Two Choices When You Screw Up

You set up an appointment with your spouse to meet for lunch during your workday. Your spouse arrives a few minutes early to make sure you'll both have a great table. You, however, forget about the lunch date altogether. You get the reminder when your cell phone rings and an upset spouse at the restaurant is awaiting your arrival but you're a half hour across the city. What do you do? You have two choices:

1. Wait a day and then issue the following statement in an email: "Due to circumstances beyond our control, we were unable to attend and fulfill the scheduled appointment. We regret any inconvenience this may have caused." (Who's "we?")
2. Fall all over yourself with remorse and, while on the phone, gush, "Sorry. Sorry. I'm so sorry honey. Oh my God. How can I make this up to you? Will you forgive me? Please. Please. Please forgive me. I'm so sorry."

If you picked the first choice, well, you're an ass and you should be divorced and living on your own. It should actually help you figure out why you have no "real" friends because real people with real feelings usually make the second choice.

• If you accidentally spill your coffee on a stranger at Starbucks, you make the second choice.
• If you swing around quickly at the photocopier and your elbow hits a co-worker in the face, you make the second choice.
• If you accidentally track mud on your shoes onto a neighbor's white carpet, you make the second choice.

You make the second choice because you're human. You have feelings, emotions and compassion. You apologize when you mess up. You try to fix it immediately, or at the very least, find a way to make up for your mistake.

You don't wait a day or two to run it by the Legal Department to make sure your ass is covered and then put out some lame diatribe on paper which neither fixes the issue or even takes accountability for your actions. No, you step up and be a big boy and take the heat. You apologize then and there.

So today, on Filter-Free Fridays™, you stop speaking "professionalese." Today, you speak human. No jargon in your emails, your memos, your phone calls, your meetings and especially your interactions with co-workers and clients. No, today you treat everyone and act like a human for a change and you let people see that you have a personality. Take off the filters that prevent you from being human on the job for a day. Go Filter-Free.

Kevin Burns - Management Attitude and Culture Strategist