How Making Mistakes Helps Your Career

21 March 2017

Urban Myth:

A young account executive had made a colossal error costing the organisation millions of dollars.

The CEO summons the account executive to her penthouse office.

In the elevator ride the account executive rehearses her apology and resignation speech. 

In front of the CEO she stumbles through her speech hoping she will at least be able to have 2 weeks notice.

She is met with silence before a small smile spreads across the face of the CEO: “My dear, why on earth would I want you to leave?  I have just invested millions in your education.”

It would be a very rare, probably very disgruntled individual who wakes up in the morning eager to get to work to make mistakes, get things wrong, or admit to flaws in thinking.  Most of us strive to give the best of ourselves.  We avoid failing and mistake making as it makes us feel vulnerable.  Like the account executive in the urban myth above, we believe the consequences of our failure will at best have others frown upon us or at worst we will lose the respect of others, possibly even our jobs.

Yet mistake making and getting things wrong is inevitable and should be valued.  It is the attitude we adopt when we do stuff up that determines how valuable, or not, our mistakes are for our career.  While I don’t advocate that you go out to deliberately blunder, the approach you adopt in the face of uncertainty and slip-ups can positively impact your career by making you more resilient, better liked, more trusted, and seen as more courageous.  And, of course, as I outline in a previous article, mistakes are one of the best ways to learn.

Here are some of the ways mistakes, along with allowing yourself to be vulnerable, can positively impact your career:

• People view it as synonymous to giving them a compliment when you ask for their help or advice on difficult things and they feel good about themselves. 
• The levels of admiration people have for you rise when you reveal your vulnerability and seek help on complex things.  You are seen as having higher status and being more competent.
• When you reveal you have made an error others will feel they can reveal their own areas of growth allowing for opportunities to collaborate and bring together complimentary skills.  The best teams emerge through this process.
• When you respond well to mistakes people assign to you higher levels of courage and will turn to you for advice when they need to be more courageous.
• You own internal courage quotient increases as you respond positively to your own mistakes making it easier for you to do the small courageous things that advance your career.
• People admire others who are able to tell good stories and our stories of learning from mistakes are extra potent.  Make sure you are collecting these.
• Counter intuitively, as Adam Grant reports in his book Originals, pointing out the limitations of your ideas helps others adopt them.  When you highlight the flaws of the idea people don’t have to work hard to debunk your idea so they find it easier to accept and listen to the possibilities.  It increases the trust they have in you and your ideas.

What to do in the face of a mistake:

Learn from them - old advice I know, but somehow as humans we need constant reminders of this.  Adopt an intentionally growth mindset and ask yourself questions such as:

• There is always learning to take from a mistake, so what can I learn from this one?
• If someone I admire made this mistake how would they react?
• In three months time how do I want to reflect on my behaviour in the face of this mistake?
• How will my values guide me through this mistake?
• Ask for help.  Allow people you know have your best interests at heart to support you.

Genuinely thank people when they help you.  Besides being good manners, this is seen as a tiny act of vulnerability, engendering trust.

Don’t defend or justify your mistake.  This undermines the degree to which people feel they can rely on you in the future – and in the future there are sure to be more mistakes.
If you are not making mistakes, chances are you are not pushing your boundaries.  Embrace your vulnerability so you know you will be OK in uncertain times.  Allow your vulnerability to engender the admiration of others.  Brené Brown, author of Daring Greatly, points out there is a mismatch between how we see ourselves when we admit we are imperfect and show we are vulnerable, and how the world views us.  Often inside ourselves we feel it intensely as a weakness.  At the same time others see us as daring and courageous and authentic and admire us more.

So when have you stuffed up recently?  When has an idea you’ve had been less than perfect?  Go celebrate it!

As always, wishing you a Flourishing Career.

Katherine