How to Make Every Mistake Work for Your Career
Miscellaneous / / August 03, 2023
Correcting the consequences of not the best decisions, you will certainly gain serious experience. And become a valued professional.
Probably everyone would like to make as few mistakes as possible at work or get rid of them altogether. But experience suggests that this is hardly possible. So, you need to try to benefit from every oversight or wrong decision. And to make sure that mistakes help development, and do not interfere with a career. Let's figure out how to achieve this.
Analyze each error and look for the right solution
If a person in the workplace never makes mistakes, then he is faced only with standard tasks. Ways to solve them have long been worked out and are well known, so you just need to follow the established algorithm - and there will be no errors. But an employee who is able to cope only with routine matters can hardly count on career growth.
Scientists figured out: for learning, the optimal situation is when the student solves 85% of the tasks correctly and makes 15% of the errors. If there are fewer wrong decisions, then the tasks are too simple and are unlikely to teach something new.
In relation to work situations, the learning process looks like this. Sooner or later, an employee has a completely new problem, and it is not known in advance how to solve it. There is no textbook where at the end there is a list of answers to all problems. So, you need to try different options, and it’s not a fact that you will immediately find the best one.
Such situations are most often encountered by inexperienced employees. For a beginner, most work questions will be non-standard. And his main task is to make complex problems simple, and then routine. On this path, you will certainly have to make mistakes, and more than once.
For example, a novice sales manager is unlikely to make the perfect cold call right away. That is, he will successfully talk with a potential client whom he addresses on his own initiative. The manager may be worried, his voice will not always sound confident. And an unexpected question from a client can generally drive the seller into a stupor. So, after the end of the conversation, you need to think about how to get confidence and don't be afraid of tricky questions. It will be useful for one beginner to read the list of frequently asked questions and answers to them several times and only then call. Another is to make several calls in a row to hear as many objections as possible. This will help get rid of fear.
Analyze each wrong decision and try to understand what should have been done differently. At first, there may be more than 15% errors. This is normal - it means that you are actively learning and gaining new skills. If the mistakes are less than 15%, it may be time to move to a new level.
If you made a mistake - do not be silent
Any mistake is almost certainly not the end of the world. But the sooner you manage to fix it, the better it will be for both the company and the specific employee who failed to solve the work task. But not always the performer himself can correct the situation.
An inexperienced employee, if he does not know what to do, should immediately contact the direct leader. He definitely has more experience. Therefore, a critical situation from the point of view of a beginner may not be very difficult for his boss.
Many people have retained the habit from their school days: if you do something wrong, keep quiet. Otherwise, you will hear a lot of formidable and offensive words. If you don't say anything, no one will notice. Or things will get better on their own.
In work tasks, things are different. The sooner someone who is able to solve the problem learns about the problem, the better.
For example, the designer assumed that the materials for the future advertising campaign would be ready in two weeks. But it turned out that the task was more difficult than he imagined. As a result, he sees: in three days, you need to hand over the layouts, and the work for at least another week. In such a situation, it is better not to pull up to deadline. It is worth immediately, as soon as it became clear that it would not be possible to hand over the work on time, inform the authorities about it. The manager will be able to figure out how to get out of the situation, for example, to involve other specialists or slightly shift the campaign timeline. And the designer will analyze where he made a mistake, and next time he will more accurately name the dates. Or think about how you can do the same job faster.
If you want to gain experience in your business and climb the career ladder, you should report your mistakes in a timely manner. And analyze how the leader will solve the problem that has arisen. Perhaps someday you will have to do the same.
Suggest ways to improve the situation
Errors can be reported in different ways. It happens that inexperienced employees, having made a mistake, are lost. They talk about what happened, and then only passively observe the development of the situation.
From point of view career development this is not the best course of action. Perhaps you are not the most experienced specialist. But you are a professional who probably solves not the first work task in your life. Therefore, based on your experience, suggest how you can solve the problem. It will be great if you immediately find not one, but several options for further action.
For example, a sales manager sent a potential client who has not yet placed a single order with someone else's commercial offer. The one that was intended for a regular customer - lower prices apply to him. There are two possible solutions to the problem. The first is to write a follow-up letter with the correct prices, apologize and tell how many orders this price is valid after. The second is to also apologize and immediately offer some nice bonus. Perhaps you will find other options - non-standard and interesting.
Offering solutions, you will show yourself as an employee who, in critical situations, does not get lost and does not give in to panic. Also, he tries to think outside the box. People with such qualities have a chance to make a good career.
Act immediately without delay
The boss chose one of the options you suggested or offered his own. If you don’t understand something, clarify it and start implementing it right away. Do not waste time worrying about a mistake that has happened. And even more so - to the explanation that unsuccessful circumstances, a bad mood or the Moon in Capricorn are to blame for everything.
The time for long reflections, detailed analysis and conclusions will come later - after the end of the working day. Or when the problem is completely solved.
It is worth remembering: the more mistakes you can correct, the more valuable your experience. This means that there will be more opportunities for career growth.
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