Human Resources: How to Recover From Workplace Mistakes

We all mess up sometimes -- a meeting falls flat, you lose your temper with a co-worker, or you step on the gas instead of the brake and smash into someone’s house. Well, some mistakes are bigger than others. But whether you’re a salesperson who lost an account or an employee who just told off your boss, don’t start looking in the want ads yet.

If you play your cards right you, too, can get a second chance for a do-over by using your sense of humor. Laughter breaks tension, changes the mood and creates an opening for a do-over. And a little light-hearted, self-deprecating humor makes you appear more human and likeable.

Here are some simple techniques that will work to give employees a second chance with their bosses.

1. When caught, admit your mistake immediately. If your mistake is obvious, rather than pretending it didn’t happen, diminishing its importance or defending it, admit it without excuses and ask for the chance to rectify it. Lying about what you did will probably get you in more hot water than the mistake itself.

If you’ve already made a mistake, don’t make another one by lying. It’ll come back to haunt you. You don’t want to have to wear a security ankle bracelet that prevents you from decorating cakes on your TV show or have Oprah really mad at you for lying in your book. A good boss knows that everyone makes mistakes, but a trustworthy employee confesses his errors.

2. Exaggerate your mistake. What? Shouldn’t I make my mistake seem smaller? No. Take your boss’s words out of his or her mouth and exaggerate your mistake. For instance, if your mistake costs your boss a few hundred dollars, try saying, “What a huge mistake I made. This isn’t good. You shouldn’t have people like me working for you.” Taking an exaggerated view of your mistake often will prompt your boss to put it in a more realistic perspective. And he or she may even tell you how to fix the problem.

3. Conduct a preemptive strike. When you know your boss will find out about your mistake, figure out a solution (which is your do-over), and then march in and say to your boss, “Boy, I really screwed up. It’s a good thing I haven’t totally lost my mind because I figured out how to fix it.”

Then tell the boss what your do-over is. Catching your mistake before the boss finds out prevents him or her from having time to think about your mistake’s consequences.

4. Keep a sense of humor about yourself. This is where the power of humor can help you with a do-over. Here’s something that happened to me. A prospective corporate client, Chubb Insurance, asked me to write a proposal about how my corporate comedy training would work for its staff. I erroneously thought it was a weight-loss company and wrote my proposal accordingly. My contact at Chubb said, “I can see by your proposal that you’re a complete idiot.”

She wasn’t exactly that harsh, but she said something to that extent. Rather than defending myself or making excuses, I used a comedic technique -- validate and exaggerate. It sounds something like this: “You’re so right about that. And you’re so smart, you figured out I was an idiot in three minutes. It usually takes people three months to figure that out about me.”

She laughed, and that broke the tension, as well as gave me some time to figure out how to fix my mistake. I said, “Now that my Internet connection’s back up, let me do some research about your company, and I’m sure I can rise from idiot to mildly stupid.” Not only did I get the job, but she referred me to other Chubb divisions.

Keeping your sense of humor will help you keep your job.

Judy Carter is a motivational humorist and author of the upcoming book, “The Anti-Self Help Bible: Finding Happiness When You’re Fat, Broke and Surrounded by Idiots.” She works closely with corporations across America developing ways to use comedy in the workplace. For more information, visit http://www.corporatecomedyworks.com.