Moving in mysterious ways,
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Handling your career mistakes

By Loretta W. Prencipe

(IDG) -- Everyone makes mistakes. But not everyone handles them well, and that can hurt your career, says Marjorie Brody, founder of Brody Communications, an executive coaching firm in Jenkintown, Pennsylvania.

Mistakes, Brody says, can be as simple as etiquette errors -- or they can rise to the level of career-limiting moves.

Simple errors

"Simple everyday mistakes are really broad in scope," says Brody, "from lingering over someone's cubicle to barging in on a conversation, to not relaying messages."

Although many of these mistakes are errors that merely annoy others, they shouldn't be discounted by the offender, she says.

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A common mistake that Brody says she sees in IT and other areas is arriving late to meetings.

"Depending on the room setup, stay in the back or quietly pull up a chair," Brody says. She also suggests that even when the delay is unavoidable, making a quick, simple apology is appropriate.

"Say, 'I'm sorry,' only if you're not cutting off a speaker. Otherwise wait until later to apologize."

Brody also suggests not trying to sneak late into a meeting. "Don't tiptoe. Everyone sees you. Just get set up quickly and quietly and get ready to be part of the meeting."

Career-limiting moves

Brody identifies another class of mistakes: the career-limiting mistake.

She defines these mistakes as social and political.

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"It's an action in the workplace that has an egregious effect," she says. "Although everyone focuses on performance mistakes, the reality is that there should be checks and balances to prevent budget overruns, project delays, [and other] performance mistakes. But that doesn't happen with social and political errors."

Brody cites the case of bad "tining." That's not a typo.

A junior IT consultant was having dinner with his manager and a client. "He took his fork, scratched his back, and then continued to eat."

The manager, Brody says, couldn't take the junior consultant out with a client again. That, according to Brody, was a mistake of poor personal habits from which it would be difficult to recover.

Another common example of a career-limiting move in the social arena often happens at office parties. "If you go to a company party, get drunk, and misbehave, later when you're considered for a promotion, they'll talk about your lack of judgment," Brody says.

Prevention is the best cure -- maybe the only cure -- for these mistakes.

Mistakes-surrounding-mistakes

Marjorie Brody

The most common mistake-surrounding-mistakes is not to own up to an error, Brody says.

"Many people tend to blame the system or blame their lack of time. But that's not an excuse. Everyone is busy."

Brody suggests owning up to your errors.

"You might send out an e-mail with a simple apology to those people you've affected. Then you might pick up the phone and call each person. Don't give excuses. Don't say, 'Yes, but ... .' And tell them what you're doing to prevent this mistake in the future."

Even if the mistake wasn't yours but was caused by someone in your department, accept responsibility. "'Anything that goes out under my name stops with me. As a manager I have accountability for my staff's mistakes,'" Brody says.

And when one of your staff members makes a mistake and recognizes it, very often he or she already is upset about it.

"An appropriate response," Brody says, "might be to acknowledge the mistake and say, 'Let's move on.'"

If the mistake is part of a pattern, a manager needs to address that. Discuss the problem with the employee, give suggestions for improvement, and outline consequences if the pattern continues, Brody says.

Not to try to get ahead of a recurrence ... would be a mistake.