Are you leading your company or team through a risky or challenging time?

There are ways to handle the risk well, such as by:

- Preventing or eliminating it, perhaps by taking a different path toward your goal than you originally envisioned.

- Reducing, retiming, or in other ways resizing risk.

- Changing your perspective and comfort with uncertainty by focusing on the value of the change instead of its cost

Yet, try as you might, you have to acknowledge, and work with the fact that taking a risk means there is a chance that things could go wrong.

And that means, of course, that you could fail.

It’s hard to hear, but true.

Prepare for the best, but be able to recover well and move on when things don’t go as you hoped.

It is an essential skill.

Sometimes recovering well means giving up (this is hard to hear, too, but you may be chasing the wrong goal for current circumstances).

It may mean trying to recoup your losses as well as you can before deciding what to do next.

Or it may involve trying the same approach, but in a better way, using what you’ve learned from the current experience.

Recovering well can also mean that you try to meet the same goal, but in a different way.

When trying to recover or regroup from something that didn’t work as you’d hoped, try these actions:

1.  Increase your focus on your customers.

A company or team that has been thrown off-course can start to feed on itself.

And people who are burned out, or stressed, can start to see customers as “the enemy”* instead of the reason their jobs exist.

The situation can quickly degenerate in a downward spiral.

Focus on your customers and what they need from you.

2. Be clear and consistent in your instructions, feedback and guidance to your team.

Grow your trust in this uncertain time, if you can.

It will reduce your stress and that of your team if you trust people to do their jobs (unless you have proof through poor performance that trust is misplaced…and then you have a different problem to solve).

If your stress response is to micromanage, you make things for worse for your team AND yourself.

Ask for coaching to get over the need to manage by microscope, perhaps by developing a delegation process, and practicing to build comfort with the skills.

3. Reinforce what’s most important.

Keep your eyes on the prize as you regroup, and prepare to take a new path forward.

Make sure everyone on your team has current information about current circumstances and, when you’re ready to share them, the plan for moving forward. (The real issue here is that you’d hate to make a high-risk situation worse with poor communication).

4. Simplify.

Get rid of extraneous tasks and other drags on your energy and attention right now.

You don’t need distractions when you’re trying to regain your focus and forward motion.

5. Strengthen.

Mistake-proof the way work gets done, to the degree that is possible and helpful now.

Taking that action could be a distraction under present circumstances, or it could save you from further damage in regrouping, recouping and moving on mode.

6. There may come a point when you need to stop stressing, pressing, and just accept what’s underway.

It’s important to know when stopping to accept current circumstances…really accept them…is your best and strongest move.

You may be sad. You may be mad.

But you have to accept the present situation to be able to understand it, let go of it, make the best of it and move beyond.

Strangely enough, at times of great risk and stress, you may gain control when you just let go.

—

*David Letterman, Late Night With David Letterman, once interviewed a flight attendant as part of the show’s “Stump the Band” game.

“You probably talk to the passengers quite a bit, don’t you?” he asked her.

“OH, NO! We don’t talk to them if we can help it! They’re the enemy!” she quickly said.

Suddenly she realized that, even though she meant what she said, it would not help her well-known employer for customers to know that IS, indeed, what she and some other flight attendants felt.

Trust is too important to take for granted.

Yet many people do.

So when they lose the trust of customers, colleagues, employees and other stakeholders, well, they’ve give up much more than they may realize have.

If you lose trust in a business situation, can you get it back?

And if you can’t, what is the impact?

Consider these scenarios:

- A manager struggles with a small budget for employee raises as she completes annual performance reviews.

She avoids discussing the low number of salary increases, and the way she will make these important decisions.

When employees discover what she hoped to avoid addressing, the silence and mystery surrounding the process makes it seem to them as if she’s making decisions through favoritism.

- A cross-functional team is charged with creating a new product on a tight timeline.

