What happens when someone royally screws up?
July 24, 2008 by ShannonCherry
Filed under Business
Mistakes happen.
But when you’re starting your business, or running a small business, a small mistake can be costly.
Someone forgets to follow up – and there’s an angry customer emailing me. A major typo shows up in the headline of a press release.
Yup. Those are the kind of things that HAVE happened to me.
Do I fire staff? Only if it’s a pattern.
What I have them do is outline where the slip-up happened and then create a process or mechanism for it NOT to happen again.
Then I step in and apologize to the person(s) effected. After all, it’s ultimately my name of the letterhead, so it’s ultimately my responsibility. I fess up to the mistake, and explain what plan of action will be taking place to rectify it.
When dealing with it internally, I try not to react emotionally. (I even ask for a time-out to cool off before responding if it’s really a doozey!) And I use the opportunity to coach and help.
At times, I wonder if having a staff is worse the emotional toil it takes. But in the long run, I know it’s not a mistake at all!
Good points here. I have often found that the employee normally has very good ideas for preventing the problem again, even right from the get-go. I like to hire problem-solvers, so when someone *royally* screws up, they likely have already grown a new ulcer over how to keep it from happening again.
The balance you strike needs to be between enabling such behavior (by not clearly and absolutely addressing how royally this was a screw up) and over-correcting and micromanaging out of fear someone might make another mistake.
I would also recommend, when you take the blame, make sure the person(s) who made the mistake are closeby… don’t throw them under the bus, but let them hear you apologize for them, taking the heat and fessing up for things they did as if you did it yourself.
This will cement their realization that part of their job is to always be a representation of YOU and your BRAND, and their loyalty in you will grow exponentially!
The most effective person I ever worked for in my early days was one who would call me into his office, sit me down so we were eye to eye and tell me that “we” had a problem, and ask me what I thought could be done to fix it. No blame, no haranguing as other’s had done (I had another boss who used psychologically abusive tactics to totally wreck your self-esteem everytime anything happened no matter who was responsible).
This was far more motivating and effective in getting problems taken care of quickly. I never doubted that I was a part of a Team and was responsible for quality, too.
@DeBorah I am sure that person got more results and devotion from you because of their straight-to-the-pointed-ness.