It’s normal to make blunders sometimes as it only shows you’re human. Imagine you have prepared for a presentation for two weeks, done your research, backed it with examples and everything that would make you excel and make your boss proud, but unfortunately, somehow, the presentation doesn’t go as expected, maybe due to fear, or in actual sense, you weren’t really ready like you thought.
What happens next when you fail, do you get mad and sit in the corner and cry, throw a pity party or bother to know the cause of the failure and turn it into success?
Some organisations believe that success must be all about minimal or no mistakes, but operating smoothly, which isn’t true.
Jean Pierre Gahigi, a Communications Specialist, says that when managers expect employees to be perfect, it develops fear and anxiety and hinders workers from taking risks.
He adds that such a work environment averts employees from speaking up when they make mistakes or require help. This in the end, results in stagnation, low employee morale, high turnover and worse more.
He is of the view that employers and managers should accept mistakes once they happen, seek ways to solve them, and move forward without punishing employees.
Gahigi states that leaders and managers have to consider mistakes and failures as valuable learning opportunities.
"Let employees take part in crafting ideas, taking risks and being part of the planning, even when some ideas don’t work out, continue engaging them in the company's activities. Once you notice a mistake, instead of being bitter, show an employee how they could have tackled an issue or hindered it from happening,” he says.
Gahigi stresses that sometimes failure communicates to the managers that employees still require more training and learning, and find means on how to support them to keep them learning and growing.
He also explains that every workplace should create avenues for communication where feedback is given by managers to employees and even guide them with steps to perform better.
"With open communication, employees feel able to approach their supervisors or managers before a minor mistake turns into a disaster.”
Experts say that the key to dealing with failures at work is how you react to them, and how you use them to bring improvement to your professional skills.
Gahigi carries on that it is okay and normal to feel hurt, angry, disappointed and so forth when you fail, as long as you take time and think about it because failure to do so, will just keep you guilty and feel negative about yourself instead of moving forward.
For Daniel Ganza, a PR consultant in Kigali, employees shouldn’t give continuous excuses to justify their mistakes.
He also notes that most employees want to appear perfect to their bosses hence always blaming their colleagues for mistakes even when it’s them in the wrong.
In such scenarios where one gives excuses to prove that they aren't wrong, such people don’t get a chance to learn from their mistakes, and when such problems are to happen in the future, they won’t have an idea of how to go about them, Ganza states.
"Don’t stay quiet amidst a problem or mistake, unless you can easily solve it on your own. If it’s huge, talk to your colleagues and manager and fill them in on that problem and find how to make it work. Don’t look down on yourself or freak out from requesting big projects even after failing, because taking on other tasks shows how committed you’re to your job, but also, once you excel on this recent project, the pain and guilt of failing the first one will be swept away. This in the end would create a sense of happiness.
Ganza states that you shouldn’t look at failure as the end of the road. Experts emphasise that if you let failures dictate your thoughts and emotions for long, it can have a devastating impact on all aspects of your life, for instance, it can ruin your self-esteem, peace of mind, relations, and overall health (both mental and physical).