Upset Businessman Reacting to Failure while Standing Outside Office
One of the toughest questions I get as a mentor to business leaders and professionals is how to handle and communicate bad news and failures to employees and other constituents. The concern is exposing business weaknesses and losing the confidence which you have worked so hard to build. In my experience, the simple answer is always to be forthright, ethical, and honest.
I believe that facing these realities and overcoming weaknesses requires the simple answer in building and maintaining reliable feedback loops from within your team, outside stakeholders, and customers. For both you and your business, trust is the key element in long-term success, for without it, transactions cannot occur, influence is destroyed, and leaders can lose team support.
I found this message amplified and solidified with detailed real-life examples in a new book, The Ethical Imperative, by Andrew C. M. Cooper. Mr. Cooper is an experienced Fortune 500 executive, attorney, lecturer, writer, and board director offering guidance on leading with conscience to overcome the rising threat of public apathy towards business leadership globally.
Overcoming apathy and other challenges requires feedback loops, which must be a part of every organization and team’s process and procedures. Both he and I recommend the following strategies for managing feedback loops, communicating with all stakeholders, and handling the challenges and business failures we see all too often in today’s chaotic business world:
1. Don’t deny or minimize bad news and the associated pain. While not overtly acknowledging a failure may minimize your own discomfort, it only further misaligns your position from the very people you need in your feedback loop. Employees need to feel comfortable sharing their thoughts, experiences, and ideas without fear of retaliation.
2. Be honest about the cause, and its impact on real people. For meaningful feedback, you need to show that you understand the failure and what is being experienced by customers and employees. It also encourages the team to look beyond the surface issues and really work to strengthen systemic processes that may prevent future failures.
3. Offer a heartfelt and empathetic apology for failure. Half-hearted apologies often come across as damage-control attempts that may seem to allow you to move on without really taking responsibility for the problem or for fixing anything. It also is extremely refreshing and helps mend any broken trust with team members and customers.
4. Commit to finding and fixing the root cause of the problem. Aggressively and transparently outlining your strategy and plan to fix a problem’s root cause will demonstrate resiliency of the organization, boost productivity, improve employee morale, and restore trust with stakeholders. Follow through by overhauling internal procedures.
5. Detail a plan refined by employees to avoid future failures. This is the best way to learn from a problem or failure. Asking employees to refine your plan changes problems into inspiring challenges that you can solve together with your team, rebuild morale, and give consideration to criticisms from stakeholders inside and outside the business.
In this age of more socially-conscious customers and total communication via the Internet, we all need to move our businesses and focus beyond the archaic profit-centric culture that has driven traditional business leaders. The strategies outlined here work well in this new world, independent of the type of challenges you are now facing, so start preparing and practicing today.
Essentially, what Cooper and I both recommend here is moving your business decision-making and organizational culture to deliver a more human and compassionate model of commerce. That will open up many new opportunities, as well as mitigate the growing number of challenges raised by your constituency.
We all would like to spend more time on the positives of business rather than fixing problems and failures.