Most members of the team meet the rigorous deadlines, high quality standards and their commitments to each other.

One group avoids telling the rest of the team about problems they’re having, and the fact that they’re going to miss their deadlines.

Without enough time to adapt to the late and incomplete information, the full team misses its launch and revenue targets.

In both of these situations, trust was eroded.

We can surely each cite our own examples of times when trust was eroded in in business situations, as well.

Here are just a few of the ways that low-trust environments decrease effectiveness and profits while increasing costs:

- Miscommunication
- Missed deadlines
- Reduced commitment to the business relationship and goals
- Effort that is withheld, consciously or unconsciously
- Customers who take their business elsewhere when product and service quality drops
- Employees who decide that their short- and long-run satisfaction will be higher at another company

Trust that is lost is hard to get back.

(And you may not be able to…let’s be honest about that).

But when you do recover trust, you can become a much stronger leader as a result of the experience.

You’re likely to be more attentive to what matters. And that includes what matters to your many stakeholders: customers, employees, peers, suppliers and more.

That makes for a very solid beginning that leads to a better situation for everyone.

Here are other ways you can try to rebuild trust if you’re the leader of your company or team:

- Review and recommit to your team and company vision and values.

- Reaffirm your commitment to your mission as a leader.

- Lead by learning, and by sharing the lessons of this experience with others, demonstrating continuous improvement in your own leadership practices.

- Reinforce and follow up on any new rules or guidelines you establish as a result of this experience.

- Pause before you make commitments and agreements to ensure that you will be able to keep them, or refine them so that you can.

- Clarify what information employees, colleagues and other stakeholders need from you, and when. Be clear about the information you need, as well.

Trust is everywhere.

Well, it is as a declared priority for most leaders, companies and teams.

“Trust us.”

“You can trust me.”

“Believe us when we say…”

When faced by these and similar assertions of trustworthiness, we’re understandably n…o…t  s…o  s…u…r…e that claims of honesty and integrity are valid in every case.

You know the feeling, too.

If you’re a leader, you know that you have to deal with periodic skepticism from those whom you hope to lead.

Yet trust IS something you can instill and grow in your company, team and organizational culture.

It all starts by being trustworthy yourself.

And that means being good for your word, in all your dealings with the people in and around your company or organization.

To create trust, do it right from the start.

You can’t add it late in the game, or brush it on like whitewash at the last minute, trying to cover up deception and other misdeeds.

Trust…if it is real…bears scrutiny.

And trustworthy people, organizations and teams are not threatened or defensive when they realize they need to demonstrate, not just assert, that they are honest and work with integrity.

If you and your organization are trustworthy:

- You mean what you say
- You do what you say
- It’s clearly true what you say
- You expect and deserve honesty and integrity from others because you’ve demonstrated, and earned it

Below, here are some steps you can take to create and grow trust in your company or team:

1. You start.

As the leader, you have to go first.

You model the behavior you expect to see in others.

2. Understand the people you’re trying to lead.

You have to read the people you’re trying to lead in order to reach them, and connect with them if you want to move them to act.

That means you have to care enough about them, and their needs to know what is important to them, and why.

3. Be open.

If a person trusts a leader, or an organization, they feel safe with them.

When you are open as a leader, your actions are transparent and focused on building a successful organization for everyone involved.

Your openness and vulnerability, when needed, are essential for creating an environment of trust and safety.

4. Be honest.

Say what you mean.

Mean what you say.

Do what you say.

And if you can’t, see Item #3 again.

Sometimes it’s necessary to reset expectations when circumstances change. That requires openness and transparency yet again.

5. Be clear.

Speak and write simply.

Use language that your followers understand.

Communicate in ways that get ideas through to them, and lead to effective actions for the path ahead.

And listen…always listen. The criticality of this cannot be overstated.

Listening well will be more valuable to you as a leader than you might ever guess.

It helps here to strengthen clarity and trustworthiness.

