You saw the news everywhere.
While announcing the best picture Oscar award at this past Sunday’s event, there was a mix-up of cards and presenters Faye Dunaway and Warren Beatty initially declared the musical, La La Land, the winner.
Ooops!
But just as La La Land’s producers were accepting the award, they were interrupted by Host Kimmel who stated La La Land was not the winner, Moonlight was. As you can imagine chaos and confusion erupted on live TV.
Wow! That is a big error!
Who’s fault was that? And how does the guilty person recover from such a huge mistake? Can you image that person’s rep in the industry? I bet they won’t be stuffing envelopes for a while!
Embarrassing, yes – but not really all that uncommon.
In the fashion industry people screw up all the time, many times publicly.
Remember when Lululemon had to recall their yoga pants because they were too sheer? Or the time Andrew Marc was sued by The Humane Society of the United States after an investigation revealed raccoon dog fur violations? The investigation uncovered evidence that the brand continued to sell raccoon dog fur (a species of dog) despite a court order prohibiting it after March 2013.
Think of one of the biggest business blunders ever! Coca Cola changing their soda formula. Overnight Coca Cola experienced a huge drop in sales.
How do businesses come back from these mistakes? And they all did.
According to Paul Schoemaker, the research director for the Mack Center for Technological Innovation at the University of Pennsylvania’s Wharton School and co-author of the forthcoming Brilliant Mistakes, most people tend to overreact to their slip-ups. They “make asymmetric evaluation of gains and losses so that losses loom much larger than gains,” he explains.
I know in my many years in business there was a time or two where I made cringe worthy mistakes. We all do. Then I dwelt on them for months rather than remembering the successes.
So how do you handle a mistake?
First you own it. Acknowledge it, even if it has to be public. Maybe apologize. Learn from it. Then course correct.
You can’t undo what’s already happened. You can’t miraculously make people forget.
However, by being honest, humble and up front about it, your chances of quickly recovering are good. People are usually forgiving of honest mistakes.
They may laugh at you for a while, but remember: no one ever died from a red face!