How to Handle Mistakes Productively

Everyone makes mistakes, but not all managers handle them effectively. Walking the tightrope between overcorrection and undercorrection can boost morale, prevent recurrences and increase development opportunities.

Managers often take a mechanical approach to handling employee mistakes. They have been taught how to give feedback, deal with conflict and apply an organization’s standard process via a stepped series of corrective actions such as verbal reprimands, written reprimands or termination. As a result, they either perceive handling employee mistakes as a confrontational situation, which often leads to employee resistance rather than learning and improvement, or ignore the situation and hope the problem will go away, which rarely happens. A more effective way to handle mistakes is to open a dialogue, build rapport, and restore the employee’s performance so he or she can be retained as a productive member of the organization.

Remember the R’s

When managers mishandle employee mistakes, it’s usually because they misjudge the magnitude of the error. On one hand, they may overreact to a slight deviation from an expected action. This might happen, for example, when a manager is too close to a situation. He or she may have held the employee’s position in the past and knows exactly how things should be done. As a result, the manager treats a minor error as a major one and uses excessive corrective action rather than subtle coaching.

On the other hand, managers who are pulled in many directions sometimes choose to overlook a significant deviation from acceptable conduct, take a wait-and-see attitude or use a coaching approach when swift and decisive corrective action is called for. As a result, the situation can snowball out of control and create additional problems. In other cases, managers prefer to overlook mistakes because they are afraid of damaging a close, positive relationship with an employee.

Regardless of the magnitude of the error, or the manager’s attitude toward the employee, the following best practices can help talent managers, or any leader, handle mistakes in a positive, productive manner.

Research the situation. Gather information in an open-minded way rather than building a case. Clarify the facts; even the best employees make mistakes. Perhaps they have not been properly trained for a particular task, or the fast pace of business may prompt them to make a decision quickly that turns out to be ill-advised. That’s why it’s important to determine the answers to the following questions: Under what circumstance did the mistake occur? Who was involved and when did it happen? What were the effects on the team, department or organization? What would have been the correct course of action? How often has the employee made this mistake? Is it a one-time oversight or a pattern of decreasing or lacking performance?

Create rapport. Rapport can be based on a reservoir of goodwill that already exists if the manager and employee have worked together closely for a while, or it may have to be created if they don’t know each other well. Building rapport does not mean taking the situation lightly, but rather setting a positive tone from the start. A manager who is angry about a mistake or under pressure from superiors or customers may come across as abrupt and put the employee on the defensive. It’s more productive to put the employee at ease and reduce anxiety so you can comfortably explore opportunities for improvement together. A good way to start the conversation is to express honest appreciation for the employee’s past contributions, positive behavior or years of experience with the company.

Reference the mistake. Employees are not always clear as to why something was a mistake, so it’s important to explain exactly what went wrong without criticizing. Focus on the problem and don’t get personal. Sometimes it’s helpful for the manager to admit that he or she made the same mistake in the past.

Next, get the employee’s perspective on the situation. Ask questions and listen rather than giving orders. The employee may have facts that did not emerge from previous research, so it’s important to keep the dialogue open. This is also a time to observe the employee’s attitude. Is he or she accepting ownership and open to correcting the problem, or being defensive and trying to avoid responsibility?

The reference step may result in one of two outcomes. If the employee relates to the situation, agrees that a mistake was made and is willing to improve, the next three steps are to:

• Restore performance. Let the employee save face by focusing the conversation on ways to restore accurate, high-level performance. Lay out how the employee should handle similar situations in the future. Make faults seem easy to correct, and create an environment where the employee will be happy about suggestions for improvement.

• Reassure the employee of his or her value to the team as well as the manager’s willingness to provide any support necessary. Reinforce that using the correct way to handle similar situations in the future will lead to certain benefits for the department and the organization and will ensure the employee’s longevity with the company. As a result, the employee is likely to leave the meeting with a positive mindset and a strengthened sense of accountability.

• Retain the employee. Offer coaching, development options and positive reinforcement to maintain performance. Use encouragement, and praise the slightest improvement.

