A challenge has arisen.

A ball has been dropped.

A mistake has been made.

Something has not gone according to plan.

What is your response?

It’s really easy to succumb to fear, and respond from our fearful place. That can manifest in a variety of ways.

Frustration

Paralysis

Blaming

Control

Panic

I could go on. The point is those are all responses that are born out of our fears and insecurities about the future and how people perceive us. Please note, the us – we all manage those internal judges in our heads. What if there was a different way?

What if instead of letting panic control us in those moments, we centered ourselves and lead from a place of curiosity instead?

Here is the thing. In 99.5% of the cases, neither you nor your team planned for this outcome so chances are it wasn’t intentional. When you start there, it allows you to start by assuming the best of yourself and your team. That may seem like a small thing, but it impacts your tone and your demeanor and that is critical in crisis moments. Here is how that works.

• Try these steps.
  • Ball is dropped, error is made, something has not gone according to plan. BUT as a manager I know I have hired the best people, and I have trained them well so my first reaction is uh-oh something went wrong. What happened? How did it happen? How do I fix it? I start with questions not blame, not panic, not frustration. Well ok maybe a little frustration but I quickly catch myself because I know the talent I have on my team.
  • My next step is to thoughtfully approach my team. I want them to know that the error has occurred, but what I want most is for us to use this error as a learning opportunity. So I gather them, I share what happened – no blame assigned – and I ask what is the root cause. And that is what I focus on, the what, not the who. If someone tries to make it a who issue, I gently and firmly redirect them to the what. We will not play the blame game. We win as a team, we learn as a team, and we will never fail. When we can identify the root cause we can identify the steps we will need to take to prevent it from happening again and fix the current situation.
  • When the solution is identified, I ask them to put their creative problem solving hats on. Here are the questions we will ponder:
    • What can we do to fix this?
    • What resources do we need to fix this?
    • What is the cost/benefit analysis of fixing this?
    • What is the timeline on which we need to fix this?
  • Then we land on a decision. Maybe we decide it is urgent and we need to spend some of our capital, lean on our relationships, or give up some of our time to implement the solution. Or maybe we decide this is negligible enough that we can apologize for the error and spend our energy on preventing it from happening again.
  • What ever decision we land on, we will be sure to gather and monitor data to ensure that we don’t have to walk down this road again. If something isn’t working we will fix it quickly.

These steps increase productivity because it creates a safe space for team members because you led with curiosity. It allows them to flex their creativity and problem solving skill while working collaboratively. But the biggest thing it does for your team is teach them leadership skills because you modeled it for them. The next time they have a problem, they now have a model for how to approach it without wasting time on blame, stress or panic. A stressed team member is not a productive team member.

Of course if the error was a result of someone or some peoples’ actions, it has to be addressed. But do it privately. And take the same approach.

Be curious about what happened and how it happened.

Ask them to brainstorm with you some ways to fix it both now and in the future.

And let them know you will be monitoring to see how this works, now and in the future.

When you lead with empathy and curiosity errors can be an opportunity for you to grow your management and self-regulation skills, and an opportunity for you to model strong leadership for your team and invite their creativity to the office.

Talk back to me. Let me know if this works for you by commenting here or on our Instagram page.