5 Steps To Take After You Make A Mistake At Work

It is common in a workplace to be defined and looked at by the one mistake you make. Your reputation can be tarnished, everything you have done can be washed away and you can be looked at through the scrutiny lens for one mistake you made.

No matter how good you are at your job, you will make mistakes throughout your career. Mistakes are great learning opportunities and can work as tools for empowerment.

When you miss a deadline or a meeting your first reaction is panic.

Two things can happen here which need to be avoided:

1. You get emotional and over react.
2. You may be tempted to cover up

Even if you feel you can’t come back from a bad situation, the truth is, you can.

These are the few things to keep in mind that help you recover from the mistakes committed at work:

Immediate Reaction

When an error has been made, don’t freak out. Take a deep breath and tell yourself you are safe. Pause and gather yourself. You need to do quick, agile thinking and take definitive steps to attempt to undo what has happened.

This is the moment to come across as a leader if you handle the situation professionally.

Give it Time

This is one of the hardest and most obvious things to do, which is to give it a rest. No one seeks out to ruin their reputation on purpose. But it is not okay to think that you will be defined by this moment. It’s going to take time but you can continue to do a good job.

Let your work speak for yourself and help you redeem the mishaps.

You can still be looked at as a valuable member of the team and work towards a promotion.

Learning from Mistakes

If a mistake is pointed out, reflect and find out what the real intent behind the message is. You need to figure out if;

• You boss took the blame for you and wants you to be grateful
• It’s a warning to never do this again
• You need to make the necessary changes to course correct immediately

Once you have figured it out, make a mental note off the learning you can have from this experience:

You are now accustomed to what is important to your boss, and the senior management. You learn what really matters and see things from the business point of view. So the next time you can apply the same lens to problem solving and task performance.

Remedial Journey

There are basically two types of mistakes that you might make:

• Task Mistakes (In Processes, Projects and Assignments)
• Behavioural Mistakes (Related to People, stakeholders, clients, vendors)

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Task Mistakes

A mistake where you didn’t catch something in the first place. This is when you oversee a detail. This happens a lot when you are new at a job.

Own it and How

When you spot a mistake, or your boss comes to you that he/ she found a flaw; the first step is to own it. Don’t pass the blame to others or give excuses.

You can instead say- “You are right, I should have seen that” or “I am sorry”

In some situations, it’s worth it to explain yourself because of something you saw or read, some context would be necessary to explain why the mistake occurred.

Fix it and How

You can own up to the mistake you have made when you catch it and explain how you rectified it. You can also do things to avoid such mistakes in the future.

In such a situation you could say- “Hi, I saw this… this is how I rectified it. ““I have made a checklist for myself, so I don’t miss that step. “

It’s an obvious part of the process but it’s natural to forget things. It is thus important here to double check your work, especially when you are new.

Keep that checklist handy even if you are one or many years old as we have a tendency to get complacent with time and miss out on things.

Move Forward

Once you acknowledge and rectify your mistake, you need to move forward and not let it affect your performance.

The most common mistake in the workplace is to send a mail without the attachment or with the wrong one.

You can send the mail again with the right attachment. The trick is to not engage in negative self-talk but just get the thing right done and get on with it.

But the learning is to double check attachments before sending out e-mails.

Behavioural Mistakes

These are mistakes in which other people in the office are involved. Maybe somebody complained that you were rude or weren’t cooperating.

There are chances that you were just having a bad day or were completely misunderstood. Whatever the case might be, it’s hard to accept such situations and keep a neutral front.

Nobody is perfect at work or in their work; we all have things to work on.

You could be having a bad day that made you not act in your best professional way. Such unprofessionalism could undermine your accomplishments at work. But sometimes you and others could be having a rough day, and this could create clashes, tension and often conflict.

You should condone bad behaviour, set boundaries and do better for oneself and others by managing your emotions at work.

This is how you can recover from a bad review/ complaint:

Not on Defense

When asked for a meeting, or a chat with the upper management; don’t blame shift.

Explain the situation from your perspective. In a calm way share the whole story. if you feel there were parts that were left out, share your side of the story as well.

But if you know you had a bad day, admit that you were not your best self.

Apology Matters

Own your part in the situation and apologise. Also, ask if you can apologise to them in person, writing or on call. Try to find out ways where you can remedy the situation and do damage control.

Stress Manifests As Mistakes

Below are some tips to avoid mistakes in the future:

• If you are constantly making errors at work, you need to look at your priorities and manage work and time effectively.
• Even after being organised if you feel the work seems too much, have a talk with your manager about your workload.
• Take sufficient breaks so you don’t get overwhelmed by tasks.
• When you are a constant go-getter and say yes to all projects and requests that come your way, you are likely to get burnt out before you have the chance to excel.

To perform at your optimal level; setting boundaries, prioritising tasks, being organised, and having defined and clear expectations are the essentials to avoiding mistakes at work.

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We are humans. We misinterpret, misjudge, and misunderstand. You are not the only employee who has ever done wrong. There are others also like you who mess up. Nobody is perfect at work or in their work; we all have things to work on.