I recently had one of the most stressful work weeks and all because I made a mistake. I stuffed up. And what’s worse, I stuffed up for one of my clients! Thankfully, it was all fixed an resolved, however the whole situation did remind me of a previous time where a mistake was made, where things were not resolved. Through these experiences, I’ve learned some important things to remember when stuff ups are made - and there will always be stuff ups as we are all only human after all!
I put this video together to share with you the 4 most important things to remember when you stuff up. These 4 things will help you to work through the problem and come out the other side stronger, ensuring a positive resolution and saving client relationships.
Watch this video to learn the four most important things to remember when you hit that hurdle, as we all do, and stuff up! OR if someone doing work for you stuffs it up!
For those who prefer to peruse, find below for your reading delight!
I stuffed up.
I recently had one of the MOST stressful work weeks I've had in a very long time.
The reason it was so stressful is because... I stuffed up! And, not only have I stuffed up, I stuffed something up for a CLIENT. And to me, there's nothing worse!
But, by the Friday, fortunately we got it all sorted! I’m back to sanity and calmness and the client is happy again too.
I want to share some valuable lessons that I’ve learnt throughout this tough week. Hopefully they can help you if you ever get into a similar situation. Or perhaps it can help you prevent getting into it in the first place!
The 4 Most Important Things to Remember When You Stuff Up:
Communicate more, assume less!
I learnt early on in my career that communication is one of the most important things to get right in business. When working with clients or team members, you've got to communicate boundaries and expectations. Speak up if something isn't working, or ask questions when you are not sure about something.
Often it could feel like a silly question, but it's still worth asking, rather than making the wrong assumptions.
When you work with someone else, it's also very easy to look at their work and when you find mistakes, you simply assume they were careless or they messed it up - which isn’t necessarily true. We, as humans, often assume the worst.
In this case, I was lucky enough to have a client who valued communication and picked up the phone to speak with me. He said, “this is what's happened, do you think that what you did might have caused this to happen?” He didn't jump to conclusions.
Own your mess without excuse
The second part that made everything work out well was that I realised that it was something that I'd done and owned up to it. There's no hiding, there's no trying to bluff through it and fix it up in the background, I just said, “oh my gosh, yes, I think what I did may have caused that. Let me try and fix it.”
Take responsibility for your own mess quickly, shows experience and honesty.
Allow person to rectify
That brings me to my third point: allow a person to rectify their own mistakes. In this case, the client allowed me to fix it myself. And to be honest, it would have been harder to get it fixed without me because I knew exactly what I'd done and how it had happened. So giving the person the chance to fix the mistake helps them learn so that it never happens again. It gives them a chance to rectify it so they don't feel like absolute rubbish (which I did!). I worked until midnight to get it sorted, thereby restoring his faith in my abilities.
Focus on the solution
My last point for today, is to focus on the solution. Thankfully this client didn't waste time blaming. He said, “Let's just focus on how to fix it, and what we're going to do to work through it.” We thereby limited the amount of time wasted on things we cant change (the past) and focused our attention on the way forward - on the solution to the problem.
These lessons stood out to me this time as being the key to a successful outcome, as I’ve had quite a different experience previously.
I made a mistake once before and a client simply responded with, “You messed this up! It’s taken me hours to fix it!” and ended our working relationship then and there. Instead of asking the question and giving me the opportunity to fix it, she's spent all this time fixing it herself. Whereas, I could have fixed it at no cost, and been very apologetic in the process, and it would have been fixed faster and without costing her own time.
I had to accept, in the end we are all human, we all make mistakes. This is probably not the first or the last mess up that I’ll make! But if we commit to communicate through the messes, a positive resolution is WAY more likely to happen.
HAVE YOU STUFFED UP?
Let me know in the comments if something like that has happened to you before? Or any other lessons you have learnt from making mistakes? Or, how have you handled other people making mistakes?
