How to Handle Team Mistakes in a Way that Encourages Growth
Photo by Jeremy Bishop on Unsplash
It can be tricky for a leader to find a balance between reprimanding and understanding when your people make mistakes at work. Being too harsh can be extremely demotivating for an employee, whereas being too lenient may not communicate the importance of not repeating that mistake. If you’re struggling, here’s a 5 step method for navigating mistakes that were made whilst still focusing on forward momentum and growth.
5 Steps to Effectively Handle Team Mistakes
Consider the “Why”
When we see someone has made a mistake, it may be easy to make assumptions about why it was made. These assumptions can sound like:
“They were lazy.”
“They were careless.”
“They weren’t paying attention.”
This can create tension and frustration before you even start to address the mistake. Instead, I encourage you to be curious and use empathy - is there a reason why they made the mistake? Ask yourself:
“Why did they do it this way?”
“Are they okay?”
“What was going on for them?”
“What did they not understand about the task?”
This creates an open-mindedness that will be much more useful when addressing them.
Ask for their perspective - and listen
Before you address the mistake itself and how to move forward, you need to know that the person knows where they went wrong, what went wrong, and understand it from their perspective. Ask them to explain the situation to you from their perspective and listen. Do not interrupt - let them share and ask for clarification once they’re done. Also, consider asking the questions in Step 1 if they were not already answered.
The important part of this step is to understand and accept that this was their experience of the situation. It may be different from yours or it may be more emotional than factual and that’s okay. It’s just important to understand where they were coming from - there may have been factors you never considered that impacted them.
Share how their mistake impacted you
Now you can share your perspective. Here are some things you could consider addressing when sharing:
How did their mistake make you feel? For example: maybe it meant you couldn’t do your work and that made you feel frustrated. Perhaps your team missed a deadline because of it and that was very triggering for you because you are under a lot of pressure to deliver work.
How did it impact the workflow? If not shared while answering the first question.
How did their side of the story make you feel? For example: If they shared that they were really stressed out and anxious and that led to their mistake, perhaps hearing that made you feel guilty that you never picked up on it and offered them support.
You can keep discussing until you feel clear on the situation and how you both feel. Sometimes mistakes in the workplace create tension or negative feelings - the discussion aims to create understanding and clear any of those negative feelings so they don’t impact your relationship.
Discuss lessons learned
Once the situation is clear, it’s time to look forward. How do we learn from this? Here are a few things to discuss depending on the nature of the mistake:
Do we need to change/implement a new process to prevent this in the future?
Does the person need support in the form of training or mentorship?
What skills could be worked on to prevent this in the future?
How can we communicate better to prevent future misunderstandings?
If the person is struggling with their work due to personal reasons, what support can you offer them? How can they ask for help?
Offer support if necessary
If you determined that support was needed, now would be the time to discuss what they need. It may be too late to prevent the mistake that has already occurred, but it can be useful in preventing one in the future. Support can look like training, a bit of extra time at lunch, time off, reassessing their workload, and more.
Conclusion: Growth from Understanding
Communication and understanding are the keys to encouraging growth in these situations. I’ve seen work relationships strained over the simplest of mistakes. By taking this approach, you may actually find that you grow closer to that person. This means you’ve not only achieved professional growth, but interpersonal growth too! Forming that connection with your people is essential to a happy and productive workforce - and happy workers are less likely to make mistakes in the first place.
