To err is human — but you might not know it in the age of the “Lean In”-style superwoman.
So notes Jessica Bacal, editor of “Mistakes I Made at Work,” out April 29, a compilation of the worst at-work moments as told by 25 influential women in various fields, including banking, medicine and media.
Bacal, the director of the Wurtele Center for Work and Life at Smith College, hopes the tome will change the discourse on female advancement to include the idea that missteps are a natural part of a career.
“There’s a lot of talk about encouraging women to lean in and take risks, and there’s a lot of hand-wringing in the media about young women and perfectionism,” she says.
“Influential people made really big screw-ups, and they bounced back,” she adds. “It’s not the end of your career.”
Here, we highlight some of the women’s most memorable mistakes — and the lessons they learned from them.
Don’t fake it
A director emeritus at McKinsey & Company, Joanna Barsh has ascended to the highest ranks of her field. But her first job was far from promising: As a business neophyte in 1980, Barsh became so frustrated with building an algorithm to make sense of a client’s ad-revenue data that she ultimately gave up and fudged the numbers.
The resulting presentation ended up wowing her clients — so much so that a colleague inquired how she did it, and Barsh was forced to fess up.
“I was burning with shame — it was as if I had killed somebody,” she writes of being caught.
Barsh says the experience not only taught her the importance of professional integrity but propelled her toward a scrupulousness that served her well over her 30-plus-year career.
“I became the partner who intuitively found the flaw in the model, the mistake in the spreadsheet and the weak assumption,” she writes.
Fight for your worth
When financial journalist Alina Tugend accepted her first reporting job in the late 1980s, she was so thrilled that she didn’t negotiate her rate. Two years later, she came across her colleagues’ salaries — and realized she was the lowest paid.
“I felt betrayed — and foolish,” says Tugend in the book. She soon found a higher-paying gig after her employer folded. “It was the beginning of a long learning curve about fighting for what I was worth.”
Decades later, Tugend still sometimes battles the fear of “overselling” herself, but she’s learned a crucial lesson: It never hurts to ask.
“The conversation doesn’t have to be dramatic,” writes Tugend, who suggests avoiding apologetic prefaces. “The worst that can happen is getting a no.”
Don’t go it alone
As a young investment banker at Morgan Stanley in the late 1980s, Carla Harris fought hard for her first opportunity to price a transaction. But Harris — now a managing director at the firm — didn’t yet understand the nuances. Her solution? She simply followed the lead of the co-worker who’d priced the deal before her — to semi-disastrous effect.
“It was a costly mistake,” writes Harris. “I felt terrible.”
But instead of wallowing, she formally acknowledged her misstep with her colleagues and managers. And she never again shied away from seeking help.
“Often we don’t want to ask for help because we don’t want to be exposed as unknowledgeable,” she explains in the book. “That day I learned that if you don’t know, you need to ask.”
Go for grace under fire
For Rinku Sen, a thick-skinned persistence has been central to her success as a racial-justice activist. But in the early days of her career, that attitude got in the way of accepting negative professional feedback with grace.
As a co-director of Third World Organizing in 1990, Sen recalls rashly dismissing an intern who expressed disappointment in Sen’s mentorship skills.
“My immediate reaction was to react defensively,” writes Sen.
But with time and maturity, Sen learned that “taking a ‘screw that’ attitude doesn’t allow for growth.” Instead, she’s made a practice of taking a break to assess the situation and determine how she might have been in the wrong.
“We often think everything has to happen right now, especially when we’re churned up emotionally,” she says in the book, “but it doesn’t.”
Get a second opinion
Dr. Danielle Ofri, a Bellevue internist and professor at NYU School of Medicine, will never forget the first cardiac-arrest patient that came into the ICU when she was serving as the on-call medical consult. A third-year resident at the time, Ofri was so anxious about making a wrong move that she found herself paralyzed with indecision as she attempted to read the man’s EKG.
Ofri writes she “stood there debating with myself, frozen, too afraid to say anything.” Finally, the cardiology fellow barreled in and declared it was, indeed, what Ofri thought — hyperkalemia.
“Instead of being the captain of the ship, I’d cowered,” writes Ofri. “Someone else had come and done it for me — and meanwhile I’d been right all along.”
The experience stuck with Ofri for years — and ultimately shaped the way she makes medical decisions.
“Whether you’re the medical consult or in any leadership role, there’s no reason why you can’t seek support,” she explains in “Mistakes I Made at Work,” adding, “You’re almost never alone at the helm of a ship.”