how to tell my employee I made a mistake with a client
A reader writes:
My employee, Joe, met with a client, Alice, who had beforehand met with me earlier than Joe began in his position). I know that my assembly with Alice went poorly — she was making unreasonable requests and displayed a degree of inflexibility that I knew wouldn’t get her the place she wanted, however I additionally didn’t do a good job being client-centered and I might tell our assembly left a poor style in her mouth. Fast ahead to this week and Alice arrange a assembly with Joe; in that assembly, I overheard her say (repeatedly) how significantly better he did and how terrible I was to her. She additionally had completely modified her objectives and was asking for one thing far more cheap. I don’t know if she knew that I might hear her or if she was simply venting. I don’t know if Joe suspects Alice was speaking about me, however it was clear he dealt with the entire thing very professionally.
What do I say to him now? I really feel prefer it’s dangerous precedent for me to not personal up to my mistake, however since her objectives are completely totally different than they have been earlier than, our earlier dialog isn’t notably related to the work they’ll do shifting ahead. I would need to give him extra context, however I don’t need him to assume I’m being defensive — despite the fact that she was being unreasonable in our assembly, I assume her frustration with how our assembly went is justified. On high of all this, I nonetheless really feel badly about how the assembly went, so it’s not simple for me to discuss in any respect.
I reply this query — and two others — over at Inc. in the present day, the place I’m revisiting letters which were buried within the archives right here from years in the past (and generally updating/increasing my solutions to them). You can learn it right here.
Other questions I’m answering there in the present day embody:
- I maintain ending up concerned in issues that I needed to hand off
- Asking junior employees to communicate for his or her era
