Our Expert is: Keith Frein
Qualification: Keith has successfully built a company from $5,000 to 44 million. Keith is now spending a wonderul time with his family and building another great business.
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Tip #10--Say it, "I messed up"
March 18, 2008

I messed up, I screwed up, I blew it, It was my fault.

If, as the owner of your company, none of the above phrases or something very close to it, has ever passed your lips, you've got problems. I can even go so far as to say, the problems you have involve your employees feeling as if they can trust you, not wanting to be open and honest around you, and not feeling you have any empathy toward what they do for you. So many owners and CEOs I know feel as if they can never admit fault in public. Their "image" of the all powerful and knowing leader would be reduced to that of a mere mortal if they were to say something  like, "Guys, I thought I was making the right call by us changing the start time to 8:30 instead of 9:00.
Well, I was wrong. I have gotten so much feedback from employees and many of you in the room, that people are really having a hard time getting here on time because of issues with getting their kids to school. I didn't realize that would pose such a problem." In actuality by coming clean and taking responsibility for a bad call, your employees, especially your leadership team, are more apt to help you do damage control and work with you to fix the situation.

Being wrong is fine, (its called being human). But, by saying to your team, "I messed up on this one", it gives them permission to fail and not feel like they will have the ax brought down on them for making a mistake. If you can make a mistake, acknowledge it and move forward, all in the same meeting, others feel good about doing the same thing.
An owner has got to be comfortable enough in his or her own skin to say, "Man, I really missed the mark on that one". After all, you probably wouldn't be in business for yourself if "messing up" was the norm.

Keith Frein is the former Co-CEO and Co-Founder of PPR Travel. During Keith's tenure as Co-Founder, the company was ranked as the 5th, 7th and 8th best Small Company to work for in the United States by the Great Places to Work Institute. Keith has recently retired and is working on bringing a new nutritional beverage to market through relationship marketing. Please send comments or questions to keith081@gmail.com.

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