I’m Sorry, Totally My Fault, Won’t Happen Again
How to Recover from a Mistake
A mistake repeated more than once is a decision.
— Paulo Coelho
Mistakes will happen. Some mistakes will impact timelines. Others will inconvenience teammates, or make your boss look bad. And on and on...
If and how you own up to those mistakes will make all the difference.
The natural human impulse is to silently hope no one notices or that no one tries to blame you. Or even worse, we may be tempted to try to pin the blame on someone else. Giving in to these impulses will make the mistake worse for you and your team.
How to Recover
When you make a mistake — one that impacts your colleagues — both you and your colleagues need the same resolution. All team members directly impacted, including yourself, need you to apologize well. And the quicker the better.
Apologize (No Faking!)
An effective apology explicitly sends three key messages:
I'm so sorry.
It was totally my fault.
It will not happen again.
Deliver it in a conversation, on the relevant email thread, in the appropriate chat DM or channel, etc. Don't include more people than will care to hear it, but don't try to keep it a secret.
People sometimes try to seek resolution with fake apologies, which is a huge mistake. A fake apology typically makes things even worse. To be clear, fake apologies are usually softer in some way:
Well, sorry, I guess…
I’m sorry if you felt…
I’m sorry if I contributed to…
I’m sorry that [someone else] made a mistake…
I’m sorry that “we” made a mistake…
I’m sorry, but also you shouldn’t have…
Etc.
Do not deliver a fake apology! Instead, it should sound more like this:
I’m so sorry I caused [some specific harm] by [doing or not doing some specific thing]. It was totally my fault, and I won’t let it happen again.
You don’t need to say those exact words, but you need to clearly send the three key messages, without qualification.
Mitigate the Impact
To whatever extent is realistic, try to shoulder the burden of cleaning up after the mistake. What this looks like will vary by situation, but the goal is to show a good-faith effort to take practical responsibility. There may be nothing to be done now, or perhaps the work left to do can only be done by someone else — because you lack the tools or skills to do it. But if you’re capable of doing any of what’s needed, take on as much of the clean-up work as you realistically can.
Prevent Repeats
The proper apology will repair the relational damage done in the short term, but for the effects to last, it’s critical that you don’t repeat the same mistake you just said wouldn’t happen again. Going forward, try like hell to make sure you don't repeat this kind of mistake. Because your reputation (even how you see yourself) could be harmed if you repeat it — and the "won't happen again" will ring quite hollow the next time you apologize for this kind of mistake.
Why This Works
Having thought a lot about why this is as effective as I’ve found it to be, I’ve boiled it down to three aspects. First, it relieves anxiety for whoever I’ve impacted with my mistake. It also repairs my colleagues’ trust in me and helps contribute to a healthy team culture. And the final benefit is that this kind of apology puts social pressure on me to avoid repeat mistakes, which results in my own personal growth.
Relieving Your Colleagues’ Anxiety
Showing remorse and expressing that the fault lies entirely with you will communicate to the team that they don't need to make it their job to convince you that you messed up. Nobody wants to be the performance police, and until you’ve owned the mistake and properly apologized, that’s exactly what it feels like you’re adding to their job description.
Until the apology is delivered, the impacted colleagues are likely thinking some or all of the following, though perhaps subconsciously:
Does he even realize he screwed up? If not, do I need to be the one to tell him?
Does he realize how this impacts me and the rest of the team?
Does he think this is acceptable performance?
Is he going to try to deflect blame to make himself look better at my expense?
I guess I can’t trust him with anything important now.
All this has me remembering other frustrating things about him — or things he’s done in the past — and now it feels like they’re starting to really add up.
This is stressing me out, and now I’m getting angry.
Professionals are typically not all that bothered by the impact of the mistake itself, in my experience. I strongly suspect that the frustration and anger about “the mistake” is usually driven by anxiety about how to deal with the person who made the mistake, rather than dealing with the impacts of the mistake.
But an effective apology usually erases all those thoughts from your colleagues’ minds. They’ll often even try to talk you into going easier on yourself and attempt to take some of the blame off you. I've seen this response pretty much universally in my career and my personal life. Even somewhat difficult personalities will soften in response to this kind of full apology, in my experience.
Repairing Trust & Developing Culture
The effective apology will salvage as much trust from your team as possible, which is very critical for successful work together in the future. You may even net-gain some trust and respect, depending on the situation. The apology demonstrates that you’re responsible for yourself and your commitments, so in addition to repairing trust, it can build trust with teammates who don’t already know you well. They’ll learn that, though you’re human and make mistakes, you’re a trustworthy person who doesn’t just care about yourself.
