Admitting Mistakes
I spoke to a senior executive this week who said he had been dragged over the coals during a performance review, simply because he had initiated an open and honest discussion with his superiors about where he had fallen short in his goals and why. The intention of that discussion was great—to learn and figure out how to improve—but the impact, from his perspective, was simply punishment. His key learning is that he will never do that again. The story leaves me thinking about a couple of things.
First, I am reminded by stories like these that all the good ideas, scintillating management tips, and “good to great” ideas that are out there can never be applied “context-free.” When the rubber meets the road, it’s you, your boss, your organization, your particular time in history, etc, and those factors may end up trumping the objectively good advice. I remember once teaching conflict resolution skills to some employees who told me, after the session, that while they liked the concepts and were planning on applying them in their personal life, if they used that language with their supervisors (harmless “I” statements from my perspective), they would end up with weeks of unpaid “administrative” leave. Just because it’s a good idea, doesn’t mean you should actually do it.
But the other piece of that story that is critical, in my opinion, gets to the heart of “performance” reviews. As much as “measurable” goals seems like a good idea, I am not sure that typical organizational measures (goals from a strategic plan) are the best way to actually measure the performance of senior leadership. In this case, the executive was dinged because he didn’t meet the goals. Yet his behavior of admitting it and actively exploring what to do about it is perfect leadership behavior—the kind you’d like to keep around, wouldn’t you say? Where would that be captured?
Jeffrey Pfeffer writes in Business 2.0 this month that the crisis with corporate CEOs making tons of money while their companies do poorly is actually not such a big deal. When the company is doing poorly, isn’t that the time when you pay to keep a good leader? What is the best way to measure the performance of a leader?
Wow. Talk about your (lack of) learning organization. With any dialogue on measurement, there has to be a learning component built in that moves the employee forward. And there has to be an understanding of what a mistake really is. Some time ago, I wrote that rather than viewing a mistake as a negative error or defective judgement, it should be considered as a result that deviates from an expected or desired outcome and encourages new insights.
I feel for the executive you spoke to. For a leader who is courageous enough to admit his errors and look for ways to improve, there are other organizations and career opportunities out there. Hopefully, the big learning was just how dysfunctional his current org is and how to move on.
Thanks for the comment Chris! I like the bundling of learning and measurement. That would be a good criteria to have in mind when coming up with measurements in many different contexts.
I would challenge, however, the notion that this person necessarily needs to “move on” based on what happened. That may be the best choice, of course (as my conflict resolution professor once said, all conflict is about relationship, but remember: divorce is still a relationship), but I get nervous when people jump to that conclusion. I see people do that a lot with a “problem” employee (“talk to your lawyer and start termination procedures”), only to find the problem shows up in a new employee later on. The same could be the case for the executive that jumps ship to a different organization with different problems. Again, you’re right–this person needs to evaluate what it means that his superiors acted that way. But there’s probably room for a decent conversation about it.