WEEKEND WISDOM

I need to tell you something. I hope you don't mind. You see, what I have to tell you might not be something you want to know. But here goes, "You are not always right." This is my polite way of telling you that sometimes you are wrong.

It's OK. Believe it or not, we all are wrong about something. We are wrong regularly and repeatedly. It is the nature of who we are. I am not asking you to dwell on when you are wrong or what it is you are wrong about. I ask you to consider how are you wrong? Translation, when you are wrong about something, how do you behave and how does this impact your team?

Perhaps you do this because you come from a culture where admitting an error is a sign of weakness or you are afraid of losing face. When you are wrong and you hide it, you are teaching your team to engage in the same behavior. This makes it very difficult to proactively solve issues

When you try to cover up the fact that you are wrong about something you damage your integrity. .

When you look for someone else to blame, you are hiding the fact that you are wrong PLUS telling a lie about someone else. This is even worse for your integrity and your credibility. Now you are teaching your team to use other team members as human shields. This makes it very difficult to build any kind of high performing team.

When you are wrong and you admit it, you model responsibility and integrity for your team. You can proactively address issues, you can demonstrate how to behave like an adult professional and you can all move forward.

So here goes, "You are not always right." This is my polite way of telling you that sometimes you are wrong. It's OK. Believe it or not, we all are wrong about something.

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