What to do if you make a mistake at work

Mistakes are made by individuals but lack of processes is often to blame.  This post looks at making mistakes work, why we make them, how to avoid them and what to do if you make a mistake.

Human instinct is driven by fear

• we fear being attacked
• we fear starving
• we fear losing our job
• we fear death.

The reason fear is so successful is because it lead our ancestors to survive because a false alarm won't kill you but a hungry a lion would (might).  If you are constantly fearful of something you will pro-actively try to avoid it.  This behaviour in the long should mean you come face to face with a lion.

At work most of us don't have to worry about hungry lions (unless you are a lion tamer) but we can make mistakes and sometimes we can make great big huge mistakes.

Making mistakes

As a CRM developer I have noticed one of the traits of senior developers is they make fewer mistakes, often acting as calm captain navigating a ship through stormy waters.  Senior developers are good at anticipating problems looming on the horizon and safely side stepping them before they become problems.

Senior developers have learnt (often the hard way) when doing releases to a customer live system to have check-lists, go one step at a time and back everything up.

We can fear mistakes, take precautions which can reduce the probability of making mistakes.

How to avoid making mistake

Mistakes aren't inevitable but it's likely you will make a mistake at some point in your career

One of the cause of mistakes is familiarity which is the genesis for this popular quotation

Familiarity breeds contempt

CRM developers have to deploy customizations to the a customers live environment, over time you will do a lot of deployments.   The more deployments a developer does the more it becomes familiar and boring.  

The familiarity of deploying to the live environment has the danger of making the developer take their eyes of the ball and increase chance of making a mistake.

 

Take things slowly, rushing leads to mistakes

A common cause of problems is rushing and missing steps.  Give yourself time when doing potentially risky tasks

Prepare well

Preparation helps you think and prepare for the task ahead.  Getting things ready ahead of time will give you more time when the pressure is on.

use check-lists

Check lists are a great tool to help avoid missing out important steps when you are doing tasks.

Do a pre mortem

A pre mortem is like a post mortem except you do it before the event and target areas of potential problem

avoid personal/people issue

Most tasks involve dealing with people, try to ensure there are no personal issues which take the focus away from the task and towards people.

What do to if you make a mistake

Admit it quickly

The quicker you admit a mistake the more time there is to rectify the mistake.  Admitting a mistake is painful but your colleagues will respect you more if you own up and help clean up rather than waiting and trying to hide the evidence.

Not admitting a mistake is a bigger mistake.

Robert Half

Owning up

If there is a chance the customer or someone can find the mistake it's better to tell them than letting them find it.

If you are proactive you have a chance to own up to the mistake and propose a solution.  Having a ready made solution makes the problem seem a lot smaller.

If a mistake is found the person who found the mistake can panic and starting thinking of worse case scenarios.  Customers finding problems can lead to full blown red alert escalations of small manageable problems.

Create Processes

Mistakes are caused by individuals but it’s often the lack of processes where the blame really lies.

Quickly move pass blaming individuals and work out how to resolve the issue and keep the customer happy.

When the dust has settled you can analyse why the mistake was allowed to happen and put in processes, check lists and double checking.  

Summary

 If you make a mistake own up quickly but with key information

• Why the mistake happen
• The scope of the mistake
• A list of possible solutions to present to the customer
• Does the customer know/will they find out

The quicker you own up the more time you have to resolve the mistake.

If someone else makes a mistake your initial response should be to quickly work on a resolution to the mistake, analyse the cause and probability the mistake could happen again as secondary concern.  

Coach Carter's Rules

Coach Carter (2005) Timo Cruz: Our deepest fear is not that we are inadequate. Our deepest fear is that we are powerful beyond measure. It is our light, not our darkness, that most frightens us.

The drive to get and try again after failing comes from your will to succeed #HoskWisdom

I was reading Insights Into Liberating Leadership: How to become a great leader and create a lasting legacy and the book suggested to watch the film Coach Carter to see a good example of a great leader in action.

I watched the film which was very entertaining 

Coach Carter took a team who won 4 games in a season into a team who where undefeated in their first 13 games. He gives his team a contract to sign which insists they get a 2.3 and then when some of the team fail to get the right grades he shut the gym and canceled basketball matches. These events caused outrage in town and lead to national press covering the situation.

Coach Carter kept true to his believes, creating a winning basketball team and improved the grades of the basketball team. He personally went on to be a motivational speaker and got a film made of the events where he was played by Samuel L Jackson. You have to admit that is pretty good going

I was motivated to start reading Ken Carter's book Yes Ma'am, No Sir: The 12 Essential Steps for Success in Life, where Coach Carter lists Carters rules

My favourite quote is "We must use our experiences to build knowledge", we must learn from our failures and successes.

