Five Things to NOT Do When You Make a Mistake

Yikes, a mistake! While typically unfortunate, they are bound to happen at some point or another. While making efforts to avoid mistakes are important, almost equally important is how you react after committing the error. If you manage the mistake well, it could potentially be perceived as merely a small setback. However, if you manage the mistake poorly, it may reduce your level of trustworthiness and damage your reputation.

Below we highlight 5 tips that will help you maintain trust, minimize damage, and mend any situation.

Don’t lose perspective

First, don’t lose perspective. While mistakes may sometimes feel like the end of the world, they very rarely are astronomical in nature. So, before doing anything, take a few deep breaths and look at the situation rationally by asking yourself a few questions such as: How easily can this be fixed? What’s the immediate impact? Have others made a similar mistake (and how did they handle it)? These questions can help to ground you and maintain your sense of composure.

Don’t try to hide the mistake

If you try to hide a mistake and it is later uncovered, not only could this cause further impact to the situation, but it could also result in reputational impacts that would be substantially more difficult to resolve. Owning up to the mistake is crucial in order to maintain credibility and trust. Remember: transparency is key.

Don’t over-apologize

As an extension of the above, owning up is indeed crucial for maintaining credibility and trust. So, you should absolutely apologize. However, be careful not to over-apologize as doing so may do more harm than good. Rather, offer a sincere apology and quickly turn your focus to resolution mode.

Don’t lose sight of the lessons learned

While we tend to try to avoid mistakes, there can be some powerful lessons learned from them (see Edmondson, 2011). For example, perhaps the best way of dealing with a mistake is to prevent the same one from occurring again. Even better than this is to also share the knowledge so that others do not fall into the same trap. Remember, transparency is key.

Don’t be too hard on yourself

Even though this is easier said than done, you should be careful not to be too hard on yourself. A little self-compassion can go a long way in keeping your confidence high and ensuring that you are able to pick yourself up and keep marching forward. If you find that this is difficult, consider asking yourself, “If a coworker had made this same mistake, how would I feel?” This can help you from falling into a downward spiral such that you can resolve the issue, learn from it, and move on.

Reference

Edmondson, A.C. (2011). Harvard Business Review. Retrieved from https://hbr.org/2011/04/strategies-for-learning-from-failure.