In April, I attended an advertising workshop in Toronto with some marketing people. One of the girls in my group made a really interesting observation that's all too true. Her dad is South American and upon relocating to Canada, one of the first things he noticed in the workplace and in life in general is that nobody ever wants to admit when they've done something wrong.

Canadians do NOT want to take the blame for ANYTHING. I think he's 100% right. I don't know if it's a cultural thing, or a pacifist thing, but one thing is for sure: we don't want to admit when we've screwed up or made a mistake, even though we all do it, many of us effin' things up on a daily basis. Why??

"To err is human", but you wouldn't think so. In my area of work, there's a pretty high degree of being on the ball required. You are dealing with clients' budgets, brand, and reputation 24/7. That being said, even the most on-the-ball, organized, perfectionist can easily make an error: the wrong deadline gets passed along, the wrong specs are provided, the wrong logo is sent through, WHATEVER.

We all do it. Today I realized I had sent the wrong version of an ad to my client for feedback. Not a terribly earth-shattering deal--we had the correct ad on file, and it was just a matter of sending it along when the mistake was pointed out--but I felt horrible about it for about half the day. I worried that I looked like an incompetent idiot and I scolded myself for hours for making such a dumb error. And I found myself trying to rationalize why I'd sent the wrong PDF. "It's because it was end of day and I was trying to get it out the door before 5:00." "I didn't get the right version from creative." "The file name wasn't changed."

Then I had to give my head a shake.

It was a mistake, plain and simple. Whose fault was it? Mine. I didn't check the file before I sent the email. I was in a rush. Live and learn. At the end of the day the client was happy with the final product and the proper version got delivered to the publication. And now, I have a mental note to always double-check my attachments before hitting send. A simple "I'm sorry. I sent you the wrong PDF. Please have a look at this version instead" is all that was required to diffuse the situation. This is advertising, not brain surgery. No one is going to die because the wrong file gets sent through. Was it worth agonizing over all morning? No way! Why is it so hard to be OK with making a mistake and move on?

This sort of thing happens with projects all the time and people's first reaction is always to identify who screwed up, where something went wrong. Why do we gravitate toward who or what caused the mixup rather than focusing on how to remedy the issue first? Why doesn't anyone take ownership for the mistake?

Nobody wants to be known as the klutz or the scatterbrain or the person who doesn't have their shit together, but I think that acknowledging your mess-ups can go a long way in people's perceptions of you. If you can take ownership and work quickly to fix the problem, that shows initiative and trustworthiness, honesty that is valued and not necessarily in abundance these days, it seems. What's more important: providing solutions or pointing fingers?