I could hardly believe what I was hearing over the speakerphone.
Our client was frustrated with the progress of their website. And they weren’t holding back. We hadn’t worked with this group before, so I was unsure how to respond at first.
Everything in me wanted to defend myself and my team.
I could see the angst on my coworkers’ faces around the room.
Some of our client’s frustration was justified.
The project wasn’t as far along as we all hoped it would be.
Communication hadn’t been great.
There had been plenty of mistakes to go around.
In that moment, I wanted to explain myself. I wanted to explain my team’s side of the story. But I realized just in time that the human on the other end of the line wasn’t ready to hear it.
I swallowed my pride a bit.
I took responsibility for the delays.
I shared my full confidence in our team.
I laid out our path forward and plotted our next steps.
I even offered a way out of the project if they no longer wanted to continue.
By the end, the client had cooled off. I was able to share some of the issues on both sides. We agreed upon a way forward. We fixed what was broken on our end. The project went on pretty much without a hitch.
I learned something valuable in this interaction.
Sometimes you have to put out a fire before explaining how it started.
My natural reaction is often defensiveness. I want to take up for myself and for my team. There’s certainly a time for that as a leader.
But in situations like these, I’ve come to realize that the best way to move forward when things go sideways with other humans is to own your part in starting the fire first.
It’s hard to move forward after you’ve burned down the relationship.