“My team caused an outage.”
Uh-oh.
“I’m not too happy about it.”
That’s understandable. What happened?
“One of my team members made a mistake.”
Unfortunate, but mistakes happen.
“Now I have to deal with the fallout from the outage.”
What kind of damage was done?
“Downtime and lost revenue. My boss isn’t happy either.”
How are you managing the fallout?
“You don’t understand. One of my senior team members screwed up. Rudolph should know better.”
You’re too angry to manage the situation.
“I feel like yelling at Rudolph.”
For making a mistake?
“Rudolph missed an important deployment step on a change management ticket. He has the most seniority on the team. There’s no excuse for the screw up.”
No reason for a manager to chew out a team member for making a mistake.
“But I’m mad! What am I supposed to do?”
Stay positive.
“Are you serious?”
To a point, yes.
I consider myself to be a positive thinker. I have a can-do attitude. My goal is to get things done. I’m also a realist, not positive for the sake of being positive. Managers solve problems. Optimism gives us an edge when it comes to problem solving, a form of energy that can be harnessed to overcome the inevitable obstacles on the road to solutions. Because that road is fraught with bumps and roadblocks. Positive thinkers, using a growth mindset, can channel their optimism, trying different methods to solve problems until a solution is achieved.
Over the past five, maybe 10 years, I’ve noticed a trend towards extreme positivity. When bad things happen, practitioners of extreme positivity mask reality with cringey platitudes. Jonas dropped the production database. Not to worry. Smile and say, “Everything happens for a reason.” Yes, everything happens for a reason! In this case, the reason is that a faulty permissions model allowed a non-privileged user to drop a prod database. No good reason to sugarcoat a disaster with platitudes and android-like smiles.
“Then I should yell at Rudolph for screwing up the change management ticket?”
No. But you can and should get angry about the mistake. Anger is a valid emotion. Anger also motivates us to take action. However, taking out your anger on a direct report is the wrong action to take. Aggressive behavior is destructive. Don’t be like the shark on the funky T-shirt! Learn about the power of emotional regulation to manage your anger.
“I really should cool off before I do or say something stupid.”
You got it! After you cool off, take action. This is where you stay positive. Take these constructive actions as follow-up to the incident:
Discuss the mistake with the team member
Senior team members, like Rudolph in this example, usually feel bad about making major mistakes. Give Rudolph a chance to express his feelings. Share your own feelings. Be blunt if that’s your style, but don’t allow any residual anger to fuel an unneeded fire. During the course of this conversation, you may need to put on your coaching hat, encouraging Rudolph to overcome any doubts and learn from the mistake. Also, hold Rudolph accountable for the mistake. Let him know if he didn’t meet your expectations for a senior level team member. This is a good opportunity to reaffirm your expectations. Once you handle feelings and accountability, switch over to fact-finding mode to get a better understanding of what went wrong with the change management ticket.
Review the change management process for improvements
You had your discussion with Rudolph. You have the facts about the lapse in change management process. Now, you’re ready to review your change management process for potential improvements. Focus on preventing a re-occurrence of the issue. Bring the team together for this exercise. Use the operational mistake as a learning opportunity for the team to improve the process. These brainstorming exercises usually uncover other areas for improvement. That’s a good thing. If you run an infrastructure and operations team, you should be striving for continuous improvement. Make sure you document the improvements and any changes to your change management process.
Manage the fallout from the mistake
The damage has been done. Your team caused an outage. The downtime resulted in lost revenue. Customers complained. Your boss is mad. What a mess! Here’s where accountability comes back into the picture. You’re accountable for your team’s actions. Acknowledge the operational mistake. Make a statement to your customers. Show the impacted parties that your team is taking action to prevent a re-occurrence of the issue. Taking these actions will help you to rebuild trust. For more info on being accountable to your customers, check out my post on the topic.
Conclusion
Anger is a natural reaction to critical mistakes. Masking our feelings with extreme positivity is unhealthy. Let yourself get mad and regulate your emotions. After you cool off, stay positive by coming up with constructive follow-up actions. And jump that shark!