{"id":774,"date":"2013-07-24T16:20:34","date_gmt":"2013-07-24T16:20:34","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/blogs.poly.com\/?p=774"},"modified":"2013-07-24T16:20:34","modified_gmt":"2013-07-24T16:20:34","slug":"is-it-hard-to-admit-youve-made-a-mistake-at-your-small-business","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/blogs.poly.com\/is-it-hard-to-admit-youve-made-a-mistake-at-your-small-business\/","title":{"rendered":"Is it hard to admit you\u2019ve made a mistake at your small business?"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><a href=\"http:\/\/www.plantronics.com\/us\/cmpn\/big-trends\/big-trends.jsp\"><img class=\"alignleft size-full wp-image-613\" alt=\"smb-tech-trends\" src=\"https:\/\/blogs.poly.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2013\/03\/smb-tech-trends.jpg\" width=\"197\" height=\"190\" \/><\/a>Why is it so hard for some people to admit they are wrong? A friend of mine talks about a former manager whose favorite line was \u201cI may not be right, but I\u2019m final.\u201d \u00a0However, tongue in cheek the comment, there\u2019s no denying many people are afraid to own up to a mistake because they think it shows weakness or a lack of competency.<\/p>\n<p>As the owner of your small business, your team looks up to you for direction and answers. Still there\u2019s no failure or weakness in acknowledging you are wrong. In fact, owning up to a mistake usually fosters more respect and trust in a leader. No one wants to work for someone who is constantly covering their tracks or worse yet assigning blame when something doesn\u2019t work out.<\/p>\n<p>Entrepreneur recently addressed this topic in \u201c<a href=\"http:\/\/www.entrepreneur.com\/article\/227470\">How to Admit When You\u2019re Wrong.<\/a>\u201d Here are some of the recommendations:<\/p>\n<p><strong>Take ownership: <\/strong>You\u2019re responsible for what goes on at your small business, which means you own the problem and the solution. Making excuses doesn\u2019t gain the confidence of people around you. Also when it comes to your employees making mistakes; commend them for taking ownership. Doing so creates a culture and environment that does not assign blame when things go wrong.<\/p>\n<p><b><a href=\"https:\/\/blogs.poly.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2012\/09\/team.jpg\"><img class=\"size-medium wp-image-322 alignright\" alt=\"team\" src=\"https:\/\/blogs.poly.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2012\/09\/team-300x199.jpg\" width=\"300\" height=\"199\" \/><\/a><\/b><strong>Show what you\u2019ve learned:<\/strong> As part of apologizing for making a mistake, explain what happened and why you made the decisions you did. Include your lessons learned from the experience and how that will inform your decisions as you move forward. Showing your employees how you thought through a mistake and what you\u2019ve learned will be a valuable lesson for them as well. Also in correcting your mistake, outline what you plan to do and show how you\u2019ve started to correct the problem so your team knows you are sincere.<\/p>\n<p><strong>End on a high note: <\/strong>I particularly appreciate this point. As you own up to mistake, acknowledge anyone who might have been hurt or adversely affected and show that you empathy.<\/p>\n<p>Everyone is wrong some time.\u00a0 The first step in dealing with it is to admit it.<\/p>\n<h3>Help us get out the vote for 2013 Small Business Influencer Award<\/h3>\n<p><a href=\"https:\/\/blogs.poly.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2013\/07\/Vote-2013-125x125-red-Copy-4.png\"><img class=\"alignleft size-full wp-image-767\" alt=\"Vote-2013-125x125-red - Copy-4\" src=\"https:\/\/blogs.poly.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2013\/07\/Vote-2013-125x125-red-Copy-4.png\" width=\"125\" height=\"125\" \/><\/a>It\u2019s an honor to be among the nominees for the 2013 <a href=\"http:\/\/influencers.smallbiztrends.com\/\">Small Business Influencer Awards<\/a>. Voting is underway and continues until September 9. You can vote daily until then.\u00a0 We appreciate your <a href=\"http:\/\/influencers.smallbiztrends.com\/small-business-vendors-2013\/plantronics-2\/\">vote!<\/a><\/p>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Why is it so hard for some people to admit [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[510],"tags":[637,580],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.poly.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/774"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.poly.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.poly.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.poly.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.poly.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=774"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.poly.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/774\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.poly.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=774"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.poly.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=774"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.poly.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=774"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}