Three biggest mistakes I made – over and over again.

I’m always talking about learning from your mistakes and I constantly talk about learning from the mistakes of others. So, it may come as a bit of a surprise that there are three mistakes I made, over and over again and that I still have to guard myself against.

There are way more than three that I have to watch out for but these three are definitely on my “be on the lookout” radar.

1) focusing on the results at the exclusion of the consequences.
2) not counting to 10
3) trying to win instead of trying to get agreement

Focusing on the results at the exclusion of the consequences

This is a pretty common one and I see it a lot in others. This is a “Damn the torpedoes, full speed aheadi” attitude that makes people (me included) have tunnel vision on achieving something without worrying about the damage or destruction along the way. It’s a “make it happen” at any cost type mentality.

Some might say that that approach is necessary to achieve any kind of success. And, there are good arguments in favor of that. My personal learning on the other hand says that there are times when cultivating and nurturing relationships along the way may be more important than the end goal.

Here’s an example. At one point in my career, I was responsible for building a customer service mentality in a very old, set in their ways, organization. I was tasked with building the infrastructure and culture where customer needs come first. There were several challenges that came with, or opposed this task. First, the employees, who’s average tenure was 25 years, were not especially keen on doing things any differently. Second, there were financial objectives that imposed serious staff reductions in the process. Finally, the executive management team (again – long tenure) had no idea what putting the customer first meant – they just knew customers were unhappy and complaining and they wanted it to stop.

My mistake (aside from agreeing to take this on in the first place) was to focus on the goal – create exceptional customer service while decreasing costs – and ignore the collateral damage. People were going to lose friends they had worked with for 25 years. Senior managers’ comfortable roles would be redefined. And, most importantly, customers would have a voice in how we operated. The status quo was not an option. In the end, I achieved my assigned goal of consolidating the customer service functionality (from a distributed – everyone doing their own thing to a central service center) while reducing costs. In the process, the average seniority of the customer service team went from 25 years to 2 years. There was a huge gap in institutional knowledge but the new team was eager and up to the challenge.

Along the way though, I made no friends. My task was to introduce organizational change in a stoic organization that had remained inflexible and unchanged for most of it’s 100 year history. I bulldozed my changes through because I saw no other way.

Having to do that over again, I would do one thing differently. I would take the time to assess the fallout, the collateral damage, and do everything in my power to make that a better experience.

When looking at an almost impossible task, my first tendency is still to bulldoze my way through but, if I take the time to think it through, I know the importance of building allies along the way to support the initiative and help achieve the goal.

Not Counting to 10

This might be my biggest vice. I’m a “fly by the seat of my pants” kind of guy. I make decisions quickly and take action quickly to put things to bed and move on to the next challenge.

Unfortunately, that means I sometimes take action without fully considering the consequences. Hmmm, I’m sensing a theme there.

When reacting negatively to something that I believe is, for lack of better work, stupid, I’ve learned to take a moment, do something else first then take appropriate action as unemotionally as possible. One thing I’ve taught myself to do, especially with email is to check my objective. What behavior or reaction do I want to elicit at the other end. If I find I am backing the other person into a corner or if I am likely to force them to take a defensive position, I wait. Sometimes one day, sometimes more.

I remember one time when I was a relatively junior manager, one of the people on my team complained through email to a very senior executive in the organization about his poor experience with one to the companies services. He apparently went though the annual report and found the senior most executive who’s accountability it was for this particular injustice and let him have it –he went straight to the top.

This executive, now one of my all time favorite leaders, was non-phased. He was polite and simply made me aware of the email. He responded to the employee with sympathy and outlined things that caused the service issue and what was being done to correct it and reduce the probability of a re-occurrence in the future.

Me, on the other hand, I was not so polite. I saw red, both at the breach of protocol and at the insensitivity with regards to this person’s chosen path. This person was 3 levels below me in the organizational chart and I, quite inappropriately, let them know that. I was out for blood. I should have handled it much better and I know that today I would. I’d “count to 10” figure out how to save the person and help them understand the big picture consequence of taking the route they did. Today, I believe I’d be able to turn that person into a supporter, rather than a scornful rebel. Lesson learned.

Trying to Win Instead of Trying to Get Agreement

This one is more about being right and winning instead of letting the walls down, not digging in and looking for the best solution.

I’ve had the luxury of a career that has created a ton of breadth of experience. As a result, it’s often easier for me than for others to understand how the consequences of decisions affect other areas of the business. For instance, a certain piece of software might be the perfect solution for sales while at the same time, it may present obstacles to fulfillment or operations.

The error I’ve made time and time again is pushing for the solution I know fits the big picture and is, in my mind, the best solution without taking the time to fully explain or help others understand why that is the best solution.

What I’ve come to learn by taking the time to listen carefully to all the objections and focusing on ensuring everyone understands. Sometimes (actually – often), in trying to explain things to others and taking the time to allow them to fully articulate their concerns, I find out that there may actually be compromise or alternate solutions that are overall better than the direction I was going.

I could have focused on the win and it may have been perfectly fine but, it would not have had the support of others and, it may indeed not have been the overall all-things-considered, best decision.

Getting agreement, even if it means you have to back down and accept what might on the surface be a less desirable solution, may in fact be the best long term solution.