#NZLEAD RECAP: The Best Career Mistakes

It was great to read all the career mistakes that have happened to people. To be honest, I wasn’t expecting our participants to be so open about what they had been through in their careers and some of the things that had happened.

Some great ones that I liked:

A1) What was your best career/HR mistake? #nzlead" being heaped on way too much not pushing.back and then dropping balls left, & centre.

— Perry Timms 🐦 (@PerryTimms) May 16, 2013

@TashTasticNZ walking out of a job that I didn't enjoy, nothing lined up, middle of GFC… actually done that twice now #nzlead

— Amanda Sterling (@sterling_amanda) May 16, 2013

https://twitter.com/RachieMouse/status/334928621309407232

Most memorable mistake? Leaving a voicemail about an individual on the wrong person's phone…theirs! Thank God it was positive… #nzlead

— Alison Chisnell (@AlisonChisnell) May 16, 2013

and for a laugh…..

@TashTasticNZ I once fell over at the end of an interview. My legs had gone to sleep. Stood up and tombstoned! #nzlead

— Neil Morrison (@neilmorrison) May 16, 2013

I’m not really sure what I expected, I am normally hesitant to voice mistakes in the public realm, but everyone just got stuck in and provided their mistakes left, right and centre. It was inspiring to see experienced professionals talk about mistakes they had made and offer their learning. It is easy to provide generic advice around what should be done and how it should be handled, but the advice provided was so down to earth and real. It was like everyone in our tweet chat knew each other and wanted to help each other learn and grow.

At the networking event where I presented on using twitter and the benefits, some attendees said to me afterwards “engaging with HR professionals on twitter provides a support network. HR professionals need to stick together and help each other”. This is very right. #NZLEAD offers a community support network where we can openly talk about things we have learned and how best to manage mistakes etc. This week’s chat for me was exactly that. It showed me that I have a community of professionals (not just HR) to tap into and ask for advice.

Talking about making career mistakes is important. I think that is why LinkedIn ran a series on exactly this called “My Best Career Mistake”. If we aren’t prepared to talk about slip ups, stupid decisions and bad mistakes, how do we expect others to know how best to deal with a similar situation? Yes, we should all learn from our own mistakes but how much better would we cope if we knew that there were similar situations out there (even happening to experienced people!).

Some great advice I will be taking on board:

@sterling_amanda I learned that you need people around you who can help you build yourself up again. The human spirit is wonderful #nzlead

— Sukh Pabial (@sukhpabial) May 16, 2013

A2) to be more discerning about how I manage my own and other's expectations of my capacity #nzlead

— Perry Timms 🐦 (@PerryTimms) May 16, 2013

When your mistakes affect others, you just have to bite the bullet, admit what you've done, apologise and offer to help fix it #nzlead

— Alison Chisnell (@AlisonChisnell) May 16, 2013

https://twitter.com/FonesRussell/status/334934856490426370

There is so much more, we will have the storify up soon!

If you have some great advice, or learned some good techniques from your experiences share them here! We can all continue learning and we need to remember – it isn’t weak to talk about mistakes. It’s only weak if you never learn from them!

And we’ll leave you with this tweet from Mark who dislikes Cats (which some of us HR types talk about them too much):

I once brought a cat to work and everyone left #nzlead

— Mark Sumner (@MarkSumnerNZ) May 16, 2013

#NZLEAD PREVIEW: The Best Career Mistakes

LinkedIn has run a series of articles called “My Best Career Mistake”. There are a wide range of articles from top-level executives, entrepreneurs, etc who explain their best career mistakes and how it helped them in the future. This got me thinking about the recent discussion started over this little blog. It was written to compare two HR Professional bodies in two separate countries and is well worth a read.

My comment on this blog spiralled into a situation that I was quite nervous about. I was scared that my comment would hinder opportunities for me and, me being me, I over analysed the situation. I thought I would have to quit HR and start a new career (yes, I went to the extreme). I fronted up to my comment and backed it with the passion and determination I felt when I wrote it. For me, speaking out so soon in my HR career against the only professional body in our country was potentially my biggest career mistake, but I knew I did the right thing.

Fronting up to this comment was nerve-racking and took a lot of courage for me, considering I am only a short way into my HR career. I learned a lot about myself and learned that no matter what, we should back what we say especially if it is something that we are passionate about. The series of articles on LinkedIn and then my experience got me thinking; what have other HR Professionals done in their careers that ended up being their best mistake and being the best thing they did in their career?

Q1) What was your best career/HR mistake?

Q2) What did you learn from this mistake, how did this help you?

Q3) What kind of behaviours do you foster to make sure mistakes are encouraged/accepted?

Q4) What is the most important piece of advice you give when someone makes a mistake?

If you would like to share your experience in full, please comment on our #nzlead blog post here so we can learn more!