“Experience is simply the name we give our mistakes.”
Oscar Wilde
All those who have made mistakes, stand up. Nobody should be sitting down.
This is a topic we should be able to address with ease because everyone has made mistakes! We are experts at it. The problem is, sometimes, we need to remember our employees are human.
Fact: mistakes should be expected and forgiven. We have all made mistakes and will continue to make them. Nobody wakes up in the morning and thinks, “Man, I sure do hope I make some great mistakes today!” No, when we make mistakes, we wish we could rewind the clock so we could go back and not make that mistake. Normal people feel bad when they make mistakes, but you would never know it by the way some bosses treat them.
Here are some things good leaders think about mistakes, and since you are now or will be in a supervisor role, you should think about them too.
Expect mistakes
Nobody is perfect, and people make mistakes in judgment (mentally) and physically (accidents).
We need to train our folks to help them with their mental mistakes. Solid checklists or processes help just about everyone. When people know and follow the process, it’s safer for everyone, and the company loses less. So understanding the process is key to helping people not make mistakes.
Physical accidents are unavoidable. Even in the best environments, people drop things, bump into things, lose control of machines because of inexperience, or misplace items. Some mistakes are more costly than others, but they still fall into the category of “Mistake,” That doesn’t mean the person maliciously set out to make a mistake. I have never met anyone who intends to make mistakes.
Maintain your composure
Expecting mistakes and reacting to mistakes are two entirely different things. When the errors are small and insignificant, they seem more like a nuisance, but when they are more extensive and costly, the supervisor’s blood pressure tends to escalate in a hurry. The supervisor knows this mistake will come back on them. There will be explanations required, reports to be filled out and filed, time away from important work, an embarrassment to the office, possible remedial training for the employee and loss of their work, replacing lost material, and possibly the supervisor’s job could be in jeopardy. So, this is way more than an inconvenience. Just the additional work caused due to the mistake of an employee is infuriating!
You don’t have time for this! How could this person do this?! What were they thinking?! How stupid could they be?!
These are all the thoughts — and sometimes loudly voiced words said in a fit of anger. And what part do these thoughts or words play in solving or repairing this mistake? Remember: “Truth knows nothing of emotion.” You can scream, yell, get upset, and slam your fist on the desk, but the truth is: the mistake has happened already, and there is nothing you can do to prevent it anymore. Your ONLY action is to move on and ensure it doesn’t happen again. Your energy will be much better spent on that course of action than any other.
You can certainly be upset, but punishing someone will not help in preventing the mistake from happening again. However, education or training CAN help. Trust me, the person who made the mistake will know you are unhappy, and they will be sorry they made a mistake, and they feel responsible for your anger. Breathing fire all over them will not enhance the situation.
Assess the damage
Let’s hope that when mistakes are made, the perpetrator comes to you as soon as possible. If you take care of your people, there is a good chance they will. As a supervisor, when you are apprised of the mistake, it will not take long to calculate its significance. Is anybody hurt? Does it need to be cleaned up? What was lost?
Is there any possible “fallout” or immediate repercussions? (Will this event cause a chain reaction?) Who else needs to know? The answers to these simple questions will guide you in handling immediate future events.
Clean up the mess
As soon as possible, clean up anything that needs to be cleaned up. If you can be part of this process, be there. Your assistance helps the person responsible understand that you are on their side. You WANT to help this person straighten things out. If you shake your head and tell the offender to “clean up your mess,” you are amplifying the fact that he made a mistake, and you are upset.
Isn’t that obvious? He feels bad enough already. Your helping starts the healing process of admission and working to ensure it doesn’t happen again. He thinks that he doesn’t want to do this again, and he doesn’t want you to be there doing this again, either.
Talk with your employee AFTER
When everything is cleaned up, and everyone is back to normal as expected, invite the unlucky person back to your office and ask them how this all happened. If you have treated your people right, they will answer truthfully. And isn’t that what we are after? With the truth in hand, we can do some productive coaching, talk about the lessons learned, and help this person understand how WE can work together to ensure it doesn’t happen again. If you know the truth, you can also defend your employee against ridicule from anyone, including upper-level management, if necessary.
