Every Action has an Impact #143
Recently, I had an interesting situation occur. Two different colleagues, one male and one female, each made an error in delivering what they promised to me. Both reached out by voice and then followed up with an email within a few minutes of the call.
Neither commitment was time-sensitive or directly negatively impacted my future in a significant way immediately. They were both important, however highlighted something very directly.
The female apologized, took accountability, recognized the error, had an action plan and reassured me she would make herself available to ensure we’d connect, and it would be corrected as soon as humanly possible. She immediately followed up with her first action.
The male in both messages recognized he’d made some promises, apologized for the lack of response to which he referred to my thank you note indicating he believed he was supposed to send me some information though he couldn’t remember what, asked me to respond and list for him what he’d promised, and he’d get back to me when he could.
Every action (or lack thereof) has an impact. Does this mean we can’t make mistakes? No.
It means when you make a mistake, own it and make it easier for the person impacted to believe you again. With relationships, trust is always on the table. Your actions are always moving the needle toward increasing or decreasing trust.
With the situation above, I’ll do business with only one of the people mentioned above. Your actions speak and so do mine.