ABSTRACT
This chapter explores the experience of making a mistake from the point of view of a range of professionals including social workers, teachers, solicitors and human resources (HR) managers. V. J. Marsick and K. Watkins classified such workplace learning as informal, where learning is mainly experiential and is often not planned and incidental, where learning is unintentional, the by-product of another activity. People rarely talk about their professional mistakes in public, yet there may be much to learn from these events from the point of view of the individuals themselves and their development and from the perspective of their organisations. The chapter focuses on the impact of the mistakes on the individuals concerned; their feelings, attitudes and behaviour both at the time of the mistake and in retrospect. It concludes that the experience is different for men and women and that this has major implications for the management and development of people at work.
