“Stuff Your Sorries In a Sack”
It is a classic line from the TV show Seinfeld where George has a hard time accepting an apology from Jerry. Really what George is saying to Jerry when he says, “You can stuff your sorries in a sack,” is your sorry means nothing to me without action.
This weekend I took my family to see the musical, Mary Poppins. While the actual experience of watching that musical was great, the getting there and leaving was horrendous. What we didn’t realize when we booked the tickets was the musical was going on the same time as the UT/OU Red River Shootout just one block away on the fairgrounds. As you can imagine with an extra 100,000 people there it made for a traffic nightmare. Because of that we decided to take the DART train into the musical. Well, so did 85,000 other people so it was the worst transportation experience of my life. I ended up not even taking the train back to my car but finding a cab to take me.
When I got in the car this morning, talk radio was on and the person in charge of the DART rail system was on the show. The host asked him this question, “What are you going to do to regain the trust of the people you failed this past weekend? Are you giving them a refund? What is your plan.” This guys response was, “Really, all we can do is say sorry…” That is when I immediately thought of those wonderful words of George Costanza, “You can stuff your sorries in a sack, mister.”
No matter how many times we say, “Sorry”, to the people we connect with on a daily basis, “Sorry”, doesn’t change the fact that a trust was broken or that respect was lost. Any motivational speaker will tell you that if you fail or if you fall, you have got to get back up. I don’t think the hard part is getting back up or returning from a failure. I think the real question comes after we’ve returned. How do you follow up failure? In essence, saying, “Sorry”, is just the beginning of actually doing the action of changing the behavior. However, there are some situations both in personal and professional relationships here you may be able to regain the trust you have lost due to a poor decision or action. So, how can you regain broken trust?
Here are some strategy tips that can help:
1. Why did it go wrong?
One of your first steps will be to learn why you lost the trust of the person in the first place. You can then take the proper steps to prevent this from happening again. Don’t waste time trying to over explain or justify why you did what you did to lose the trust.
Personnel - Were the wrong people on the job?
It’s pivotal for the right people to perform the right job. The portfolio of the job has to match the skill-set of the person performing. What adjustments do you need to make to fix past mistake?
Vision - Was the project not communicated properly?
For the people doing the job, do they know what you are expecting from them? Do they know what to expect from you? Is the task that they are working on clear and concise? When you reach a point where your employees are suppose to read your mind, you cannot and must not assume that they have that ability. Everyone wants room to be innovative, but the clearer you are, the less room there is for mistakes. There is a big difference between needing to make changes and making complete mistakes.
Game plan – Was there an execution break-down somewhere?
Perhaps the execution of the job was miscommunicated. In other words you communicated clearly what the job entailed. But the break-down is how the job is performed. Is it possible that an employee thought they could perform a job, but in the middle of the process they realized they were incapable? Figure out where the break-down was.
2. How will it be different - Action plan for change?
What plan can you put in place to make sure that everyone is ready in the event this mistake happens again? What plan can you put in place to prevent the mistake from happening altogether? Make a plan. Make it plain. Make it visible.
3. What did I learn?
Don’t let failure set you back. Learn from it, and let those under you let you know what you learned because the lessons you learn from failure will become some of the most valuable assets you can offer to someone who hasn’t worn your shoes yet.
