It's no secret that as EAs and PAs there are always high expectations of us to flawlessly deliver whatever task is given to us, and in an efficient and timely manner. Its basically our job to ensure everything runs smoothly and that our manager's can do their jobs effectively, always looking good in the eyes of their superiors. We are the proof readers, the meeting arrangers, the event organisers, the drafters of communications, the minute takers, and of course the arrangers of travel ~ just to name a handful of the millions of things that get asked of us in anyone day! And as we juggle these multitude of tasks, we can sometimes find ourselves in a situation where things just don't go the way you've planned, or worse still you just colossally stuff something up. As expert organisers, we try to plan things way in advance and as efficiently as we can, to ensure things go as intended. But sometimes in fast paced and hectic environment, last minute changes can be thrown at you leaving you to think very quickly on your feet. And sometimes you're left wondering after the fact if you actually crossed all your t's and dotted all your i's!! But even as organised and scrupulous as you are, when there are growing demands on you, there is room for error, especially when things are taken out of your 'controlling' hands.
So if you've made an error recently at work, the first thing I'm going to say is DO NOT beat yourself up about it! Hopefully your mistake isn't all that bad ~ it could never be as bad as say, Steve Harvey's epic bad day at work, when he read out the wrong winners name for Miss Universe! But even if it is on par with it, the important thing to do is not to dwell on what's happened, and instead redirect your energies in to correcting it so you can move on.
So essentially there are four steps that you should keep in mind the next time you stuff up:
1.Try and correct it
Act as quick as you can here (obviously not too quick though as you don't want to stuff up further!) to try and get things fixed up, even before you tell anyone. My boss always tells me 'bring me solutions, not problems' and he's spot on. Things won't sounds so bad delivering the bad news that you stuffed up if you can tell them that it's already been rectified. But if it's a situation where you do need to alert your manager/Exec (if perhaps it impacts your clients/customers), do so promptly before they find out from another source. But again, tell them with a proposed solution. Which leads me to my next point on the delivery of your message.....
2. Don't lose your head
In times of high stress like this, do your best to keep a cool and collected head. Do not get emotional, or present in nervous manner. Your credibility is at stake here, so do not further damage it by showing them anything less than the utmost professionalism. So take a moment to think about what you will say, how you will say it and when - choose your time wisely as bad news delivered at the wrong time can turn a molehills in to mountains.
3. Take responsibility for it
When you do fess up to your error though, ensure you actually take responsibility for it. Don't blame others for your wrong doing, especially when it is in fact your wrong. Its always great to blame things on technical glitches, and by all means do that if that is the case. But even it that is so, remember you were still at the controls of the computer, so still take some responsibility at least. You want to be seen always as having integrity, and pointing fingers at other people or other things will really damage that. If you're in a situation though where it is a small error and you can fix it without having to tell anyone then by all means do that. Don't damage your credibility for nothing. Similarly, don't tell people that don't need to know. The last thing you want is unnecessary gossip about you or people sharing their points of view about you that count for nothing.
4. Learn from it
Once everything is all fixed up and you've told everyone that needs to know, it's time to review what happened and why. When mistakes are made it's important to know why and ensure it doesn't happen again. If that means putting in place steps to prevent the same thing happening again, then do so. I know for myself personally I have checks in place when sending out emails from my boss or sending out emails to the whole team/company. It only takes one mistake for you to become more vigilant with your checks. And we've all be there before, when we send an email to the wrong person (the person you've written about in the email rather than the one it was intended for!); or you send out a team/company comms from yourself rather than from your boss; or worse still you forward on an email with an email trail below that the recipients should not see! Check, check, check is my best advice, and then check, check, check again! But whatever the mistake is, there was a reason why you stuffed up. Whether you were doing three things at once, or you didn't write down properly what you needed to do, or perhaps you enlisted the assistance of someone else who isn't as capable as you. Either way there's a way to prevent it from happening next time, and make sure that this is communicated to whomever you need to tell when you fess up.
The last thing I'll say is, whatever it is that you did, don't beat yourself up over it. What we do isn't a matter of life or death, so keep it in perspective and don't dwell on it. Nobody is perfect, no matter how much they expect us to be. Do your best and always act with integrity, it will go a long way, even when you do make mistakes.
Labels: Advice