6. Be fair.

This gets back to the issue of safety and honesty, in many ways.

For people to trust you, and to fully commit their talent, time and effort to the group, they must feel that they are, and will continue to be dealt with fairly.

Listening well – see Item #5 again – is greatly involved in creating a team or company culture known for fairness, too.

Sometimes the thing employees want more than you would ever know is to be seen, heard, understood and appreciated by their leaders, customers and peers.

They also want to be given a fair chance to learn, grow and stretch so they’re ready for greater opportunities in the future.

7. Give them a picture, a sense of the future you hope to create together.

This goes along with openness, honesty and fairness.

Leading others means inspiring them to commit their efforts, combine their efforts, and to create a better circumstance together.

Think about times when you felt great trust.

The odds are that you had a strong sense of the future you were trying to create with others, and were committed to it.

And the odds are, also, that the pursuit seemed like a good use of your talent, energy and other resources at that time.

The ideas I’ve shared with you here are a few ways you can create and grow trust in your team or company.

What do you recommend that people try when they’re working to create and grow trust?

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Trust is important in every relationship, and certainly those in business. It is especially essential for high-risk, high-reward relationships.

Consider these thoughts about trust:

“Learning to trust is one of life’s most difficult tasks.”
Isaac Watts

“I’m not upset that you lied to me, I’m upset that from now on I can’t believe you.”
Friedrich Nietzsche

“You may be deceived if you trust too much, but you will live in torment if you don’t trust enough.”
Frank Crane

What part has trust played in your career and achievements?

First, think about a few of your greatest accomplishments, work- or career-wise. Now, consider the degree to which trust was an essential part of each experience.

For example:

- Were there people you needed to trust and did, to meet each goal?

- How did you know you could trust these people?

- Did they need to trust you, too?

- How did they know that you were trustworthy?

So what’s the consequence if you don’t have trust in the situations in which it is vital for success?

For starters, your work is tentative, cautious, fearful. Your costs are higher as you’re mired in worry, indecision and infighting and working at cross-purposes.

And you’re having to clean up after things that have gone wrong…knowing that more are surely ahead.

And worse. It can be a horrible experience, from start to finish.

What’s the difference with situations when trust is high?

You know you can count on the people with whom you’re working. They know they can count on you. You say what you mean. You do what you say you will.

You “read” each other well.

You may even develop a short-hand communication that’s very effective as you create a shared history of step by step successes.

And your work on a high-trust team may well be better than you expected it could be.

What’s the flip side of high trust?

There’s a risk, of course, that your trust is misplaced. I’ll go into that in the next blog post.

One downside is that you may not always like where trust takes you, on your way to the goal.

For example, think of a great coach, preparing his or her team for a major championship game.

Or think of a very difficult course course of study, requiring great dedication and effort, such as medical school.

The toughness of the preparation involved doesn’t always seem worth it when you’re in the thick of the high-risk experience.

But when the spotlight and pressure are on and you must perform…whether in a business situation, or, let’s say, on a surgical team…the very rigorous preparation the coach or medical professors led you through pays off in many ways.

Why is it hard to create and maintain trust?

Trust is like many other things that we may think will “just happen” naturally, without lots of planning, thought and effort.

In that way, it’s like listening well, good communications, good follow-up, and being a good leader and manager.

Yet there are plans you can make and actions you can take to set up a high-risk, high-reward project, team or company so that you can succeed.

Finally, ask yourself this: “What experiences come to mind when I think of times when high trust was needed for things to work out well, and they did?”

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You want to be a good manager. You really do.

And you’re doing your best, or trying to.

Yet you wonder how well things are going when situations like these happen:

SCENARIO ONE

You hear laughter at work, and decide to walk toward it.

You’re in charge of things here, but you’re human, too. A little levity might help brighten a difficult day, you think as you walk toward the mirth.

Suddenly, as you turn a corner and see the crowd collected there, the laughter stops.

