Build a Healthy Culture by Admitting You're Wrong

Jeremy · 0:00

Hey friends, it's your host Jeremy Burrows with today's leadership quote from Edmund Mbiaka. The earlier you admit to your mistakes, the more time you would have to learn and grow from them. Please review on iTunes.

Speaker 2 · 0:17

The Leader Assistant Podcast exists to encourage and challenge assistants to become irreplaceable, game-changing leader assistants. Welcome to Episode 24.

Jeremy · 0:30

Hey, Leader Assistants. If you manage business travel at your company, which I'm sure you do like most assistants do, check out Lola.com's corporate travel platform. lola.com is the easiest way to book, manage, and report on corporate travel. You can even visit lola.com/podcast to schedule a free demo and receive a $50 Amazon gift card. Terms apply, but be sure to check out the demo form at lola.com/podcast. lola.com/podcast. Today I'm going to talk about a story from my time working at Walmart when I was 17 years old. I used to work in the pet department at a Walmart Supercenter. In fact, my first day was the first day they allowed Walmart employees into that store as they were building it. So I literally got to go in and help build the shelves and stock the shelves and do all that work for a month or so before customers were even able to visit the store. So that was kind of a fun experience for a 17-year-old. But I worked in the pet department, which was kind of ironic because I never had a cat or a dog or even a goldfish. But here I was selling cat litter, dog food, selling goldfish in plastic bags. Some people that were purchasing these goldfish had just purchased one the week prior and needed a replacement. So yeah, it was an interesting time. But during one particularly hot and humid Missouri summer, which is most Missouri summers, it was probably 100 degrees usually for this couple weeks stretch with probably 100% humidity. Anyway, I was repeatedly asked to go outside in the heat to push carts, which basically means gather all the shopping carts in the parking lot and bring them inside. So I was not a cart pusher. I worked in the pet department, but this particular manager was asking people to help gather carts. I guess they were short-staffed. It was fairly common to happen, but there was a stretch that hot month when it happened almost every night. And just a side note, this was before the glory days of the automatic cart pushing machine. So my long, skinny arms had to do all the work. And also these carts were not the plastic, lightweight target carts you might see these days. These carts were the large Walmart Supercenter oversized metal carts, more something you would see at maybe a Sam's Club or a Costco these days. So I was happy to help, but we had a dress code which did not allow us to wear shorts on the sales floor. So I would come to work in khaki pants, and then I would get asked to go outside in the heat and push a bunch of heavy carts around the black asphalt parking lot. So after a few nights of this, I asked the assistant manager who kept calling me to have me help if I could wear shorts, just in case I was asked to push carts again. And he said, no, you need to stick to the dress code. So I was kind of frustrated by my assistant manager's buy the book management style. So I may or may not have mentioned it to my department manager. And to put it plainly, let's just say my department manager was not happy. So he kind of gave me that look, but I didn't know what happened after that. The next night, I went to work with my pants on, as most do, and I got a call from the assistant manager. He apologized for making me go out in the heat to push carts without the proper attire. He told me if the temperature was hotter than 90 degrees, I could wear shorts to work just in case he needed me outside. I told him thank you and hung up. Come to find out later, my department manager had made a call to the store manager, who then called the assistant manager, demanding he apologize to me for his bad judgment. When my dad found out about this apology from the manager, he said, son, you should be grateful for working with that team. It's extremely rare for someone above your pay scale to apologize to you and admit they were wrong. So I didn't really get it at the time. I thought it was interesting that they apologized, but I didn't think it was a rare occurrence. And I was just simply happy to wear shorts for the next shift. I didn't realize until years later the long term impact that that day would have on me. At such a young age, I was exposed to a simple yet powerful tool for building a healthy company culture. And that's called an apology. So as assistants, especially, we like to be right. We like to get all the details right. It's not easy to admit that we are wrong. It's not cool to admit that you're wrong in a lot of circles. We're afraid that we'll be exposed as a fraud. We hide behind the one thing we have going for us, which is being right all the time. But deep down inside, we know that we're wrong much of the time. Since that day at Walmart, when my assistant manager apologized to me, I've been blessed to have worked at a nonprofit that encouraged and accepted the practice of admitting when you were wrong. But I know this is not the norm, particularly in the for-profit world. So I started thinking about how do we create a culture of taking responsibility for our actions? How do we encourage our team members to admit they screwed up? Well, I think we lead by example. We say we're sorry and we admit we've screwed up publicly and privately. And another way we can build a culture of responsibility is to lead by asking others to apologize. For example, if someone else was wrong or does something inappropriate, ask them to apologize to those affected. If it was a public offense, ask them to apologize in public. If it was private, make sure they address it privately. One of the most crucial partnerships in your office is your relationship with your executive. So the assistant executive relationship is crucial, as most of you know, listening. So I think that in your next one-on-one meeting, I wanted to kind of give you a takeaway and an action item. In your next one-on-one meeting with your executive, apologize for what you need to apologize for. Maybe there's something you did wrong. Maybe there's something that you messed up, that you kind of hid. I know it's going to be very vulnerable and challenging to do this, but I really want to encourage you to bring it up and say, hey, listen, I screwed this up. I was wrong. I just want to let you know it's not going to happen again, but I just wanted to be open with you about that. I know it's not easy, but it's a necessary skill to master if you want to be an impactful leader who builds a healthy culture in your workplace. And us leader assistants have just as much impact on the culture of our workplace than our executives do. So again, who do you need to apologize to? Seek them out ASAP. Admit you're wrong. The longer you wait, the more difficult it will be. All right, I hope this was helpful. Good reminder for most of you or a challenge to some of you. Please check out the show notes at leaderassistant.com/24. Thanks again to lola.com for sponsoring. And also join our Facebook group at facebook.leaderassistant.com to join our community that is growing and help each other out and get extra resources and videos and content in that group. Thanks again for tuning in to The Leader Assistant Podcast. This is Jeremy Burrows and I will talk to you soon.

Speaker 3 · 8:15

Help my dad out in review on iTunes.