It Happens.

This was a good one for the office. By the time I left for lunch 5 people had stopped in my office door, pointed at the board, smiled and said “Yes it does.”

Let’s face it, if people are involved, ridiculous, unexplainable things are going to happen. Do we take actions to prevent them? Yes. Are people infallible? No. Thus, stuff is going to happen. At this point the crux of the situation begins. What do you do when it happens? The way I see it there are a few options I will outline below:

1. Seek & Destroy: back track to the root of the problem, identify the person who started the avalanche and throw them to the wolves.
2. Move on: it doesn’t matter what happened yesterday, just deal with today and the future.
3. Live & Learn: Analyze where the process went wrong, note it for future use and come up with a corrective action plan
4. Blame “Them” : Use logic that the business “they” that make decisions don’t know what they are doing and therefore handicap your ability to do your job properly.

Each of these options have different outcomes for you and your business or life. While I would encourage you to spend most of your time with number three, Live and Learn. For each of you there may be reasons you choose any one of these 4 responses to it. Whatever you choose, this is how I see each of these solutions working out for you.

Seek & Destroy: Really hurts you too. The hope when deploying this tactic is to distract the attention off of you and onto the poor hapless soul that may have inadvertently kicked off an avalanche of issues. There were probably several opportunities to correct the issue that went un-noticed by several other individuals. However, our natural instincts for survival kick in and we track a problem back to the first person to make a less than exact decision and claim them the dastardly employee that planned to sabotage the whole thing from the beginning. All this really does is point out how poorly you as a leader monitored the details of the activity and that you are not willing to own your part in an issue with you and your team’s work. What does that say about you as a person or as a leader? Does this instill trust in your team members or your family & friends if this is something in your personal life? Personal accountability breeds global accountability.

Move on: While in principle is a good idea, if you don’t learn from your mistakes you are very likely going to repeat them. Accountability comes into play here as well. Your team/community wonder whether you even care if a job is well done. Is there even a reason to try and do it right if we as a group will just move forward regardless of what work product is produced. Do you want to hitch your wagon to someone who doesn’t analyze the outcome to strive for continued better results?

Blame “Them”: This is my personal favorite of the blunders. If all else fails the greater “they” of leadership is always to blame. They are too disconnected. They don’t know what it’s like for those of us “doing the work.” I am sorry to say this to those of you that live here, but you have a job because these leaders are deciding the future and direction of our business. While they may ask for your input they are in the positions they are in because they worked for it. Our jobs are to be stewards of the business and its direction. Get in the boat and row with the team or find a different place to work. Is it nice to agree with every decision your employer makes regarding the business? Yes. Do you have the privilege of know everything there is to know in order to make the right decision? No. Do “They”? Probably more likely than you. All this to say, be a good steward, understand your role in the organization, put the businesses best interest before your own and you will likely win in the end. I am not saying you should be a mindless robot at work, but use your skills and intelligence to improve the business and your role and compensation will likely improve correspondingly.

Live & learn: This is the best course of action. People are going to make mistakes. Sometimes whole teams will miss something that is seemingly obvious. Business moves quickly and even with the best of preparationit can happen. Go back and determine how you got there. Make notes on how to prevent it in the future and move forward. When the next opportunity presents itself implement the previous learning into this new opportunity. You can’t predict the future, you can only learn and move forward. Blame isn’t going to help you get anywhere, even if it does make you feel self-righteous to say it wasn’t your fault. This plays much better with a team and with leadership. It is a rare time that leaders are looking for a scape goat. Understanding this will help you in the long run as well.

Your personal life probably doesn’t play a whole lot differently than I describe above. I could have used any number of personal examples and said the same thing. Have some respect for the fact that people are gonna make mistakes, nature will take its course, eventually you will trip on nothing and fall on your face. The real question is, how are you going to respond when it does happen?