Another benefit of the apology is that it sets the right precedent for the team’s culture. You’ve contributed to normalizing accountability and forgiveness.
Apologizing well is an act of leadership, even if you’re an individual contributor.
Personal Growth
Lastly, telling colleagues this kind of mistake won't happen again should motivate you, both consciously and subconsciously, to work to prevent this kind of mistake in the future — which is the best you could hope for going forward.
What are you going to do right now, to make sure this kind of mistake won’t happen again? If you leave it up to future-you, the odds are not in your favor.
Do you need to create or update a document template, a process checklist, a recurring calendar event, or something along those lines — to remind you to be more careful in some particular context? Do you need to schedule time to memorize something or practice some skill, to be prepared to get it right next time? Or do you need to write “Next time I will do XYZ-thing instead” on the chalkboard 200 times?
Whatever you need to do to be as confident as possible that you won’t make the same mistake again, tee it up and then “put it in front of the door”, so you are sure to not forget about it. Your reputation and self-image will now depend on it.
My Own Experience
I first heard this framework many years ago from a comedian, of all people, on his podcast. As I recall, he didn’t present it as any kind of formal framework or even advice, really. It sounded off-the-cuff, and he was simply explaining to his guest that whenever someone he works with makes a mistake, these are the three things he wants to hear — so he can be assured he doesn’t need to worry the person is ignorant of their mistake or at risk of making it a habit.
It made a ton of sense to me, so I decided next time I screwed up at work, I’d try it out.
At Work
The first time I apologized in this way, there had been a communication gap between my team and another we were working with on a project. It wasn’t solely my fault, but I felt like better communication from either side could have prevented the issues we were now facing. So I decided I’d own it as my mistake and apologize.
As I waited for the right moment in the conversation, I was bracing for impact. My entire body was telling me it was going to backfire and would only confirm in my colleagues minds that I’m unqualified for my role. It felt like they’d immediately go to my boss yelling, “He even ADMITTED it was his fault!”
But instead, my teammates and partners jumped in to defend me (seemingly from myself). They started to call out aspects of our situation that they felt responsible for, and the conversation immediately turned from tense and adversarial, to positive and collaborative. No one was upset with me at all, and we were all of a sudden focused solely on how best to move forward.
I was blown away by how well it worked! The next time, it was a little easier, but it still felt scary. I kept waiting for someone to take advantage of my vulnerability, but after nearly a decade of handling my mistakes this way, I’ve yet to have it backfire even once, and apologizing like this is now second nature.
Outside of Work
This approach to handling my mistakes worked so well for me at work, that I started to use it in my personal relationships as well. I’m now quick to give a proper apology to anyone impacted by something I’ve done wrong or could have done better — my wife, my kids, my parents, and my friends.
It works just as well in any context. The dynamics are pretty much the same, allowing me to build trust rather than lose it. Grow and improve, rather than cement my shortcomings.
I now even go so far as to apologize to myself using the same script, when I’ve made a mistake I’m upset about. If I forgot to put the trash out on time or spill my coffee on my keyboard, I can get frustrated with myself about the hassle I’ve caused with my mistake. There seems to be some part of me who is satisfied by a proper apology, even if it’s me saying it to myself.
I’m no psychologist, but I suspect that all the same dynamics are at play inside my own brain as when the offended party is someone else. And just like I’m happy to forgive anyone else’s honest mistake, it seems I’m able to forgive my own. It’s funny, but it works for me.
This essay describes how I handle what I’d call small to medium-sized mistakes, where the stakes are largely impacts to my colleagues workload and timelines — or where my mistake diminished the value of work others have done.
For higher-stakes situations, this is not sufficient advice and may in fact be the wrong advice to follow:
This is interpersonal relationship advice, not legal advice. If you are involved in a car crash or work in the medical industry or find yourself in another context where admitting fault could have legal implications, seek advice from a licensed attorney or other expert in the relevant field, not a rando with a keyboard and an internet connection!
This is not sufficient advice for how to handle financially impactful production incidents, security breaches, or any any issues that will concern numerous stakeholders across your organization due to harm caused to your business or brand. This advice might play a part in an effective strategy for handling these kinds of crises, but it’s not a sufficient playbook for highly visible and more prickly situations.