Learning from mistakes

Manjur Ahmed :
In job, somebody sometimes may not keep patience and make mistakes. One of my senior colleagues says, the person who works more, commits more mistakes than others. Sometimes it is very difficult to differentiate between problems and mistakes. Problems are errors that happen over and again on the other hand mistakes are errors, which happen once in a while. Those who work with commitment they will make mistakes but it shouldn’t happen once and once again. There are some common mistakes; others are intentional and unintentional mistakes. Unintentional mistakes can be accepted but what about intentional mistakes? Truth is, intentional mistakes are very difficult to compensate.
Recent day’s employee’s official activities are in under through surveillance. Employees may not know what devices organization is using to monitor his activities. Organization wants to keep its confidentiality at any cost, and it is very logical. Pattern of mistakes by newly joined and matured employees are different. Everyone makes mistakes. Usually one can correct his error or just forget about it and move on in personal life. Making a mistake at work however can be more serious. It may cause problems for our employer and even affect the company’s bottom line. Impact will ultimately drip down; simply correcting mistake and moving on may not be an option. There are some issues one may follow after making mistakes on the job.
Little thoughts: Worst thing is to avoid admitting mistakes or to act as if it is not my fault. Consider this incident a learning experience. If you don’t know what you did wrong, take time to investigate. It can be a good opportunity to shine; the way you handle your mistake could impress our supervisor and may set a good example for others.
Need to admit: Employees make mistakes but sometimes don’t have enough courage to admit. Because employees always afraid that and think this may put them down. But one always forget, not accepting is much more disastrous. If it detected by somebody else what may happen? Definitely it will be much more embarrassing. There’s no point trying to hide or cover up a mistake, the truth will always come out at the end. And of course certainly one shouldn’t try and shift the blame on to others. The best strategy is to admit, you’ve messed up, say you’re sorry and let people know you’re taking the situation seriously.
Say sorry first and apologize: Sorry means feel the pulse of other people’s pain as well as own, and saying it means take a share of it. Sorry is the wake of misdeed. It’s the crippling wave of consequence. Sorry doesn’t take things back, but it pushes things forward. It bridges the gap. Showing ego may not be good example for others especially in the working places. It is wise to apologize for mistakes. For someone it may be embarrassment but easy way out is to accept and apologize. It can be done personally. Public confessions should always be avoided.
Does it require blaming others? In general one make mistakes and blame others, it is certainly not wise but find it difficult to get out of it. If you discover someone else’s mistakes, is it wise to report to the authority immediately after knowing about it? Certainly not. Should you ignore it, or confront the person. Once you decide to report it you will become the bearer of bad news, which is not a favorable role. So you need to point out the mistake as discreetly and as diplomatically as possible keeping in mind it may come back to haunt you.
How can we compensate? Once a mistakes is already done & it creates a great impact on organizational reputation, then how can one compensate .You may propose your own plan with different options to superiors. Certainly superior will be upset for the mistakes but for organizational concern may accept one of your proposal. Mistakes done by individual, so you shouldn’t put others into trouble .To rectify, one should spend extra time. May be you can use your holidays or weekends; simply you need to take extra pressure to get out of odds.
Mistakes happen. We need to just learn from them, and try to avoid the same again your career and job.

(The writer is the Head of Human Resource & Administration at Grameen Telecom Trust.)