工作搞砸了不要慌，这三点帮你弥补工作

“透视领导力”（The Leadership Insider）是一个在线社区，一些最睿智、最有影响力的商界大佬会在这里及时回答有关职业生涯和领导力的问题。今天的问题是：工作中犯下大错之后，应该怎么补救？答问者是非盈利慈善组织Technology For Families in Need的联合创始人沙丹·德勒沃。

既然已经搞砸了，接下来怎么办？

多年前我还是个年轻的营销员，有一次得到了管理护发品牌的机会，可把我激动坏了。以公司的标准看，那是个小品牌，一年营业收入才几百万美元，但盈利能力已经很可观，最重要的是那个品牌由我来运营。当时我刚念完工商管理硕士，感觉终于有机会施展平生所学。但我太急于表现，很快就犯下了职业生涯中最重大的错误。

错误的具体情况比较复杂，大家不会感兴趣，现在也没有旧事重提的必要，但可以归结为一句话：因为欠缺经验冲昏了头。我盲目听从一个同事的建议，但他的目标和我截然不同（这犯了营销的大忌）。结果我管理的品牌热卖产品严重缺货。这款产品原本是摇钱树，但卖得太快结果经销商根本存不住货。

由于我的失误，该产品持续断货达两到四周内，损失了不少营业收入。要是你刚刚迈入职场就造成公司的巨大损失，不用多说你也能想象是什么心情。很多之前听过的故事纷纷在眼前涌现，心提到了嗓子眼，胃里也堵得慌，灵魂都快出窍了。我知道工作快要不保，但既然还没到那一步就得努力挽救局面。希望你们不会有类似的遭遇，可万一碰到这种不幸，应该做到以下几点。

负起责任

为自己的错误负责。无论你是团队的管理者，还是个人，在美国商界，不负责任是最恶劣的行为。这说明当事人职业素养不够成熟，也缺乏专业的判断。

人非圣贤，孰能无过。假如一个人犯错以后承担责任，而不是诿过于人，甚至佯装并未出错，说明此人值得信任，人品也过得去。想想职业生涯中你最尊重的人，他们当然并非完人，却可能个性刚强，犯了错负起责任最能看出一个人性格坚毅。

拿出行动

承担责任固然重要，别一味陷在错误中同样重要。承认了错误却不想办法解决，对犯错者的职业声誉有害无益。你应该利用可以调用的一切资源弥补，想方设法解决问题。你混迹商界的技能会从中接受考验。要找一切可能的机会弥补过失，也是发挥创造力的时候。倘若你够优秀（而且幸运），你的创意解决方案会备受瞩目，比对你过错的关注还多。

吃一堑、长一智

从错误当中汲取经验教训。大部分明智又进取的公司都会容许员工犯错，当然是在合理的前提下。这些机构懂得，要激发创造力和新的渴望，就必须提供偶尔犯错的空间。另一方面，很少有公司允许反复出错，特别是同样的错误一再出现。对每个错误都要做一番分析，从中汲取教训。考虑应该怎样处理才能增加成功的几率。也许还可以向局外人寻求帮助，有时我们没能正视问题是因为我们身在其中。

至于我，当年那个重大错误并没有导致我被炒鱿鱼。我和同事同工厂合作，加快生产进度，缩短了缺货的时间。我们还推出了额外的奖励机制，吸引大经销商在我们充分备货以后增加采购量。

过程中给我学到了宝贵的一课。此后，每当有人给专业建议时，我总是会多问几个问题弄清对方的动机。要准确理解别人的建议，就要学会站在别人的角度看问题。（财富中文网）

译者：Pessy

审校：夏林

The Leadership Insiders network is an online community where the most thoughtful and influential people in business contribute answers to timely questions about careers and leadership. Today’s answer to the question, “How should you react after making a big mistake at work?” is written by Shadan Deleveaux, co-founder of Technology For Families in Need.

So you messed up at work, now what?

Some years ago when I was a young marketer I was given the opportunity to manage a hair care brand. I was thrilled. By the company’s standards, the brand was small, only generating a few million dollars a year in revenue, but it was incredibly profitable and most importantly it was mine to run. I had recently finished my MBA and I felt like I was finally getting the opportunity to put what I’d learned in school to use. Eager to make an impact I jumped in and promptly made one of the largest mistakes of my professional career.

The details of my mistake are intricate, uninteresting, and at this point irrelevant, but suffice to say I let my inexperience get the best of me. I blindly took the advice of a colleague with different objectives than mine (a major ‘no no’ in business) and it resulted in a situation where my brand was out of stock on its top selling item. This product was the cash cow, the money maker, the product that our distributor couldn’t keep on the shelf because it sold too fast.

Because of my error, we had none to sell, for two to four weeks, representing a significant revenue shortfall. Imagine for a moment the feeling of being the new person on the job and you just cost the company a lot of money. I felt every cliche you could possibly imagine. I saw my life flash before my eyes, my heart was in my throat, I had a feeling in the pit of my stomach and my soul left my body. I just knew I was going to get fired, but before that happened I had to try and salvage the situation. I hope nothing similar ever happens to you, but just in case it does, here’s what you should do.

Take ownership.

Own your mistakes. Whether you are a team manager or an individual contributor, in corporate America there’s nothing worse than a person that ducks responsibility. It shows a lack of professional maturity and judgment.

Everyone makes mistakes. It shows trustworthiness and character to take responsibility for those mistakes instead of hiding behind others, or worse pretending that they didn’t happen. Think about the people in your professional life that you respect the most. They’re not perfect, of course, but they probably have very strong character and taking ownership of mistakes is one of the fundamental ways a person can show that they have strong character.

Take action

Taking ownership is important, but it is just as important to not passively wallow in the mistake. It does more harm than good to your professional reputation if all you do is admit mistake after mistake without providing any solutions. You should be using every resource at your disposal to right the wrong. Go above and beyond to find a resolution. This is where your skills as a business person will be tested. Think about the opportunities at your disposal to compensate for the mistake. Now is the time to be incredibly creative. If you are good (and lucky!), there’s a possibility that your creative solution will attract more attention than the initial faux pas.

Take heed

Learn from the mistake. Most smart and progressive organizations are OK with their employees making a mistake, within reason of course. These organizations understand that to foster creativity and new aspirations, you have to create room for the occasional mistake to be made. On the other hand, very few organizations are OK with repeated mistakes, especially the same mistake repeated more than once. Dissect each mistake and learn from it. Think about what should have been done differently to deliver a larger chance for success. You may want to get input from people outside of the specific situation, sometimes we are blinded by our own proximity to our problems.

As for me, I did not get fired, we were able to work with our plants to expedite manufacturing and reduce the time the item was out of stock. We also created additional incentives for our major distributor to purchase more once we were fully stocked.

In the process, I learned an incredibly valuable lesson. Moving forward, I will always ask more questions and seek to understand someone else’s incentives when they give me professional advice. Understanding their lens and perspective is critical to putting their advice in the proper context.