Should I take full responsibility for mistake at work?

LegacyUser

Last week I made a mistake in work. I guess it was less of a mistake but more of a misjudgment. How it happened was that my manager assigned me a project with certain deadlines. I was fully aware of these deadlines, but I kept getting assigned different work on top of this project which appeared more urgent.

Then last week a sudden realisation came to my manager that we had missed the deadlines for the client and he gave me an earful in the most polite way possible. I sat and accepted it because ultimately it came down to me to meet the deadline.

However, I'm concerned that by not defending myself I appear weak. I am a hard worker and was always working at full pace with any of the work I was assigned. I had told my manager that I had a lot of work on my plate in the time coming up to the deadlines, but he just told me to get rid of it. It's all well and good saying it, but I just couldn't finish the work in time to jump onto the critical project.

If I explain this to him I'm worried he'll just think I'm making excuses and I am not able for the job. What is the best way to approach this? Do I just take all the blame and accept the situation as it is?

Tell him you want to work on a plan for the future should a similar situation arise and ask how you could have prioritised or delegated better, I suppose.
If you're getting assigned more work and it seems more urgent, you need to keep shouting about it and giving estimates and timeframes to make it clear it's a case of choose one. e.g. "if i do this work, it'll take 3 days. I have 4 days left of work on the project and only 5 days until the deadline. Which is it?"
If you're not meeting the deadline, you need to tell him *in advance* so he can make a decision because it's up to him to manage.
It's no use to anyone to forget about it until after the deadline.

That's all assuming you didn't do it already as clearly as above.
If you did and he still wouldn't listen and kept ploughing on, then you need to point out what you did do and go from there

bluewolf

bluewolf wrote: »

If you're getting assigned more work and it seems more urgent, you need to keep shouting about it and giving estimates and timeframes to make it clear it's a case of choose one. e.g. "if i do this work, it'll take 3 days. I have 4 days left of work on the project and only 5 days until the deadline. Which is it?"

Yep, it's up to you to manage your time and workload. If you have a "critical project", it must take priority over other work you're being handed and you need to make that clear to the person who is giving you the work.

At the end of the day, missing a deadline for a client (which you didn't even realise!) is a big no-no, so suck it up this time and deal with it better next time.

zoobizoo

In future when someone tries to add to your workload say "okay but to clarify, my priority is X and if I take this on now, we won't make the deadline on X. I recommend that we get X out of the way and then concentrate on Y and Z. Can we agree on that?"

And put it in an email.

Sapphire

"I'm working on X project for Y manager. If you want I can either schedule your project after that, or if you need it done before then, can you talk to Y and decide which one you want me to focus on?"

BarcaDen

Its mostly his fault - really bad management when a boss doesn't have a general idea of his teams workload. If he worked for me, I'd be giving him an earful, not you (although I might say to you that you need to communicate more)

chuckles30

As Sapphire says above - and if it's all coming from your manager - similar approach, but something along the same lines...

I'm working on project x, but if I pick up this work, I will not make the deadline on project x - which is the priority?

Make sure you flag it in advance (too late for this scenario) and a good idea to put in an email - if it comes back to bite you later, then you have a record of having raised it. That gives your manager the chance to prioritise, manage others expectations if necessary or maybe put extra resources on the project. You should be ready to explain exactly what efforts each piece of work is going to take as you will surely be asked....but so long as you can stand over exactly what you can/can't deliver, you should be ok

Lux23

I think your mistake is not missing the deadline itself, but failing to pipe up when you got more work that interfered with you reaching this deadline. You won't do anyone any favours by not sharing information like this when someone asks that you do more work. I used to do this myself and I promise once I gathered my nerve to do it the first time it was always welcomed.

arayess

zoobizoo wrote: »

In future when someone tries to add to your workload say "okay but to clarify, my priority is X and if I take this on now, we won't make the deadline on X. I recommend that we get X out of the way and then concentrate on Y and Z. Can we agree on that?"

And put it in an email.

I'd avoid the explaination to the person trying to take yoru time.

I'd simply say that your priority is X and you have been asked to take no more work on board and if they have any comment on this please discuss with boss man.
CC'd the boss on the reply

your time allocation is his job and responsibility .

from what you've said he seems like a poor manager or at least in this instance he took his eye off the ball.

BUt in future you need to communicate better to him/other and be more focused.

Ursus Horribilis

It looks like the pair of you weren't communicating too well. I work in middle management in my job. While I don't have my boss looking over my shoulder and micromanaging, he always keeps an eye on how things are going. If deadlines are missed, he is the one who's going to get his ass kicked. From what you've said, he said "Get rid of it" and walked away.

What did he mean by "get rid of it?". Was he asking you to shelve the work you were doing and to prioritise the work that had the deadline? Was he asking you to give it to somebody else to do? Both of these things can have implications and a conversation about it should have taken place.

The best thing you can do here is take steps to ensure it doesn't happen again. If you have other people you can give work to, then get better at delegating. Allow yourself more time to get work done and keep an eye on your time management. You can't do everything and it would appear that you tripped up on this occasion because you were trying too hard. You might also be a victim of your own success here. If you have always managed to get through mountains of work, managers can become complacent and assume that you'll always complete everything they give you.

This is something my manager showed me a long time ago to help me manage work. Basically you divide up the work on your plate into four categories and prioritise what's both urgent and important

https://www.mindtools.com/pages/article/newHTE_91.htm

Mr. Incognito

When I joined my current firm I was sat down by a partner and told, when you make a mistake. And you WILL make a mistake. Tell me.

If I know about it, I can fix it. If you hide it, I cant and it can become a huge problem down the line.

You made a mistake. You owned up to it. That shows integrity. That builds trust.

In my experience there are two types of people when things that go wrong. People who say "Okay, how do I fix this".

And people who say- "Who can I blame".

Ireland is run by politicians, and senior civil servants and many companies are run by people who say "Its not my fault".

These people are weasels.

You screwed up. That's done. Get over with it. Move on.

Ask yourself "How do I fix this so it doesnt happen in future"

I give the same talk to my trainees. I've fixed many problems. It's never occurred to me to blame anyone. People are human.