Falling Forward When Missing Expectations

Managing fickle times is much like baking – the right ingredients need to be coupled with the right timing and temperature to work out as intended. Unsteady, adverse situations are very risky, and can create a great opportunity to demonstrate our ability to adapt to the new needs.

There are few situations where we can greatly improve our relationships quickly. Sometimes it takes extreme circumstances to regain our ability to influence. Consider a time when someone fell short of your expectations and hid it from you. Consider about how you wish they would have handled it and how you would have felt had they done that. Actually, difficult situations present a great opportunity to strengthen relationships. These distinct forks in the road require decisions to be made with a clear desired outcome defined, or face unnecessary side effects.

How we handle these difficult situations will solidify how someone believes in us. The typical, natural response may be to apply more heat. Heat added to a volatile situation is more likely to end in a relationship destroying explosion than in bringing about success.

Its simple, though not easy. Important, difficult items take more time and effort, but can be worth it. At the end of the day, the other person wants to feel great about their decision to say yes to us, for deciding to partner with us.

Things to consider when solving the challenge :

Competence: When we let someone down and something goes haywire, their faith in our abilities can get shaken. Successfully moving past this can supercharge our influence with them. The ability to endure and overcome failures is a rare skill.
Character: When we fail to honor promises, others can start to doubt everything about us, including our motives. This can leave long term damage to our relationships. By sharing openly, taking responsibility for our actions/inactions, and making the appropriate changes, we can help others believe once again that they are trusting the right person.
Care: People need to know that they matter to us. A mutual respect and care for one another is required. Focusing on the other person’s needs ahead of our pride can help them see how much we value them.

Questions to ponder:

How can we take ownership of our failures, showing that we can more about their satisfaction than our pride?
How can we help someone feel completely understood?
How can we do something completely unexpected and absolutely appreciated?

I’ve often said the genius of our company comes out during our challenges. Our ability to forgive and move forward is uncanny. Since we approach challenging situations with an open mind, our failures are typically followed with significant growth. Move forward.