We’ve all been there. We make mistakes that might only lead to inconvenience or a little wasted time, or maybe its
impact leads to thousands upon thousands of dollars. How to deal with failure can change the outcome in the long run, and influence your long term success.
Let’s take a moment to examine the recent situation involving Toyota and their malfunctioning automobiles. Historically, Toyota has been know for, and built a brand on safety and reliability. It’s been the primary factor in their success in luring away customers from the American brands like Chevrolet and Ford. But then, the accelerator started sticking in some cars. There were reports of drivers crashing, flying out of control and not being able to slow down or stop. People panicked, and Toyota did too. They blamed the customer; top level management went strangely underground and weak promises of resolutions lacking substance were made by mid-managers. The entire situation destroyed any semblance of dedication to fixing the issue at any cost.
This should be an educational experience for both businesses and individuals. How you respond to failure or crisis changes our potential for long term success. If you’ve failed in some way, or are experiencing a crisis in your career, keep these points in mind.
Own it.
You’ve failed, it’s over now and the dust is starting to settle and everyone is looking at you. This is probably the most important action you can take. Stand up straight away and admit your momentary lapse in judgment. Tell people that you did indeed make the mistake and have a repentant attitude. Remember, part of what people want is just to know it wasn’t intentional and that you are truly sorry. They want to blame, but you take away the blame game, and own the mistake. In a company, this needs to be done as quickly as possible by the leader, the CEO of the company. Mr. Toyoda learned this lesson rather painfully this year.
Provide direction.
Now you have instilled some trust and shown character in your ownership and willingness to be accountable. Now provide some direction in how you’ll work towards resolution. Lay out your plan, and try as best you can to get the right people lined up with you to fix the problem, and make the outcome even better than originally expected. Show people you’re not done, you’ve learned a lesson and it’s time to drive it to completion and build back the trust. This might be trust from your boss or coworkers, or like our example, your customers who swore by your product for 10 years only to now consider buying a different car because of something they watched on the news.
Strap in.
That’s right, it’s going to be a grind. It’s time to examine everything to make sure that you understand where your decision making process broke down. Take the time to really dig into your thought process and information gathering processes. You have to help everyone understand the entire scenario that led to this failure or crisis, and how to avoid it moving forward. It’s time to think about how to avoid this in the future.
Don’t waste it!
You’ve heard the old saying, never waste a good crisis. This is so true. You have a newfound willingness to examine yourself and your broken habits and make positive changes. Now you have removed the blinders that were there from ego or refusal to make an introspective examination of yourself, and can really improve. Acknowledge this in yourself, and take advantage of it. Make positive change now, and watch people notice (they’re watching you).
Attack!
You can come out of this stronger than when it started. People will look at your differently because they’ll remember your strong character and willingness to be accountable not only for the bad decision, but the resolution. They’ll hold on to your leadership as things improve. If you are able to make things even better than they were supposed to be in the first place, that will carry even more weight. It’s time to get on the offensive now, start making up ground and moving forward. For Toyota, they need a structured plan of attack to reclaim market share, and lay claim to even more. You better believe Ford and Chevy are on a full on attack of Toyota and their market share, and if you think that your screw up won’t bring your own competition out of the wood work looking to drive down your individual market share in the office, you’re dead wrong.
It’s interesting how you can learn from the crisis in a global corporation and apply some of those same principals to your own reaction to failure in your life. Take care as these situations unfold, and carefully choose each next step. They will definitely have a significant impact on your success for years to come after the mistake. Let me know what you think about this. Have you had a major crisis in your life that you handled poorly, and learned from? Perhaps you handled one beautifully, and learned from that? I’d love to hear about it here in the form of a comment, or on Twitter at http://twitter.com/matt_schmitt/. Let’s connect today!
Matthew Schmitt
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