So you had a bad business day.
It’s to be expected. You’re not superman or superwoman. You’re just a human person that happens to be a CEO, company president or business owner. But everyone, including yourself, expects you to be superman (or woman).
The question to ask yourself is: Why did I have a bad day? And what am I going to do about it so it doesn’t happen again?
Here are 5 tips to turn a bad business day into a good business day:
1) Take responsibility for what happened. Think about how not to have it happen again. Take any necessary steps to prevent it from happening again. The key is to be aware of the business lesson learned. Then move on.
2) The next hour or next day, make it the best you’ve ever had in your business. Don’t go into a state of replaying over and over again what happened. Don’t play the blame game. It’s over. Make it right.
3) From bad business days can come tremendous opportunity. Look for the golden lining. Look for a new way, a better way, a different approach. As the saying goes, how can you turn lemons into lemonade?
4) Successful people are successful because they consciously try to avoid having the same bad business experience twice. They learn from every bad business situation.
5) This advice goes for you, the CEO, president or owner. But it also goes for every person that works for you. If you have a great employee who just made a dreadful business mistake, don’t yell at them or make a public spectacle of them. Talk about what happened so you can understand their thought process and how they feel. Tell them how much you value their work. Coach them to be better at what they do. Ask how you can further support them. Help them understand how they can make tomorrow a much better day.
By working through problems with people employees, associates, vendors, customers you’ll build stronger, more meaningful business relationships, gain respect and loyalty. By criticizing, complaining or having a negative attitude you’ll be creating a dysfunctional company with a very unpleasant atmosphere to work in for yourself and everyone else. Which will only lead to higher turnover (yes, even in this difficult economy) and less productivity.
In business, you or your employees are not going to get it perfect all the time. Keep a positive attitude. Make sure there are more good business days than bad business days.