Coach Ken Carter: Motivational speaker

The quote from this article made me laugh.

http://www.esquire.com/sports/interviews/a39829/what-its-like-your-life-made-into-movie-coach-carter/

When they missed their shots in practice, I made the actors do 100 push-ups. After the first three days or so, they started putting in the extra time so they wouldn't miss their shots.

11 Strategic quotes to help shape your future

Strategy is creating the future you want using the resources you have available.  Great leaders create strategies which with hindsight are obvious but when they created the strategy they created a vision,  created goals to convert their vision to reality.

Without strategy you are putting energy and effort into actions which could be taking you in the wrong directio

Think - Plan - Strategy - Action - Measure - Adjust

Quotes on strategy

“Strategy is about shaping the future.” 
― Max McKeown, The Strategy Book

Men make history and not the other way around. In periods where there is no leadership, society stands still. Progress occurs when courageous, skillful leaders seize the opportunity to change things for the better. —Harry S. Truman

“All failure is failure to adapt, all success is successful adaptation.” 
― Max McKeown, Adaptability: The Art of Winning in an Age of Uncertainty

The very essence of leadership is that you have to have a vision. It’s got to be a vision you articulate clearly and forcefully on every occasion. You can’t blow an uncertain trumpet. —Reverend Theodore Hesburgh

“A leader has the vision and conviction that a dream can be achieved. He inspires the power and energy to get it done.”
— Ralph Lauren

“Change is inevitable, progress is not.” 
― Max McKeown, The Truth About Innovation

“A leader's role is to raise people's aspirations for what they can become and to release their energies so they will try to get there.”
— David Gergen

“Nothing stops an organization faster than people who believe that the way you worked yesterday is the best way to work tomorrow.”
— Jon Madonna

“Give serious thought to why your company should care about your strategy. Specifically, find problems that the board wants to be solved. What are senior managers scared of? Part of becoming a credible strategic thinker is learning effective approaches to selling ideas for your situation. You’ll know that you’re getting better at selling (or pitching) strategy when managers start coming to you when there is strategic thinking to be done.” 
― Max McKeown, The Strategy Book

"Sound strategy starts with having the right goal."
― Michael Porter

"In real life, strategy is actually very straightforward. You pick a general direction and implement like hell."
― Jack Welch

Are you a premium candidate for promotion

Recently I have been trying to buy a house, house buying seems a lot different from the last time I brought a house, one of the reasons for this is there is a new concept I had to learn

Premium buyer

The area I am house hunting is a popular area, the majority of properties are sold before they are marketed and put onto Rightmove/Zoopla/other websites

Premium buyers at an estate agent get alerted when a new suitable property is added, enabling them to look round the property before the other buyers on the estate agents list even know about it.

The house viewing order is

1. Premium buyers on estate agents list

2. Normal Buyers on estate agents list

3. Everyone else who see's it on Rightmove/Zoopla

What is a premium buyer

A premium buyer is someone who have their mortgage agreed and in place, credit checks done, offer accepted on their house. Everything is done and they are ready to buy.

The premium buy is a no chain buyer who can put an offer in straight away, obviously very desirable for someone selling their house

If you want to buy a house in this competitive environment you need to be a premium buyer.

If you want to get a new job or a promotion, you need to be a premium candidate.

When I started my career I worked on a helpdesk, the next step in my career I wanted to make was to move to the development team in the same company. I had gone for one internal job there once and didn't get it. I asked for some feedback and the conversation went as follow

Hosk - Why didn't I get the job

Manager - You weren't the best candidate

Hosk - Why was the other person better suited for the role

Manager - The person had some coding experience

Hosk - How can I get coding experience when I work on the helpdesk

Manager - Learn it outside of work

My initial thought it was unfair the person expected me to get the knowledge/technical skills/experience for the job before I had the job and in my own time.

Ruminating on this idea more over the days, realizing it was very good advice. If you want to be the best candidate for a position, learning the skills used in the new job is a great idea. Below are the reasons why

Initiative

It shows initiative, it shows you are proactive because you making a more compelling reason for you to be

Desire

You have put in extra work to try and get the role and prepare yourself for the role when you get it. The extra work shows you want this job/promotion and this extra work can put you ahead of your competitors.

Intelligence

Learning the skills for a new role shows the employer/manager you have an understanding of the new role and the skills needed.

The Best Candidate

If you have the technical skills\experience\knowledge needed for your next role it could make you the best qualified candidate for the job, particularly if it's an internal promotion

If you want to move your career forward then you need to be proactive and make things happen. Why wait until you move into a position to start obtaining the skills needed to do it.

So make sure you are the premium candidate for your next position, start preparing for it now

image by Pascal