Seth Godin’s blog is my go to place to catalyze my own thoughts.
Mistakes tend to happen. After all, it’s one of life’s best teachers. We often forget the importance of this lesson. How we recover from the struggle separate the best from the worst versions of ourselves. Seth’s thoughts on this concept can apply to any situation, any relationship.
After the hiccup
Most customer relationships don’t stumble because something went wrong. Your best customers know that mistakes happen.It’s what happens next that can cripple the relationship.
How we recover from a miss is where the possibilities lie. If you’re open, engaged and focused on making things better, the door is open to build a resilient, ongoing partnership. Not just for customers, but for all the people we work with and count on.
Too often, we’re so focused on not hiccuping, or so filled with shame and blame when we do that we fail to allocate enough emotional labor to do the most important part–making things right. Not with a refund or a basket of fruit, but by truly seeing the other person, understanding what happened and doing the hard work to move forward.
Now, what?
Emotional labor means we must embrace discomfort, hold it close and deal with it before involving someone else.
With me, my cycle follows a familiar pattern after an argument.
I get angry. Then defensive. Then I offend. A momentary pause. Think about what just happened. Conduct Root Cause Analysis (how and why uncheked emotions took over the situation). Light bulb moment (epiphany). Panic. Regret. Plan next steps.
I wish I could get through it more quickly without negatively affecting others around me.
Everyday, I vow to do better today and improve upon past mistakes. I fail often but I always pick myself back up.
Does it help?