When crisis hits: dealing with mistakes

I REMEMBER my first mistake at work. I was on ushering duty at a leadership event, looking anxiously between a print-out in my hands - with names, designations and pictures - and the faces of unfamiliar guests streaming in.

At the last minute, a sheepish-looking man sidled in. His friends at a nearby table greeted him boisterously: "Latecomers sit at the front!"

I was about to make that forfeit a reality. Squinting at the tiny picture on my print-out, I felt sure he was a high-ranking official who should be seated front and centre with the top guns.

Despite his feeble protestations, I marched him to the VIP table, where awkwardness ensued. The other guests murmured greetings, but clearly had no idea who he was. He ducked his head in embarrassment. I realised I had the wrong guy.

My boss noticed my distress, and I told him my mistake. Without missing a beat, he apologised to the man. He explained that we had made an error and requested permission to re-seat him. My "victim" was relieved.

Low, high and slow-burning stakes

Misidentifying a guest, as I did, is low stakes. Much more serious mistakes are made at work every day.

In environments like construction sites, they can result in co-workers' injuries and deaths. In frontline work like healthcare and food services, they can endanger public safety. In all cases, they can jeopardise your team and organisation's credibility.

Lapses that trigger an immediate crisis have high impact, and instant visibility. Last month, DBS suffered outages that left many customers unable to access their digital banking services - an incident for which its chief executive Piyush Gupta has apologised, and promised a full review.

There are other lapses which are no less serious, but burn more slowly. They take longer to come to light, as they may involve small mistakes that snowball into larger problems, or initially covert violations of integrity.

The unfolding tale of former Workers' Party (WP) Member of Parliament Raeesah Khan's untruths in Parliament is a case in point. WP leaders Pritam Singh, Sylvia Lim and Faisal Manap learned of her mistake within a week after it was first committed on Aug 3, but did not move immediately to set the record straight.

When you first learn of such an incident, you might have the option of delaying a decision. You could even decide to simply let it go. But you should think again.

Allowed to fester, these mistakes will undermine the foundations of your organisation, and its store of hard-won trust. They will set a precedent. They form a ticking time bomb. They will not allow you to sleep easily at night. They will lead to more mistakes.

First, make things right

When caught off-guard by a mistake, the most important thing for a leader to do is to make it their personal responsibility to fix it.

Curb your defensive impulses. The error might have happened through no fault of yours, but it happened on your watch. "I entrusted this to them", "I left processes and guidance in place, which were not followed", and "I told them to be careful, but they didn't listen" are some responses that might bubble to your lips. Swallow them.

Instead apologise, and make prompt amends. Once the immediate situation is rectified, diagnose what went wrong, and take steps to prevent recurrences. Be transparent in your findings and corrective actions, especially if the mistake had public-facing consequences.

Be fair in your dealings with the persons involved. Establish why things went wrong. Was it due to carelessness, fatigue, or lax policies and supervision? Was there willful negligence or worse, malicious intent? Listen to all parties to get a fuller picture. If you had any part to play, be honest enough to admit it.

Take disciplinary action if warranted, but make sure any measures are proportionate and justified. The other members of your team will be watching closely: if you are perceived to be throwing anyone under the bus, they will hesitate to own up the next time they make mistakes.

As far as the circumstances allow it, exercise compassion. Remember that if the team member who made the mistake is committed and responsible, they will often be hardest on themselves.

If you have risen high enough, and the mistake is severe and unforgivable enough in the eyes of the public - then in the worst scenario, be prepared to take the fall.

Tougher than it sounds

It's easy to dispense a playbook of best practices on dealing with mistakes. It's harder to know if one will rise to the occasion when one's feet are over the fire.

When the biggest mistakes happen, the window of opportunity to do the right thing tends to be narrow. It is in these fractional moments that we learn the most important, and the most difficult lessons about our mettle.

We should not kid ourselves that anyone can do this. It takes quick thinking, acumen, and unwavering integrity. It also takes wisdom, our measure of which can depend on time and experience - and making enough mistakes of our own.

Therefore, continue to demand the highest standards of our leaders, and hold them accountable when they fall short. This is fair and necessary, for we depend on them to do important jobs.

But be compassionate, also: separate their professional actions from their personal worth, and understand that their responsibilities are not easy. If we were in their shoes, we might not have done any better.

Dealing with our own mistakes is difficult enough. Dealing with the mistakes of others is a different ballgame, and can push us to our limits. We can only do what we think is right, with grace and forbearance, and to the best of our ability.

We are only human, and made up of mistakes.

Have you seen mistakes at work handled poorly or well? Share your experiences with me at gaylegoh@sph.com.sg.

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