5 Steps to Recovering from Mistakes

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One of the things life has taught me is that no matter how hard we try, we always make mistakes.

What makes you grow is what you learn from those mistakes and how you recover from them.

I personally always try to look at a difficult situation and ask "what can I learn from this?".

I think learning from mistakes and trying to do it better next time is what qualifies a person (or a business) as an "improver".

As mentioned above, it's not just about what you learn from your mistakes, but also how you recover from them. Do you take a long time to fix the problem? Do you spend time pointing fingers at people? Finding and punishing a scape goat? Or do you apologize, fix the problem and quickly move on?

I've seen a lot of pointy-haired managers who love to find a scape goat, punish him/her and then sit comfortably in their chairs thinking that they have solved the problem. They look good in the eyes of their superiors because they have "done something". But was it really the right thing to do? Will it really prevent the problem from happening again? In the cases I've seen, the answer is always "No".

However, I have also seen some really good managers who work quickly to find the root cause (instead of the guilty party) and spend most of the time motivating everyone to move on. They also spend time training the team to prevent the problem from happening again.

I have learned a great deal from both types of managers. And throughout my working life, I have developed a sequence of steps that help  me rapidly and successfully recover from mistakes. Here is what I do:

1. Quickly find the root cause. And if I can't find it fast enough, I just move on to the next step.
2. Apologize for the mistake. Even if it's not entirely my fault, I prefer to spend as little time as possible finding the guilty party. Playing the "blame game" destroys relationships instead of building them.
3. Ask "How can we fix this?". This is where I usually spend most of my time in a conversation. It shows to my clients that I am interested in fixing the problem - which is usually what they want.
4. Do a deeper root cause investigation. Usually during the fixing phase (above), I can already get some clues as to what went wrong. Depending on the severity of the problem, I can spend a lot or no time at all in this step. Sometimes I just move on to another task, and leave the problem in the back of my mind.
5. Take action to avoid it from happening again. For me, this is the most important step. It is where my "improver" personality shines. I feel proud when I create a solution to prevent the problem from happening again. It also shows my clients that I am pursuing excellence in what I do. It demonstrates that my attitudes have a positive impact on their business.

I have built that approach through experience and by putting in practice the lessons I've learned from training courses in communication, conflict resolution and other subjects.

What are your steps to recovering from mistakes? Where and how have you learned them?