Made a Mistake? 5 Proven Ways to Turn Failures Into Wins

No matter how hard you try, sometimes you and your finance team fail.

We make mistakes. We miss deadlines. We fall short.

In fact, a third of accountants admit to making multiple errors every week (and, yes we know, all of our finance pros aren’t accountants). Nearly 60% say they goof up on a monthly basis — partly related to closing the books. A whopping 18% admit to making mistakes every single day that need to be corrected! That’s all according to a Gartner survey.

From Mistakes to Triumphs

And while you and your finance team don’t make mistakes that often — or at a high level — you likely immediately think when mistakes happen: We can’t let this happen. Ever again.

While sometimes it does, it doesn’t have to. There’s a research-backed way to recover from both team and individual setbacks.

In “counter-factual thinking,” you imagine alternatives to what’s happened. No, it’s not always pretty. But it’s insightful and promises to ease some pain from the failure and quickly get you into a position to do better.

In the Harvard Business Review, Northwestern University professor Neal Roese offered these five ideas on how to turn setbacks and outright failures into wins.

1. Imagine a Better Outcome: Part 1

When you review the failure, you can’t just say that reaching the original goal is the “better outcome.”

Instead, focus on specific actions throughout the process or special project. What are the alternatives to each and where would they have landed you?

2. Imagine a Better Outcome: Part 2

Researchers found that when you challenge yourself to think of another positive outcome, you can overcome “hindsight bias” – a natural tendency to fixate on one idea as the be-all, end-all.

Exploring just one better outcome can make you over-confident in your assessment of the setback. The second alternative helps you avoid attributing the failure to a simple, one-off mistake.

For example, imagine if your team set the goal and pace, rather than following the normal process. Would they have been more vested and reacted faster when they fell behind?

3. Imagine a Different Path . . .

It should be a different path that leads to the same outcome. Call it your “even if.”

Example: You might say, “Even if we set more, small goals, we would’ve had to keep up with our other responsibilities and missed the goal.”

This helps you recognize obstacles you didn’t anticipate, notice or articulate along the way. Now you have a means to figure out how to overcome them (perhaps delegate outside your department).

4. Imagine the Same Path . . .

This one needs to be the same path that leads to a different outcome. Chart your path and imagine how it could have led to a better and worse outcome.

For instance, imagine you kept that early on-target pace. Everyone worked as expected and you hit your goal early. Now imagine you kept pace, half your crew got the flu and the team never had time to recover from the setback.

This step is a reality check: You’ll recognize that the same steps could lead to different endpoints. So you must recognize, respect and try to prepare for outside forces in the reboot. No apologies for what happened. Just recognition of what could’ve been better.

5. Imagine a Worse Outcome

This is a part-feel-good, part-preparation tactic. Note a worse outcome (for instance, missing the quantity goal by even more) and what you did right to avoid it. Sometimes, this part of the exercise is quite comforting. It takes you from, “This is the worst thing ever,” to, “This isn’t nearly as bad as we thought it could’ve been.”

Then look at what worked and when. That will broaden your view of what happened — and what needs to happen in the next go-round. Focusing a little more on what worked will help set you up to hit the target earlier and closer next time.