If you apologize to much you may turn into the fall guy! But if you really did do something that hurt or offended someone, an apology is appropriate.
January 31st, 2008 at 11:33 am
[...] Brandon Alsup: Mike - Great point…. [...]