Everyone freezes.

Then they quickly scatter, amid a variety of mumbled excuses.

SCENARIO TWO

You’re leading a meeting.

The goal: engaging your team to find ways you can best meet suddenly far more challenging quarterly performance targets.

You look out over the group assembled before you.

It’s a sea of bored faces and the tops of people’s heads.

They’re doing their best to be anywhere but here as they daydream, text, tweet, and scan the internet.

SCENARIO THREE 

Performance evaluations are due. You dread this time of year (and employees do, too).

And yet, you try to provide good, meaningful feedback to each employee who reports to you.

Your fellow managers tease you, saying that your good intentions and time are not well-invested.

“You know that your employees just want to know, ‘How much? And why not more?’” your peers explain, with a cynical smile.

You get back to work, wondering if they’re right, but provide the best feedback you can, as before.

As these scenarios show, the management role and road is sometimes a lonely and frustrating one.

When you get right down to it: 

- It’s hard to get people on the same page.

- Then it’s hard to get them moving forward as a well-functioning team.

- And then there is the constant need to keep individuals and the full team positive and forging ahead through all types of challenges, chores, and circumstances.

In the midst of all that (and more), bad management practices can slip in and quickly become entrenched, like it or not.

If you want to avoid (or get out of) the trap of bad management habits, start by thinking of your work as a game. 

Your goal is to help your team see and understand the game fully, prepare them to win, and then manage the team as it plays so that they bring victory in again and again.

Begin by asking yourself these important questions:

1. What “game” is our company or team playing?

2. What’s a win for our customers? What’s a win for us?

3. Who are the main players in this game?

4. What are their roles?

5. What are the rules we play by now? What are better rules for us to use?

6. How do we keep score now? Is that the best way?

7. What’s the reward for playing well?

8. What are the penalties for playing poorly?

9. How are we doing, overall? How do we know?

10. Are we playing better all the time?

11. If so, why? If not, why not? What can we do to improve?

12. How do we keep ourselves inspired, and continually moving forward?

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Let’s say you’re running a company or team, and suddenly you need to add new employees.

Before you do, remember what it’s like to be new.

Everything is unfamiliar, uncertain, and yet, you’re trying your best to lose the “new guy” label by doing good work, and making a good impression.

A colleague shared the story the the other day that her son, a college student, had recently started a part-time job as a food server.

He’s learning MANY things.

And many are not what management hoped he’d learn.

For example, these are lessons he’s taken away from his first few weeks on the job:

1. Don’t get to know your peers too well because they won’t be here long.

2. Don’t tell customers the truth.

3. Lie on the timecard…and never, EVER say your worked overtime, even if it’s necessary to get your work done.

4. Don’t believe it when management says they want to hear what you think and need to do your work better and more easily.

As you know from your own experience, unofficial rules sometimes spread through a group more quickly and completely than do official ones.

Think back on your own experience of being new to a company, team or job.

- What were the official rules you were taught?

- What were the unofficial rules you learned?

- What were the differences between them? Why?

- How long did it take before you felt you were doing your best work?

- What helped you most to be able to learn and do the job well?

- If the job turned out not to be right for you, what was your first clue?

- How can you use your experience as a “newbie” to help you bring someone onboard quickly and well?

Try these ideas as you prepare to bring your next new employee or team member onboard:

1. Help them to feel connected to the company.

Share the vision, values, and plan of action…and where they fit in.

Let them know how their best work contributes to success for customers, the team and company…and their own success there.

2. Help them to feel connected to you.

New employees are often looking for solid ground, and a sense of connection to something, and someone.

If they don’t get that from you, their manager or team leader, they’ll find it somewhere else.

And remember those unofficial rules we discussed earlier in this article?

The likelihood that new employees will be guided by lessons you don’t want them to learn and use is far lower if they feel they can come to and count on you when they need to, as do other members of the group.

