Don't Ever Hide
Hiding is almost always the worst thing any consultant can do. It will make your situations many times worse.
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How To Make A Bad Situation Much, Much, Worse
Many years ago, I hired someone to work for us.
He began the project well but I soon began to notice we didn’t always have a great deal of visibility in his work. He would usually work on documents stored locally on his hard drive (not in the shared folder).
On one important project, he kept promising to upload them - but there was always a reason why it didn’t happen.
He mentioned bouts of illness, power outages, deaths of relatives, and sudden emergencies. One time he was ever so close to uploading them but his laptop battery died at the last moment and he couldn’t find the charger.
Eventually, he simply stopped replying to messages altogether and I haven’t heard from him since. That was four years ago.
How Situations Can Snowball
Based on my past experience, this is what probably happened.
He hadn’t been able to complete the deliverable in the time he said. Instead of coming clean then, he made an excuse and promised it would be done the following Monday. When he still hadn’t done it by that Monday, he made another excuse. From them, he simply tried to avoid the deliverable altogether.
I tried several times to offer him a way out. I recall saying “Hey, let me know if the project is taking longer than I expected or if it’s more difficult than I had thought. We can probably extend the deadline. (Notice I’m trying to take any blame away from him here).
Another time I said “Hey, it’s no problem at all if this is taking longer. Just let me know whatever the status of the project is and we can work through it together”
He rebuffed my offer each time (probably because he would have to admit to the past lies and reveal he hadn’t done much work on the project at all).
The strange thing is the fibs were doing far more harm than the initial error. Is it really better to be seen as someone who can’t keep a laptop charged, can’t stay healthy, or balance their personal life than simply admit a project is taking longer than expected?
The Snowball Effect
Small issues can quickly snowball if you don’t come clean about them straight away.
You might be surprised just how far they can snowball.
Nick Leeson didn’t come clean on a (relatively) small £20k trading mistake and ended up making a £827m loss (and causing the collapse of Britain’s oldest investment bank).
In school, I once tried to claim a relative had died which meant I wasn’t able to hand in a major assignment on time. Alas, I’d forgotten it was the 2nd time I had used the same excuse on the same teacher.
He asked me why it wasn’t in the local newspapers’ obituaries for the past week. Without having time to think, I said the obituaries were full for the current week and it would be printed next week.
Trust me, when you’re calling the local newspaper to report the death of a non-existent relative…it’s safe to say things have snowballed somewhat.
Also, whenever you try to hide the truth, you’re begging a client or boss to say something like:
“No worries, send me whatever you have so far”
And then you have to come up with some ridiculous reason why you can’t spare 20 seconds to send the work you haven’t done.
But the worst thing about hiding from problems (or simply hiding the problem) is it always makes things worse for you and everyone around you. There is usually time to correct issues and mistakes if you come clean quickly enough.
Hiding problems (or hiding from problems) is also a surefire way to lose the respect and goodwill of pretty much everybody.
Last year, an acquaintance of mine mentioned the person above had listed us as a previous employer and wanted to know if they should hire them.
Earning Respect From Your Clients
The fantastic flip side of this is being honest about mistakes earns you respect.
It takes courage and integrity to say “Hey, I’m really sorry but I made a mistake. It’s going to take an extra few days to complete this project”
The reason it earns you respect is it proves you’re the kind of person who won’t hide things from the client (or colleagues). It also often shows you’re committed to doing quality work for the client. It shows you can be trusted to do what’s best.
Recently, my photographer on a recent shoot sent me an email saying he was going to re-edit the photos because some had a faint outline of a curtain in the background. I hadn’t noticed. I doubt anyone else had either. But, by coming clean about the error, he was showing himself to someone completely committed to doing quality work.
When someone has that level of integrity combined with a commitment to doing great work, I’m absolutely going to hire them again.
You should always come clean to clients about any errors in your work. For starters, it’s better if you spot them before they do. But it’s just better to show that you’re the kind of person who has high standards and strong integrity.
Final Thoughts
There are naturally some caveats to this.
Acknowledge your mistakes first. If people hide mistakes, it can be because they feel they will be punished for them. This creates a downward spiral of everyone hiding their mistakes. By acknowledging your mistakes first, you’re beginning to create a culture of trust.
Don’t play the blame game. We’ve talked about this before. If a client or colleague does have the courage to admit a mistake, the worst thing you can do is blame them for everyone else who goes wrong. You simply need to show gratitude for raising it and then move on.
Do a comprehensive audit if you spot one mistake. It’s critical that if you do spot an error in your work, you do a comprehensive audit of the work and all the implications so you can update the client in a single list. Acknowledging a mistake shows your integrity, constantly sending through a list of mistakes you’ve made simply makes you look incompetent.
Good luck!
All good advice. It sounds as though the individual in your story probably had a deeper problem with personal behaviour or mental health. It sounds exactly like a procrastination issue, where you hesitate on some task because of fear, then as the clock ticks the pressure builds and so does the fear, so you procrastinate more, on and on. Been there in consulting, really not fun.