In the reference step, the employee may resist. He or she may argue, refuse to take ownership of the mistake, blame others or try to minimize the error. In that case, the manager’s next step is to:

• Restate the situation. Acknowledge the employee’s frustration, and then clearly restate that the mistake is not acceptable in the organization. If the employee now relates to the situation, proceed to the reassurance and retention steps.

If the employee continues to resist, refuses to take ownership in the mistake and does not accept correction, the next step is to:

• Reprimand. Use the organization’s established series of corrective action steps such as a verbal reprimand followed by a written reprimand.

If reprimands do not lead to improvement, proceed to:

• Replace. Remove the employee from the team, the department or the organization.

As managers address mistakes following these guidelines, they can learn a great deal about their team members. They will learn who they can count on in the long term by distinguishing between employees who take responsibility for their actions and welcome suggestions to improve performance, and those employees who walk away from accountability.

Mistakes and Morale

Handling mistakes improperly has serious adverse effects on employees, managers and organizational morale. When mistakes are overlooked or purposely ignored, top performers begin to doubt the value of good work and lose enthusiasm. On the other hand, when managers overreact to minor mistakes, resistance builds up among employees. They may grow fearful of being the next one on the chopping block or hide mistakes for as long as possible, making correction more difficult. For fear of taking risks, they also may take a wait-and-see attitude, letting opportunities pass by rather than contributing to change initiatives. Even employees whose mistakes are overlooked feel shortchanged. They conclude that the manager doesn’t care what they do, and so they won’t try as hard to succeed.

Further, managers who don’t know how to handle mistakes eventually begin to feel helpless, which robs them of their confidence and energy. Mistakes that seem to occur more and more frequently distract them from leveraging all the good work other employees are doing. A manager’s failure to address an employee’s mistakes expediently also may affect the quality of the entire team’s work, and in turn the performance of other teams depending on that work. Further, the manager will gain a reputation for poor leadership, which negatively impacts his or her career opportunities in the organization.

Handling mistakes quickly, effectively and consistently, on the other hand, improves morale. Managers who address mistakes properly build rapport with employees and a reputation for fairness and good leadership. Their employees build confidence that when they make a mistake, the manager will be supportive and help them to improve. Additionally, team members will be confident they can bring mistakes, as well as solutions for correcting them, to the manager’s attention.

By addressing mistakes properly and restoring employees to high performance, managers can build credibility and gather experience in handling tightrope situations smoothly. Perhaps most importantly, managers can gain a reputation for developing employees — from a talent management standpoint, that’s something all organizations are looking for today.

Managers who handle mistakes with an improvement and development mindset can explore how the organization can train employees or develop better processes to prevent mistakes in the first place. For instance, omitting or shortcutting the new hire on-boarding process can lead to mistakes or worse. “Nearly 15 percent of employees consider quitting after the first day because of a poor initial experience,” according to a January 2011 article on Taleo Business Edition’s website. “After the time and investment you’ve spent to find and hire them, you want to ensure that those employees are engaged and feel valued as soon as they begin employment with the company. On-boarding is a set of standard, repeatable processes that reduce costs and deliver an improved new hire experience as well as immediate productivity.” Effectively building rapport and setting clear performance standards at the beginning of an individual’s employment will aid managers in handling mistakes if they arise later.

When the U.S. was building the Panama Canal, John Stevens, who was appointed as the replacement for the chief engineer, met with Frank Maltby and the other division heads. According to David McCullough’s book The Path Between the Seas: The Creation of the Panama Canal 1870–1914, Stevens told Maltby, “You won’t get fired if you do something, you will if you don’t do anything. Do something even if it is wrong, for you can correct that, but there is no way to correct nothing.”

Stevens understood that handling mistakes well is about correction. Overcorrect, and employees will be so afraid to make mistakes they will do nothing. Undercorrect, and mistakes will multiply and destroy morale. The middle road is a consistent and fair talent management approach that turns mistakes into learning experiences and restores performance.