3. Help them to feel connected to each other.

For most people, part of the satisfaction of any job turns out to be people they enjoy working with.

Teams can be a force multiplier, positively or negatively.

Create a good experience for employees. Set them up to succeed, and to believe that they can.

(People very quickly size up a new environment as one where, “I can be successful here,” or “There’s no way I can ‘win’ here.” They adjust accordingly).

Happier employees create an environment where good work can and will get done.

They also create an environment where customers are more likely to be happy, too…and to return.

4. Help them to feel connected to information they will need.

Show new employees how to find, access and use information and training they’ll need to do their jobs well, and to grow at the company, if desired.

5. Help them to stay connected to themselves.

New employees are trying to find a way to fit into the company and team quickly.

Yet, even as they’re trying to change, they need to stay connected to the best in themselves.

Your company and team will be stronger if each employee…including you…brings, and shares their best at work.

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“I want what I want, and I want it NOW!”

That sounds like a little kid having a tantrum, right?

It wasn’t.

That was me, 27 at the time, on a gray, blustery day in the new city where we were moving.

My husband…who’d just accepted a great new job we didn’t expect just then, but which he couldn’t turn down…wanted to push on as we looked for the next place we’d call home.

And me?

I just wanted lunch.

Well, that, and to be listened to.

I quietly worried about how we’d afford a second house while we tried to sell our first one (a house we’d only owned for four months) in a difficult Midwestern economy.

And I wondered what jobs the new city might have for me…again, in a very difficult economy.

I’d just started a new magazine for my current employer and had hoped to see it through its first important year of groundwork and growth.

Finally, in the wintry mid-afternoon wind of this not-yet-friendly city, I’d had enough of “making do,” being flexible, and not being listened to…by my husband, or, frankly, by myself, either.

I wasn’t being honest about what I wanted, up until that point.

“I want what I want, and I want it NOW!”

You know the feeling, too.

I know you do.

And you may know that feeling as the leader of a team or company.

When I think of this phrase applied to leaders I’ve worked with, I remember one client, in particular. He was one of the founders of a very rapidly growing financial services company.

I used to joke with him that what he REALLY wanted was to “defy the laws of business physics.”

In other words, he “wanted what he wanted” – major improvements in the way, and ease, with which work got done at his company – and “he wanted it NOW!”

He’d had enough waiting for change to move at a normal pace through his company.

If you and your team “want what you want, and you want it NOW!” but you’re nowhere near the point of having it, these may be some of the reasons you’re struggling:

1. You’re not listening to yourselves, or each other.

Speaking from my own experience in the situation I’ve just described, and also, as a team leader and team member, at different times, listening is where you should start.

Are you listening to yourself?

Are you listening to each other?

Listening well, and fully engaging everyone in a project – and keeping them well-informed throughout it – can be far more powerful than you would guess in terms of creating success.

2. You don’t really know what you want…even if you DO know what you DON’T want.

Sometimes you know what you don’t want.

It’s what you have now.

But instead of that…you want…what, exactly?

If not knowing what you want is a problem for you or your team, try this (really…just try it):

- Imagine you have a magic wand, and can make any change that you want, right now.

- Now, imagine using that magic wand, and being in the new situation.

- Describe it. What’s “most different” from the situation you have now?

3. You don’t believe you can have what you want.

Sometimes teams don’t believe they can really have what they say they want.

To be fully activated, and on board, it helps to “pre-experience success.”

One way to do this is to envision success in detail, and to imagine the process of successfully getting there…over, around and through barriers you may experience on the way there.

Your team may also need more coaching, feedback, and peer interaction as they adjust to the changes they are going through.

4. You don’t know how to get what you want.

Wanting something, and actually being able to achieve it, are two very different things.

There are many ways to figure out how to get started, once you know what your goal really is.

Here are just a few of them:

- Research the best ways of doing the job.

- Take training.

- Observe, and ask questions of people who’ve already achieved what you hope to.

