Ouch! If you were a
Denver fan that one hurt. In case you
were under a rock I’m sure that most of you saw the Seahawks beat destroy
annihilate the Denver Broncos last night.
It was ugly and the kind of game that would scar an ego even had it not
been at the Super bowl. However, the
fact that it was on the biggest stage in the nation must amplify that pain even
more. In fact, the only thing more
painful would have been a Bill Buckner style gaffe to end the game.
 |
| First of all this isn't real - but its still funny and it isn't as bad as the Broncos were last night (almost) |
The good news is that most of these guys will be just fine
from a career perspective. However, it
got me thinking about the rest of us and how we deal with failure in our
career. Before we go any further let’s
get something out of the way. It is a
foregone conclusion that you will fail at something in your career and you will
probably do it multiple times. There are
so many ways you can fail – you can make a mistake, you can simply just not be
as good as the other guy (see Denver Broncos), you can make a bad ethical
decision. The good thing is that since
everyone does this from time to time, it isn’t the end of the world. However, how you deal with mistakes can
be. Below are three tips for dealing
with failure. Happy Reading!
1. Don’t cover it up!
Richard Nixon didn't resign because three low level guys
broke into some hotel one night. He got
in trouble because once he knew about it he hid it and then kept hiding it even
when people knew he was lying about knowing about it. There are three universal truths about
mistakes. First, mistakes get
exponentially harder to fix the longer you take to address them. Secondly, the first assumption an outside
party makes about a hidden mistake is that it is done out of self-preservation
and deceit. Finally, if you try to cover up a mistake most
people assume that there is more to the story that you are hiding – simply put
they believe you did it on purpose, are a bad person and you must have done
more bad things. So covering up a mistake
in most cases makes it harder to solve the problem and makes people not trust you. This isn’t good.
2. Own it!
So if people find covering things up distrustful then the opposite
must be true as well. People like it if
you own a mistake and apologize. This
isn't a political blog but I’m going to use the current Chris Christie Scandal
as an example here. If you don’t know
about the Chris Christie Scandal then you probably aren’t reading this blog as
you probably didn't watch the Super bowl as well. (For the uninformed, Chris
Christie, Governor of New Jersey, had someone in his administration close down
lanes of the busiest highway in the world in New Jersey. The prevailing thought is that it was done as
an act of political retribution) Here’s the deal, I personally don’t believe
that Christie had knowledge of the closures.
However, it doesn’t really matter
if he did or didn't, it happened on his watch and he bears some
responsibility. The real issue here is
that it turned into a scandal because he denied that it occurred and blamed
others. I believe that if he had taken
ownership and apologized this would be absolutely nothing.
So, back to your career.
When you make a mistake the best course of action comes in three parts:
1. Admit it
2. Apologize
3. Offer a solution and ask for help
Honestly ,you just need to take your medicine and get it
over with. One caveat here – doing this
won’t necessarily shield you from negative consequences but it might lessen the
impact. You might lose your job instead
of going to jail or just get written up.
However, you will be in a better spot.
3. Learn from it!
This might sound a little hokey but I once had a coach that
was full of colloquialisms. His two best
were:
-There are no mistakes
if you learn from them
This isn't true from a literal standpoint. Mistakes are still mistakes and they can cost
you dearly even if you take something away from it. However, if you learn from the mistake and
end up in a better place from a long term perspective then from a purely
utilitarian standpoint you could say it wasn’t a mistake. A better way to say it might be that that the
detrimental value of mistakes are lessened if you learn from them.
-I don’t care if you
make a mistake as long as you are going 110%
Again – not really possible as you can’t expend more than
100% of your energy. However, what he
meant here is twofold. First, don’t live
your life afraid of making mistakes as this limits you. Second, intent does matter. If you are trying to do the right thing and
end up doing the wrong thing, things will probably be OK as long as you handle
things correctly.
So, I guess the point I’m getting at is that when you make a
mistake you have two divergent paths you can take. You can be angry, depressed or some other
emotion and let the mistake dictate your path.
Or you can learn from the mistake and learn to do better in the future. It’s your choice.
That’s all I've got!
As always please feel free to leave comments or email me at sthompson@insurance-csg.com!
Thanks!
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