When things don’t go according to plan, do you react to respond?
Whether in the corporate world or startup world, if there’s one thing common it’s that things don’t always go according to plan and they don’t always work the way we want them to work
What matters most in these cases is whether we react or respond to these situations. Having been in both startups and corporate life I have come across two types of situations -
When people react and blame someone and try to find scapegoats!
In these situations people often start asking who’s fault or mistake this was and start to think how can they palm off the responsibility to someone else.
When it’s the corporate workplace, it’s commonly known as covering your ass and making sure someone else takes the fall for this.
This is what prevents innovation in the corporate workplace because no one wants to make or accept mistakes. No one wants to try things out and then fail because failure is looked down upon.
When it’s the startup world — it could be a boardroom or a team meeting where someone shoots their hand up and says you should have listened to me and I told you so.
Phrases like these are common —
You should listen to the experts.
You are not the right person for this job.
You are not qualified for this and we need to get an expert so we can get this done properly.
What’s worth noting is that in these situations instead of focusing on the issue at hand, personal attacks at people are being made.
Some people also take this opportunity to undermine their colleagues or team members and feel good about themselves.
In these situations everyone gets defensive and rather then accepting the mistakes and learning from them, it’s common for people to start defending their decisions which is equally bad since they are now reacting rather than responding to the situation.
While it is difficult, rather than taking the attack personally, people should try and channel it back to the problem. Responses could go along the lines of —
I accepts this is my mistake — let’s focus on how we can fix this and how can we make this better.
I understand your point of view but let’s focus on the issue at hand.
The other situation is when people respond to the situation.
In these situations people ask questions like —
What have we learned from this?
How can we do this better?
What went wrong and what else can we try?
In these situations people are attacking the problem and responding to the situation.
This sends positive energy across the room and motivates the team to do better. It gives the team confidence to go out and make new mistakes and fix old ones.
Making mistakes is not looked down upon but assumed to be part of the innovation process.
It’s unfortunate that, there are more situations where people react rather than respond.