- Practice.

- Experiment, then observe what happens. Adjust accordingly.

- Get coaching and feedback.

- Pause to refresh, and stay connected as a team, as you move forward.

5. You don’t know if you can maintain success when you achieve it.

Think of it this way: if you happen to get what you want, but don’t believe it’s “really yours,” you may not be able to handle having it, much less be able to keep it.

It’s like a lottery winner who doesn’t believe he’s worthy of the lottery winnings, and fritters the money away to return to the more familiar, less-moneyed state.

Good fortune, even if you’ve worked very hard to create it, won’t “stick” if you don’t know what to do with it, or how to maintain it.

Prepare to be successful.

Start to develop the beliefs, knowledge and skills you’ll need to manage success when it arrives.

6. You’re not clearing the decks to make success possible.

Many people want to achieve success, but they don’t free up the time, energy, attention and resources to actually do so.

What do you plan to stop doing so that you can start doing something new?

Make success possible.

Make the time and space for it.

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Change brings many emotions, often strong ones. Each one packs its own kind of power.

Harness and use the energy of emotion, whatever it is.

These are some of the emotions you may experience during change, and ways you can use them to move you forward:

- Excitement

Use excitement to drive you ahead, ever closer to the desirable future you imagine…and through the sometimes unnerving, sometimes exhilarating process of not quite knowing how something new will work out.

Focus on the benefits of the new circumstances to pull you most powerfully forward.

- Fear

Use fear to help you anticipate things that could go wrong with the change process, and then to plan and take actions to prevent those circumstances from occurring.

Fear can direct you to a safer path through change than you might take if you did not heed its cautionary call.

- Patience

Use the power of patience to summon your ability to attend to planning and the details of implementation.

Use it, also, to increase the confidence and focus of those around you who aren’t seeing the change process as charitably as you are, at the moment. (You may need them to return the favor later).

- Impatience

It’s going to be there, so use it.

The power of impatience can help you delegate or sweep away low priority tasks, so you can focus on what is most essential.

Impatience carries a lot of power…which can be destructive if turned on the people around you, or can propel you forward rapidly, if channeled in positive ways.

- Discouragement

Discouragement often means that plans were too aggressive, or that not enough time was factored in for periodically recharging, regathering energy, and renewing focus.

Or maybe plans for the change process assumed that everything would go like clockwork…and that’s not happening (it usually doesn’t).

Use discouragement to pause and step away for a bit, if you can. Refresh, renew, even if briefly.

Then remind yourself why the change is being made, and how you may benefit from it in some way.

- Confusion

This can occur if the purpose or path through change is obscured, or was never spelled out well in the first place.

Sometimes uncertainty can’t be completely cleared away, of course…it’s just part of the change process…yet there are things that can be done to reduce it.

Focus on the goal, set interim milestones and concentrate on reaching each one. And celebrate in some appropriate way when you do.

- Bargaining

The desire to bargain (and before that, maybe, the desire to yell or complain, if we’re honest) can occur if you feel you’re not being heard.

It can also occur if you’re concerned that plans are not realistic, or the resources needed for change are not being provided.

Express openly, honestly and respectfully what your fears and concerns are. Listen with an open mind. Negotiate or renegotiate agreements, if need be, and if possible.

- The desire to give up

Don’t fight it. This feeling will probably occur at some point, and maybe at multiple points, in the change process.

Just knowing that quitting is an option can take the pressure off, and you realize that you’ve come too far, made more progress than you realized, and really don’t want to turn back, after all.

The uncertainty and energy required for change will clear eventually.

You may even find you’re bored when certainty does return, believe it or not. There’s a lot to be said for the growth that occurs for almost everyone during a change process.

- The drive to keep going, no matter what

Use this drive to push over, around, or through barriers that appear as if they could prevent you from reaching your goal.

And use this powerful energy, if need be, to prove that it’s possible to do what naysayers said couldn’t be done.

