Mistakes that makes you stop up and think... "What were you thinking?"

Image by A3DigitalStudio from Pixabay

The learnings of this post are mostly personal. Sometimes we need to open up about the times we did not meet the expectations of others and acknowledge that we could have done better.

The event below is a prime example of a situation were I didn't live up to my managerial role.

“When you make a mistake, there are three things you should ever do about it: admit it, learn from it, and don’t repeat it.” – Paul “bear” Bryant

My team and I were working on a large campaign for an international client with a large budget (million+). The project was exhilarating and everyone were determined to deliver world class results. The scale of the campaign was greater than a team of our size would normally handle, but our Director ensured us; if we just worked hard, we would be able to deliver.
Not long in this campaign, something TERRIBLE happened. Some of the budgets for the social channels were mixed up and campaigns were set live, resulting in a big overspend.

The agency Director was furious!

This was not my biggest mistake though… It was by no means good that we now had to explain why this has happened to the client. But the real mistake lies in the way I handled the upcoming situation. 

I was tasked with coming up with a way to avoid mistakes being made in the future and I took the task very seriously (or so I thought). I spent days on updating our internal processes which included cross checking campaigns at several stages and using a 3rd party tool to create an automated notifications system.
I couldn’t wait to present this to my team and the Director. However, the presentation did not go well, as I forgot the most important thing:
The people involved – MY TEAM!
I had not asked them why the mistake happened. I had not taken the time to understand the pressure they were under. Every single team member had several other projects to work on, presentations to present and they had tried to talk, without anyone listening.
AND all I did was to introduce more processes and things to be aware of. I completely missed the boat. FIRST thing I should have done was to LISTEN.
This is something I often reflect back on, as it was such a huge lesson for me.
For any manager the biggest assets we have are our team members. A great team can lift any tasks, as long as that team is nurtured and listened to.

My best advice to myself; Stop up once in a while and reconsider your options. Listen to your peer’s opinions and put your ego on hold. In the moment of the heat, there might only seem to be one solution, but I promise you, that is rarely true.