Report as required
Depending on the severity of the mistake, let your boss know as soon as possible. It is terrible when your boss finds something out when you could have told them first. Try to have as many, if not all, of the facts in hand before you contact your boss, as well as what you are doing to remedy the situation. Regardless of the size of the mistake, don’t try to minimize the impact of what happened. Your boss needs to know the whole truth to make their next decision.
Working with wrong information isn’t helping them. Being upfront with your boss also demonstrates trust, integrity, honesty, and confidence on your part. Plus, if your employee is good, this is a time to comment on how much good work this employee has done and how much you appreciate them.
TRUST them to do better next time
This is one of the most important lessons for everyone. Note the sentence above says not only to trust your employee but also to trust them to do better next time. Which means, of course, there will be a next time. And therein lies the most important lesson…there will be a next time. We must show them this is not a “zero mistake environment.” Because they made a mistake, they will not be punished for the rest of their tenure in this position. Instead, they will be expected to learn and move on…just like we did. Hence, they will be given the same task or process they mishandled previously — to do again.
Think about this question: How did we become supervisors? We became supervisors because we screwed up, fixed it, learned the lesson, and moved on — that’s how we got experience. Then, after a while, we made enough mistakes to gather a whole bunch of experience. Isn’t that what the people working for us are doing right now? We need to support them just like someone supported us during our dark times.
This is not to say that you can’t learn from others who have made mistakes because you certainly can. For example, when you fly jets in the Air Force, they give you a manual for the aircraft you fly.
In that manual, in chapter III, you will find Emergency Procedures. This chapter is dedicated to how you will handle emergency procedures for various things that can go wrong with the aircraft.
That section is there because people have flown the jet, had emergencies, and through trial and error, they have come up with the best way to handle the presently known possible emergencies. We were required to memorize certain portions of this chapter because these were the best procedures to fix the problem. Period.
If and when these emergencies came up, you would do the checklist steps in order, which of course, were the steps you memorized. It’s a simple procedure and has saved countless lives and aircraft. So, yes, we can learn from others’ mistakes.
Most of the supervisors I have met don’t have checklist procedures to handle mistakes or accidents on the job, but most of them have seen (if not made) most of the common mistakes and had accidents, so they know what to look for and how to avoid them. The best we can do is educate our people on what to look for and support them when they misstep. Support, not punish.
When it happens again…
A question that always comes up is, “What do you do with someone who consistently makes mistakes?”
My question back to them is, “Is he/she making the same mistakes over and over?” Because if that is true, then we have either a capability issue or a poor training issue. If the person has been given training several times and still makes the same mistakes, there is likely a capability problem. You will need to have a “difficult conversation” with the individual and find out if something is going on in their background that is distracting them. If there is, you may be able to help them resolve the distraction, which should solve your problem.
If there is no compelling reason for them to lose focus, then we are back to being mentally incapable of performing the tasks at hand. If this is the case, you either find the person a suitable job elsewhere in the company or, and this is the last step, start working on termination procedures with HR’s help. Of course, nobody usually wants to terminate people, but there may be no other choice. If it gets to this state of affairs, it’s better for your employee, you, and the company to let this person find a more suitable position elsewhere.
If the person makes different mistakes frequently, there is something fundamentally wrong here.
It may be a mental incapacity to do the overall job, inability to manage several tasks at once, unable to focus on a project in the time required, some physical impairment, stress, or some emotional anchor weighing them down. Regardless, you will be required to find out what it is because this person belongs to you. They are on your team.
If you haven’t already, start keeping close track of the mistakes they make. Are the mistakes physical or cognitive? Do they make mistakes more in the morning or afternoon? Are they by themselves or in a group when these mistakes happen? Do these mistakes happen when one particular person is around? Is it during a standard process or when they attempt something new? Keep an open mind as you track them, and don’t judge them. Training, education, or counseling may take time to get an employee back to being productive. Again, check with the HR people in your company to help guide you in this area.
Final thoughts
Mistakes are just that — an unintended act, usually with some poor consequences. Nobody likes them, but they are a fact of life and another problem you, as a supervisor, must deal with. But then, as a supervisor, you get paid to solve problems.
Welcome to the world of “supervision.”