This short list has covered just a few of the emotions that are likely to occur at some point during the change process.

Did I cover the emotions you’re most familiar with during the change process?

If not, make your own list, or add to this one.

Consider how you can use each emotion when, and if, it arises during the change process.

Just by anticipating what may occur as you go through the ups and downs, highs and lows, successes and failures that accompany change helps you to prepare for, and be able to make the best of it.

Harness the energy of change to help you move forward.

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Failure – well, partial failure – on a recent vacation activity reminded me what NOT to do when training someone.

In this case, I was a trainee.

Here was the situation:

A group of six of us had gathered on the beautiful Oregon coast, traveling from five different locations throughout the US to share the Christmas holiday.

Our daughter and her boyfriend, the most knowledgeable about Oregon, had looked for activities we might all like, in addition to enjoying each others’ company, cooking together, exploration of the beautiful area, and long beach walks.

Anne and John suggested crabbing which is, essentially, going out in a boat in waterproof clothes to catch your own seafood dinner.

Were we open to the idea?

We were.

The adventure, if nothing else, sounded like fun.

The day of crabbing arrived.

We donned our waterproof gear of boots, gloves, and warm, water-resistant clothes.

We paid for our boat, bait and other fees and bought our permits.

We listened quietly and earnestly as one of the owners of the crabbing company explained the process we would be following, what to look for, and which crabs were illegal to catch, and so had to be thrown back.

The lessons were simple, and we were sure we understood them. The woman training us seemed to be sure we were ready, too.

Her husband led us out to the boat we would use, and helped us get launched, providing lessons there on using this particular boat.

We headed out to the open water, a bit nervous but ready for the fun work ahead.

Soon, with patience, practice, purposeful experimentation, positive attitudes and a little friendly competition, we started to catch cioppino-bound crabs.

We filled every minute we had and headed back to port, buoyant, cold, tired, a bit wet despite our waterproof clothes, and feeling somewhat lucky and happy about our five-crab catch.

We also felt good about our teamwork and the process we’d “mastered” as much as we could in the few hours’  learning and experimentation we’d had for the task.

We sized up the afternoon’s work as a relative success.

Or so we thought.

Here’s the problem:

As we took off our gear, the owners of the crabbing company started getting crabby, and then accusatory with us about some unexpected holes in the nets.

We’d noticed one, too, as we worked, and wondered how it had happened, but tried to adapt by tying knots from a few of the seemingly chewed through ends of the cording.

We had followed their training to the letter, and reiterated that to these angry people, as they drove away future business in their process of defending their nets.

They blamed, accused, and turned what had been a fun adventure into, frankly, a baffling and maddening one.

I quickly tired of their accusatory tone, and replied, “We don’t know what you’re talking about. REALLY! We DO NOT UNDERSTAND what you’re talking about!”

Nothing they described as having happened to the nets on our watch, and none of the ill intent they attributed to us had been true.

Trying to make heads or tails out of this unexpected situation, I added, “Those things you’re describing make NO sense. Why would we do something to let the crabs OUT of the net? It was our goal to CATCH them.”

Part of me wondered if part of the way this duo increased their short-term profits (thinking nothing of the probable long-term effect) was to charge each boat an additional $40 for a net, after the fact.

And as I write this, I still wonder about that.

And in a negative sense, it was amazing to be reminded what a major impact a bad attitude from one or two people can have on a group, and how it can come close to ruining a otherwise-great experience…unless you actively counteract the effect.

I was also amazed that the owners of the company were not taking any responsibility for the training they provided.

As the experience wrapped up and we drove off with our crabs and distasteful memories of those crabby owners, we STILL didn’t understand what went wrong with the adventure of the nets.

We DO know a few things, however:

- We were glad to have shared the good part of the adventure.

- We were glad we’d caught enough crab for dinner, since we’d invested time, effort and money in the process.

