While running errands before a family beach party, I got what I thought was a simple flat tire. Frustrating but fixable. AAA came quickly and I was sure that everything was about to get back on track easily. Except it wasn’t just a flat, it was two. So, I refocused and thought through what to do next. I needed a tow and a place that had an open slot and the right-sized tires to help me on a busy summer Saturday. I was on drink duty that afternoon and was scheduled to drive 500 miles back home in 3 days and less than a week after that, fly to a conference in yet another part of the country. With some anxious phone calls and long wait times, I got through to a place that could take me, not for 5 hours, but still a huge success in my mind.
The two new tires I needed quickly turned to four as one was bald and the other had a nail stuck in it. After the tires were installed, I was told that there was a lot of damage to the car that I would need to get fixed by a mechanic who quoted me $2500 to fix everything. To add insult to injury, it wouldn’t be ready for a week. That meant a serious reshuffle of so many things. I hung up the phone, cried, and then got out a pen and paper to work it all out.
Flights needed to be rearranged, added, and canceled. Appointments needed to be rescheduled. A car rental reservation needed to be made. Logistics, logistics, logistics. I’m still in the throes of it, but it looks like it’s all going to work out. Or maybe another proverbial wrench will get thrown into this already messy and expensive mix and I’ll have to readjust once again. And if that happens, I’ll deal with that too. What else can I do?
My mother kept remarking on how well I was dealing with it. And I kept saying that. What else can I do? I needed to get back home. I had committed to speak at the conference. My cat sitter couldn’t stay another day. I had to figure it all out.
My sister has five kids, one of whom needs special care. People say to her all the time, “I don’t know how you do it.” I have been with her many times when people have said this to her, and on one occasion, she turned to me after and said, “You just do it. What other choice do you have?” What else can you do?
It may seem this simple, but the truth is, how we react to a crisis and how we respond to a persistent challenging situation is a choice and we do not all choose the same response. The best people do. The best leaders do. Over and over and over again.
Early on in my management days, I had a really strong employee who dropped the ball on something big. The consequences were significant and costly and affected a lot of people. I was upset and wanted him to know it. I wasn’t focused on fixing anything or making anything right. I just wanted him to feel bad about it and know how much it negatively impacted me. I was selfish and immature. Thankfully, I had enough sense to ask my much wiser, much more empathetic colleague what to do, and I am so grateful that she was a stronger manager than I was. She told me to examine the big picture and not just that incident.
Was it part of a pattern or just a one-time mistake?
What needed to be done right now to fix it?
What lesson could be learned from it to prevent something similar from happening going forward?
Of course, she was absolutely right. This was a stellar employee who messed up once. He owned up to it, found a simple and effective way to fix what needed fixing in the moment, and during the thanks-to-my-colleague- conversation, identified what he would do differently going forward to prevent it from happening again.
I have not always chosen the intentional, thoughtful path when things go wrong. I still don’t, in my personal life or my professional one. Sometimes, when I am too annoyed or overwhelmed, I choose to be impatient and even rude. I focus on blame and become fixated on making sure everyone knows just how inconvenienced the situation has made me. On principle, I want people to know that I am right, and they are wrong. I lose sight of the goal of getting what I want, and my goal becomes making someone pay for not initially giving me what I want. It is self-defeating and only makes me angrier and, in most cases, still without what I initially wanted.
Too often I get stuck on wanting to know why something happened, and on the other side, too many people get stuck trying to explain away why something happened instead of either of us focusing on finding a solution. Instead, we go back and forth while the problem remains unsolved, waiting for someone to claim ownership.
Report after report after report finds that problem-solving and critical thinking are two of the most important skills for success in any position in any field. As a leader and as a leader looking for high-quality staff, it is essential that these two skills are at the forefront of your team. Being able to respond to a crisis in the moment and then after the fact taking the time to reflect on what went wrong and how to prevent it going forward are essential to high-quality team functioning. Too often, a problem needs to be solved while teams and the individuals on them are spending all their time and energy figuring out who to blame. Yes, accountability matters, but in most cases, the priority is fixing what needs fixing before digging into the details of why it needs to be fixed.
As a leader, you set the tone for your team. When you make a mistake and take accountability, you show your team how to do it. When you focus on the solution, you show your team the priority. When you adjust and do it better the next time, you demonstrate how to react. Further, you determine the role of mistakes on your team. There is a balance here like in most things, where mistakes are necessary for growth and learning and you don’t want people making the same mistakes over and over again. But if you expect a mistake-free environment, you will only end up with people who will hide the mistakes they will inevitably make.
Mistakes happen all the time. Sometimes they are our fault and sometimes others are to blame. Sometimes they are within our control and sometimes they are outside of it. Sometimes their consequences are insignificant and other times they are huge. Each one is its own one and needs to be dealt with accordingly. As a leader, it is important that you adjust and react accordingly. Treating every mistake like a catastrophe or treating every mistake as if it doesn’t matter are both harmful. Instead, treating a mistake as what it is with a plan for remedy and growth is the most effective way to move forward.
I don’t know what caused the disaster with my car and there is nothing I know to do differently to prevent it from happening again. Instead, I need to focus on fixing the problem. In the case of my employee, I know exactly how wrong my initial impulse was in my initial plan to approach the situation, and now I know better how to do it going forward. Each mistake is its own thing and should be treated as such.
As you continue to grow as a team leader and support your team in growing, how will you more effectively use mistakes to that end? How will you determine who is a strong problem solver during your hiring process? How will you demonstrate accountability when you are the one who messes up? How will you focus on the solving part of the problem-solving process before all else and encourage your staff to do the same?
