St.Louis Business Journal
OWNING MISTAKES AND WEAKNESSES CAN SOMETIMES HELP YOUR CAREER

By Anna Navarro November 2010  

Examples in this column are fictionalized to protect privacy.



Owning your mistakes and weaknesses can sometimes actually benefit your career, given the right circumstances. If that seems hard to believe, read on.

Edna was a recycling expert who had recently been hired away from a municipality in another state.

Shortly after she arrived, the City Manager told her he was appointing her to head a task force to introduce the recycling program to the community. She’d never lead a task force before. She worried she couldn’t pull it off, and considered telling the City Manager she wasn’t sure she could do it. Instead she decided to take it on, but to tell members of the task force she’d never lead a taskforce before, and ask for their help.

At her first meeting, she told them she had a lot of experience running a recycling program, but it was her first time heading a task force. She asked for their patience, support and feedback.

After the meeting, one of the members of the group who’d led many team efforts offered to coach her. She gratefully accepted his offer and took full advantage of it.

The rest of the team was cooperative during the meetings and followed through on their individual assignments. They did a great job of introducing the recycling program to the community.

Edna not only led a high performing task force. She also learned the art of facilitating meetings and keeping everyone on the same page. By being willing to own her weakness at the outset, she’d turned her weakness into a strength.

Adam was a business analyst who was tasked with figuring out which of several vendors for a key service the company should select.

He gathered information from vendors and talked to employees who used the service. Then he crunched the numbers and made a recommendation. Management followed his advice. The company proceeded with plans to make the switch.

Two weeks later, while working on a related project, Adam realized he’d made an erroneous assumption when he ran the numbers. He quickly re-ran the calculations, and determined it would cost the company significantly more in the long run if they continued with the new vendor. But the chances were high no one would notice because the negative impact would be far down the road. He wrestled with what he should do.

He opted to tell management about his error, even though it was extremely embarrassing. After his owning up to his mistake, management asked another business analyst to review his work, and then called off the switch in vendors.

After that, Adam put his nose to the grindstone and tried to bury himself in his work, hoping just to disappear.

A few months later he was given another major business decision to analyze. Unknown to him, a senior business analyst was asked to review his work. This time he got it right the first time.

A year later he was amazed when he got a promotion. His boss told him he was getting promoted because management had been impressed he had owned up to his mistake and been willing to risk his reputation rather than have the company select the wrong vendor. He also told Adam that they had been double checking his work since then to see if he consistently made errors, and that once they determined he didn’t, they decided to reward him for putting the company’s interests ahead of his own.

In both Edna’s and Adam’s instances, owning up to their vulnerabilities led to career growth. Others trusted them more because of their candor and willingness to admit their shortcomings. After all, isn’t that what we all would like from the people we work with?

Beware, however, of a couple of caveats.

The first is not to get stuck in helpless mode. Edna and Adam were both very competent. If mistakes and shortcomings had been their standard way of operating, they likely would have been let go eventually, regardless of how openly they admitted them.

The second caveat is that, sadly, some organizations (or departments) have created such dog-eat-dog environments that it’s never safe to own up to a vulnerability of any kind. If that’s your situation, I suggest that while you are there, you take on the same self-protective attitude that everyone there is forced to assume. But that you move quietly to the exit door as soon as it’s practical, because those kinds of places breed stress, kill camaraderie and are generally unhealthy to inhabit in the long run.

Anna Navarro is the founder of Work Transitions, a nationwide career consulting firm that works with clients on an individual basis to help them find more satisfaction and fulfillment in their work-lives. She can be reached by phone at (314) 367-0008 and her e-mail address is email@worktransitions.com. For more information visit the worktransitions.com website.

This column was originally published by the St. Louis Business Journal. The actual title of the column and date in which it appeared in the Business Journal may be slightly different from what appears on WorkTransitions.com.