When mistakes happen in your business, an accident occurs, software or automation fails, an angry or frustrated customer contacts you or your team, this is NOT the time to point fingers, blame them, and add discipline to the workplace.

This is not the place to say ‘bad EA’ or ‘bad team member”, or throw your hands up in the air and say ‘another bad hire’. Those are most likely not true. 

However, these events ARE an opportunity for development – development of your team, your processes, and your communication. 

Typically, there are WAY more times it is appropriate to lean into development in those areas, NOT discipline. The more you lean into the discipline, you’ll undermine the vision and culture in your business, ultimately losing momentum. 

There is a time and place for discipline, but ideally,

Development, over discipline, should ALWAYS be your first choice

or response in a situation.

As cliche as it sounds, it is time to LEAN IN. You are a leader, in a relationship with your team. The relationships that work are those that continue to invest in communication and growth. 

For the moment, while you’re staring at a pile of burning, smelly trash…. Make amends, put out the fire, correct the mistake.

Then it’s time to communicate and build the structure for consistent communication if it isn’t already happening. Set up and utilize weekly team meetings to outline where each role can contribute, creating systems and repetitive tasks each role can perform, as well as larger, longer projects the team can work on without constant guidance. 

As your work together continues, SOPs should be created, which can often prevent the dumpster fires from occurring. Don’t over-complicate this! 

Just make a Loom video of you doing “the thing”, and a place to store and catalog the videos. Your team can follow the Loom as their SOP until there is the appropriate amount of time to send the videos to a transcription service and get them in writing. 

Even then, it does NOT have to be perfect the first time. Done at 85% is better than Never Done at 100%. SOPs are not final. Your team can pick up the extra 15% with future feedback and revisions. These revisions can be handled in those weekly meetings you’re having with your team.

Providing structure for communication and feedback through weekly meetings and SOPs is the backbone of every great team and two simple ways to prevent future dumpster fires. 

If you find you’re constantly battling dumpster fires in your business, or one dumpster fire is one too many, apply for a free Strategy Call with a Certified Momentum Method™ Strategist today.

PODCAST CONNECTION: If you’re looking for more ways to improve your leadership with your team, jump over to the podcast Diary of A Doer, Episode 022: Motivation for a Distributed Team: Getting The Best From Your Remote Workers