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Do you handle mistakes as an opportunity
to coach your employees? That’s an easy question to ask but a hard
thing to do when bad news reaches you. In the heat of battle, a more
typical response is to make a sarcastic comment, yell your head off,
or go huffing off in frustration. But how you handle mistakes is a key
measure of your leadership maturity.
Employees watch what you say and do when
you are under stress, and they use that as the real barometer of who
you really are and what you really think. For example, one leader I
know preaches teamwork and family atmosphere but when it hits the fan,
she retreats to her office and avoids the team. Then she starts
pulling her trusted advisors into her office, one at a time, to talk
the situation over. There is no team discussion and the rest of the
“family members” feel disenfranchised and resentful. This leader
doesn’t realize she is creating a family atmosphere, all right—a
dysfunctional family…the trusted versus the untrusted.
Then there is the happy-go-lucky leader,
who has a sarcastic sense of humor and a funny nickname for everyone
in the office…until a mistake is made, that is. The velvet glove
comes off the knife and it goes right to the heart of anyone who
screws up. Cursing, name calling and throwing things, tells everyone
exactly what is under this happy veneer. As a result, most employees
try to kid with him, get on his good side and generally avoid his
wrath. They hide mistakes, and often don’t give him advanced warning
on a big problem, in the hopes they can fix it before he finds out.
The bottom line is that no one purposely
screws up. They have good intentions. They feel horrible about the
mistake…so why would you blame someone for something they didn’t
do intentionally? (Of course, if the mistakes are constant, you have
to ask yourself, “Is she careless, or is she missing some
information or training?”)
So what is the right approach? If your
first reaction is anger, and your pattern is to make comments you
regret later, your best response is to say nothing—at least until
you cool off. And if you blast the person in front of others, you
have multiplied the damage. You may think you are whipping them into
shape but what is really happening is you are showing them you are a
bully to be feared. Few people perform well for a bully, instead:
- Focus immediately on asking the person
what they are going to do to fix the problem.
- Empower the person to fix the problem
instead of doing it for him or her.
- Then follow up to make sure it’s
fixed.
For example, a few years ago, I was
coaching a manager in the Underwriting Department of an insurance
company. He thought he was providing great customer service to the
agents who worked in his region. When they called to rant about a
decision an underwriter made on a case, he marched right over to the
underwriter, researched the case and then called the underwriter back
with a decision; and most of the time the underwriter made the right
one. The problem was that the underwriter now felt undermined and
embarrassed. When he switched his approach, he still solved the
problem but preserved the underwriter/agent relationship, and even
strengthened the underwriter’s credibility. How? He simply told the
agent that he would look into the issue and have the underwriter call
him back.
Then the manager reviewed the case with
the underwriter, shared his perspective, and when in doubt sided with
the underwriter (who had a lot more history and data, in most cases).
Putting the underwriter in charge of following up with the agent made
a huge difference. Even if the decision was reversed, the underwriter
could say, “After I reviewed the data you submitted, I can see your
point,” which is far better than, “My boss reviewed this and
changed the decision.”
Once you have cooled down, and the problem
is fixed, you are wise if you circle back to the employee and say,
“I know you feel badly about this—and obviously you didn’t do
this on purpose—so what can we do to make sure this doesn’t happen
again?” By switching into problem-solving mode with the
employee—and acknowledging it wasn’t intentional-- he or she can
stop kicking themselves and switch into prevention mode. This is a
much healthier place to be, than in guilt mode. And this is where you
win the respect and loyalty of your employee, because he or she wants
to learn from this and never make this mistake again.
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