How to rise above a big mistake

BY SARAH EYKYN

Virgin founder Richard Branson once said, “One thing is certain in business. You and everyone around you will make mistakes.”

While most of us strive hard to be very good at what we do – if not perfect – making mistakes is actually a better measure of how much we are growing, than how badly we are failing.

Johnny Cash also made a great point when he said: “You build on failure. You use it as a stepping stone. Close the door on the past. You don’t try to forget the mistakes, but you don’t dwell on it. You don’t let it have any of your energy, or any of your time, or any of your space.”

That said, making a really bad mistake at work, either with your own company, for a client, or for an employer, is HARD. It’s stressful, it’s embarrassing and it can cost you and others dearly. So, what should you do?

When I made my biggest mistake at work I was 27. It was 1993 and I was managing communications in London for a travel company.  I was working on the creation of six brochures with a design firm in Glasgow, and in those pre-digital years, I was tasked with flying up there to check the first run of chromalins off the press.

We spread out the massive sheets on the floor and literally went over them with a magnifying glass to detect any blips, blots or otherwise concerning issues with the print quality. Having already completed about five rounds of proofing on the actual text, we did not spend much time checking the words.

Oh what a mistake that was!

A few weeks later, the much anticipated brochures were delivered to our offices from Scotland.  This was an exciting event for our team as our business relied on getting thousands of brochures into the hands of students who wanted to work abroad. All the staff emerged to help move box after box up to the storage room on the 4^th floor.

Suddenly I heard a swell of noise from the stairs. “Oh my God, the summer camp brochure is wrong!”

My heart leapt into my mouth and I broke out in a cold sweat. I sliced open a new box to grab a copy.

It looked perfect. I turned the pages, all 12 of them, and could not for the life of me see anything that was wrong.

One of my colleagues ran into promotions department on the 4^th floor and almost thrust the brochure under my nose, pointing at a page. “Sarah! Look here! This text is repeated and all the instructions for the form on the back are missing!” she shrieked.

And there it was. Or rather, wasn’t.

A moment of blind panic ensued. I felt the color drain from my face. I really did want the floor to swallow me up.

The brochure was a total catastrophe and it was my fault. Somehow, when loaded to print, the critical text had slipped pages. 50,000 brochures would have to be destroyed, and new ones printed. I couldn’t even begin to calculate how much that was going to cost – thousands of pounds.

Own up

It was at that point that I learned my first lesson about making a bad mistake. No matter how much you want to hide, you’ve got to own up.

And so, I picked up the phone to call our company director in New York. She had checked the final proofs that were sent by courier to the US the day before printing, but she had not seen the actual chromalins and I needed to own the mistake. The time difference made that impossible, however – she had already left for the day. So, I did what I could: I sat at the telex machine to relay the news on the overnight report. (Crazy that 20 years later, all it would take is a text….)

With nothing more to be done, I went home to the apartment I shared with two other girls and re-lived the horrors of the day over a LOT of wine.

Step up

What I could not have known as I slept that night was that a real disaster was unfolding in Mobile, Alabama, which would put the brochure situation sharply into perspective.

At 2.53am CST on September 22, 1993, an Amtrak train derailed on the Big Bayou Canot Bridge that had just been hit by a big river barge. 47 people were killed in the wreck, and 103 others were injured. Two of the victims were British students who were working abroad through our travel program.

Unaware of the news, I went into the office the next morning ready to face the music over the brochures. Unusually, the UK directors were already behind closed doors, and the atmosphere was heavy and somber. We learned that not only had the Amtrak crash taken the lives of two of our participants, many others had been on board the train when it plunged into the bayou.

It was the deadliest train wreck in Amtrak’s history.

Our team went into full crisis management mode, drafting press releases, fielding calls from the unbelievably persistent and unscrupulous press, and handling incoming calls from frantic parents.

It was an awful, awful day.

When I finally connected with the director in our New York office in the afternoon, I barely remembered to apologize for the brochures.

“It was a very serious error,” she said, as I blinked back tears. “However, I think, given today’s situation, we have more important things to focus on, don’t you?”  And that was that. No shouting, no recriminations, just truth.

I will never forget the grace with which she handled the call. In the end, I rang the printer and between us we figured out the reprinting. They even agreed to split the cost.

Grow upwards

Accepting my reprieve felt dishonest given the awful circumstances but it was one of those defining moments in a young career. I learned three very important lessons that day that have served me well:

1. Even though you feel like crying and giving up when you make an error, it’s important to own the problem, put your ego aside, and figure out a solution.
2. When someone else makes a mistake, the finest way to handle it is with grace and compassion. Take the high road: allow them the opportunity to make things right and to grow from the process.
3. Even when things look bad, always remember that they really could be a lot, lot worse. Count your blessings and move forwards.