I couldn’t understand some parts of this article, but it sounds interesting

How powerful it would be in our relationships with people if we never remembered or held against them any mistake or issue? Everyone would get a perfectly “clean slate” with us when they needed it.

Being an elementary educator, I have long known the power of the “clean slate” with students. They get one each year when they go to a new grade and have new teachers and new kids in their class. They feel empowered. “This year is going to be different! I can do better this year. Last year is over.”
Those are the things they say to me.

The energy flows both ways, for the forgiver and the forgiven.

Dan’s diaper-changing story at the beginning of EVERYDAY LEADERSHIP reminds me of a similar family lesson. When my kids were teenagers, I was a 10-minute walk from my work at UDM. But I walked slowly, preparing myself for their ever-changing personalities. I’d tell myself not to be fooled by a familiar face, but to be attentive to who they were TONIGHT.

But I plead guilty. It’s difficult to let go of the past, and have our whole selves open to the future, in relationship.

PEACE

John

Even worse, it seems we hear more and more about leaders, who we know should be accountable and held to a higher standard, failing to see and address the most glaringly obvious errors in judgement! If the daily news is any indication, this appears to happen in a wide variety of professions on a fairly regular basis.

I have also noticed that sometimes… we learn more about the true qualities of a leader by the way mistakes and failures are handled. It also helps when truth, sincerity, forgiveness and reconciliation is an integral part of the company mission.

–Is it because we have some key information that they didn’t have because we didn’t share it and they didn’t know to ask for it? Is it because we asked them to do something that they are ill-equipped, by training and experience, to do? Whose bares most of the responsibility if that’s the case?

–Is it because they had the courage to take a risk when no one else would, a risk that could have paid off big, but this time it didn’t because of unpredictable vagaries in the marketplace? The fastest-growing Fortune 500 companies, according to Peter Druecker, I think, actually encourage staff to take risks because with things moving so fast out in the newly-flat world, companies do better to follow their gut, risk mistakes, even costly ones, and learn from them, than doing a costly feasibility study that’s out of date and obsolete before it hits print!

–Is it because we see ourselves as having higher standards than everyone else, and think that others will see us as competent when we become critical and judgmental? And when did being critical and judgmental ever lead to positive working relationships?

It’s easy to fix blame on one person when something goes wrong. It’s harder to take responsibility. The most productive thing is to focus on fixing the problem. That takes, as someone else has pointed out, a crucial conversation where those involved analyze what happened, what went wrong, what went right, and perhaps most importantly what, if anything, can be done in the future to avoid this kind of error.

A lot has been written about forgiveness but there’s a reconciliation process that needs to occur, too. Have a crucial conversation to really resolve all those negative feelings, not just stuff them! (And if you don’t know what a crucial conversation is, read the book with that title.)