Page 196 - Roy W. Rice - CEO Material How to Be a Leader in Any Organization-McGraw-Hill (2009)
P. 196

You Are Willing to Make Mistakes • 177


                  was a success. Others with a different risk tolerance were envious of
                  my outcome and labeled me as a renegade, a cowboy who got lucky.
                  They were jealous of my success.


             Admit the Mistakes and Fix Them


             Everyone makes mistakes; not everyone lives up to them. (It shows
             character either way you choose to take.) Embrace the mistake by pri-
             vately analyzing how it happened and maybe even publicly explaining the
             circumstances. It’s all about how you deal with it.
                  Apologize (if appropriate). Don’t overapologize; it weakens you, dis-
             plays insecurity, begs for affirmation, and makes the other person com-
             pelled to make you feel good by saying, “Oh no, it’s not that bad.”
             Overdoing anything takes away its effectiveness and just gives your
             competitors something to rally around.
                  Recognize, correct, and don’t repeat. Talk about your mistakes in a
             free and open exchange to diminish any additional fallout.
                  If you make a mistake, don’t make it permanent. Fix it.

                  When things don’t turn out the way you wanted, I say, “That’s okay.
                  Now tell me what you learned.” Sometimes I promote mistakes just
                  so people have the opportunity to learn. It’s also a way to root out
                  dishonest ones—those who won’t admit mistakes. Because people
                  who don’t make mistakes are lying—they are just covering up the
                  ones they made.

                                             ƒ

                  On average, only 2 out of 10 projects I work on result in a home run.
                  Privately analyze a mistake yourself to avoid repeating it: “What were
             the cycle of events that led up to it?” “Where did I fail to prepare?” “What
             ability/skill did I lack?” “When did I sense a problem?” “What did or didn’t
             I do and should have?” “How will I handle this differently in the future?”
                  On the major networks, new series come out every fall. The indus-
             try standard is 10 failures for every one success. So the network execu-
             tives study the flop and ask, “Why did viewers not like . . . ? Why did they
             like . . . ? Why did we fail?”
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