- We would go crabbing again…just not through that company.

Here, then, are a few recommendations, if you train other people, in anything, for any reason:

1. Mistake-proof the process as much as you can. Teach the mistake-proofed process.

2. Help the learners understand the big picture, goals and process they will be using.

3. Provide the significant details that can ensure success and cause failure, if you know the things that may happen with novices at the helm.

4. Provide visual aids that learners can easily refer to as they work, if need be.

5. If you see the learners doing something wrong, correct them during the process.

Don’t wait until after the fact to inform them they did something wrong, and worst of all, to do it in an accusatory manner. That’s essentially lying in wait, hoping they’ll fail so you can be “right.”

However, if they fail at the process, and you see it happen…whether you trained them on those details or not…but do nothing to correct it, the fault is yours. You have the power to prevent a problem that they, who are less experienced, may not even be able to see yet.

6. Assume good intentions on the part of the people you’re training.

It makes no logical sense that someone would want to spend their time, energy, and money, if that is also involved, doing things wrong.

7. Take responsibility for your training design, detail, and effectiveness.

8. If you think you’re training effectively, and you want to make sure you are, you’ll ask learners for their feedback, as well as objectively assessing their successful application of your training attempts.

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We’re human. All of us.

(You, too).

And sometimes we find we can’t do it all, after all.

So how do you ask for help?

Maybe the thing we should focus on is why you don’t.

It’s easy to think these things if you’re the leader of a company or team:

–You have to have all the answers.

–You’re supposed to be done learning.

–You’re being watched and being judged.

And on that last count?

You probably are, if we’re honest.

Yet the surprising thing is that your team would rather you took the time to get the help, or to learn to delegate well…or to learn whatever leadership skills you may lack that are holding them back.

Why do people have a hard time asking for help?

Here are just a few possibilities:

- They’re angry that they need it.

- They’re embarrassed that they need it.

- They don’t see or admit it.

- They don’t see, or admit how they’re hurting others with their insistence that they don’t need to grow or change.

There are other reasons, too.

How do you ask for help, or to change, and then receive that well?

It’s really a matter of learning to let go, being clear about the goal – which should be directly tied to what’s important to your customers – and being flexible in how you meet it.

And humility helps, too.

Here are a few other guidelines if it’s hard for you to delegate, which is just one of the skills that many people need to learn and practice:

1. Define the customer-focused goal or target.

2. Make it clear what the boundaries are for this work, and how it fits into the whole.

3. Envision the situation working. If you can’t imagine that it will, the odds are, it won’t, or you may find ways to mess it up, “proving” that it doesn’t work (strangely, but, yes, seriously).

4. Figure out the communication flow and follow-up mechanisms, including how and when you’ll check in, and what measures or other indicators you’ll use as the basis of communication about progress and status as the work proceeds.

5. Know what information and contact you need while the work is underway to feel comfortable, or as comfortable as you’re going to be, letting go.

6. Be clear about who’s going to do what. It’s easy for two people to be waiting for the other to finish the same thing…each thinking it’s the other’s job. In that case, deadlines are missed, among other things. Or it’s possible for two people to be doing the same work, each thinking it’s their job, so the work is duplicated. Spell it out, then play it out.

7. Be clear about work and quality standards, and what they’re based on. These standards should in some way be directly tied to what’s important to your customers.

8. Be honest about the things you’re concerned about, as the work begins, and as it proceeds. And those things you least want to talk about? Talk about them. These discussions could be essential to success, if you do, or directly lead to failure, if you don’t.

When your fears see the light of day, you may realize they’re nothing to worry about.

And if they are worry-worthy, well, the sooner you get to work checking them out, and changing, the better.

Keep in mind your overall goal, and the customers for it, as you consider what help may lead you to succeed even more.

Sometimes your own short-term comfort is what you most have to let go as you reach for change, and then stretch and grow.

Change just feels different…temporarily.

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