Bouncing back
Five steps to recovering from a total career disasterYes, the election’s over. The news sweeps ever forward, covering the new cabinet and speculating as to the future leadership of the opposition parties.
But pause for a moment to spare a thought for the Ed Milibands and the Nick Cleggs of this world. They took big career gambles — Clegg in coalition, and Miliband with Labour’s political message — and they fluffed it big time. (At least in the eyes of voters.)
On the back of their failures, they resigned. It’s fair to say that their shot at the big time is over. But is there life after career death?
There can be.
Know your mistake
First off, you need to recognise the kind of mistake you’ve made. Was it professional or was it personal?
Having your ‘It’s Raining Men’ ringtone go off during a vital client meeting is a professional slip-up. As would be accidentally making a project come in four times over budget. Twice.
On the other hand, robbing a bank or accidentally sending your boss dozens of death threats is more of a personal failing. Whether or not you’re competent at your job isn’t really a factor here.
Second, you have to calculate the magnitude on a scale from moronic flub to cataclysmic gaffe. It’s a complicated scale.
Will you be the department dunce, or are your bridges burned across the whole organisation? Or even across the entire industry?
Whether you need to make a grovelling apology, or need help manufacturing a new identity and life in Mexico, HRville is your one stop shop for picking up the pieces.
Let’s start from the beginning.
Step One
This is always the same, no matter your mistake: take responsibility. No buck-passing, no wheedling excuses. The best policy is to acknowledge your mistake, thereby showing that you recognise you did wrong.
If you don’t take step one, nobody can ever be sure whether you are able to learn from your mistakes. And if you don’t even think you made a mistake, then there’s no point in going through the process.
However, if everybody else but you thinks you’ve goofed, maybe a little introspection is due on your part.
Step Two
Assess the damage. The next steps are dependent on how big the hole you’ve just fallen into is. Can you climb out on your own? Need a ladder? Still falling through a bottomless abyss?
The faster you recognise the full extent of what’s happened, the more you’ll be able to get a handle on it. Sometimes, there’s still time to avert some of the worst consequences.
Step Three
React in an appropriate way. If you can laugh it off, do so.
In the immediate aftermath, you have the most influence on how people will perceive your error. Playing it cool and with self-deprecating humour will make others less likely to believe you’ve fluffed big time.
Tyler Tervooren, founder of riskology.co, believes that “humour is one of the best psychological tools you have for getting and keeping people on your side.”
So keep your funny bone primed and ready. And remember that if it’s April 1st, pranks justify almost anything.
Of course, most career disasters can’t be dealt with in this way. Generally, then, stick with solemn contrition, unless you’ve done something so heinous that there’s really no point. In which case vacating the premises is probably for the best.
After your colleagues/bosses initial reactions, you find out what’s in store for you. That could range from: nothing, mockery, probation (explicit or otherwise), demotion, firing, all the way to blacklisting/criminal proceedings.
Step Four
Damage control. If you’re still in the same job, or at least the same place, your best bet is to buckle down and regain the trust of those who may have lost faith in your ability.
“The best way for everyone to get over a mistake is to follow it up with great work,” says Andrea Kay, author and founder of career consulting firm The Art of Self Direction. There will be extra attention on your performance temporarily, so this is a crucial time to show strength.
Chances are you wouldn’t have a second chance if they didn’t still think you were competent. But if you think you’ll always be reasonably tarnished in their eyes, you should probably be looking for a new job.
Hallie Crawford, career coach and founder of Create Your Career Path, reckons: “If it’s obvious that your boss and peers no longer trust you, then it’s best to quit. If your co-workers and boss give you a chance and trust you, but your reputation has been ruined with your clients, then it’s probably still worth moving on.”
However if they’ve done the moving on for you, it’s time to mentally regroup and come to terms. That might be found at the bottom of an ice cream tub for some, or adopting the gym as your home away from home for others.
Hopefully you were able to leave with a semblance of dignity, and if not at least some kind of verbal agreement not to hound you to the grave.
If you’re planning to remain working in the field, be prepared to explain why you were fired, and perhaps why you have no references from your previous job. Being open about your mistake and how you’ve learned from it is better than skirting around the issue and looking shifty.
Don’t be afraid to rely on your support network. This is the time to call on favours and friends. This is especially the case if you really need to make a fresh start doing something completely different.
It also can’t hurt to “get advice from someone you can trust to be candid but supportive,” as Joyce Robbins, president of Robbins Staffing Solutions recommends. Outside perspective is especially useful when you’re all het up about something.
Friends may also have useful contacts to draw upon if you’re changing lanes. Moving sideways into a new field is a weapon of last resort, but can sometimes work out extremely well.
You don’t need to go far to find examples of successful people who have failed and been fired during their careers. Many often cite it as a transformative and beneficial experience.
Steve Jobs, still seen as a quasi-legendary figure, is one of those, and he is on record as saying that “getting fired from Apple was the best thing that could have ever happened to me. It freed me to enter one of the most creative periods of my life.”
Step Five
Analyse what you did wrong; why it happened, how it happened, with a view to having it not happen again. If there’s one thing people have little sympathy for, it’s making the same mistake twice.
Not only that, but learning from mistakes may actually give you new insight and help you work better than you did before you dropped the ball.
After a little bit of thinking, too, it may be possible to repair a few burned bridges as feelings mellow out and you get some distance between you and the mistake.
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