Its all about Trust

From 3arf

There is an old saying that "honesty is always the best policy."  Yet there are many occasions in life when "kindness" might be a better one; for example, telling the bride she looks "radiant" rather than "flushed" for instance, or reassuring an ageing and ailing parent they did a great job bringing you up, rather than listing all the things they did that made your life harder than could have been.

In business though, it's a different story.  Whilst there absolutely is room for kindness in business, if your focus is on 'getting ahead' honesty will serve you better most of the time.  Why?  Because the people who get ahead and stay ahead are the ones who are trusted.

To be successful in business, whatever your business is, you need to be trusted: by your managers, your staff, your co-workers, your clients and your suppliers.  If you're not yet a manager then you may not have your own staff, but whether your think you have or not, you DO have clients and suppliers.  In many roles these will literally be external people to whom you provide or who provide you with goods or services – but in many others they will simply people from outside your direct environment who feed into or out of your function – even if those people are within your own firm.

To be trusted by all of these people you need to be honest and ethical in your dealings with them.

3 top tips for being honest and how it will help your career

Admit your mistakes

You know what? You're human.  You're going to get it wrong sometimes.  You're going to miss a deadline, overcharge a client, fail to give a staff member credit for a fabulous piece of work, overlook an invoice… Or you might do something even more horrendous: misjudge an investment call that costs the firm thousands, speak out of turn and lose a key client.  Ouch.  Whatever the mistake is, large or small, there is only one way that you can attempt to make good on it: admit it.  Get in quickly, preferably before anyone else spots the error, and put your hand up.

Apologise.  If restitution is possible, offer it.  If not, consider what compensation might be needed.  For many small mistakes a simple apology and taking ownership is all people want to see.

Learn the lesson.  Why did the error occur? What can you do to make sure it never happens again?  Put those controls in place and be open with the relevant people about it.  This isn't about shouting your failures from the rooftops, it's about being open and transparent – about making good on bad choices – above all it's about learning.

How does this help your career?  You will be seen as someone who can be trusted to own up when they've got it wrong.  In turn this means that in cases where you feel a rightful need to defend yourself and your team, you will have a trust rating which negates a potential assumption of covering up.

Resolving situations with suppliers or clients yourself, rather than hoping they won't notice, will avoid any potential escalation to higher levels which will not play well on your record. It avoids resort to expensive escalation or legal proceedings.  It might even keep a client who – without your willingness to admit being in the wrong – would have taken their account elsewhere.

Admitting mistakes to junior staff is something most managers, especially those new to management, find extremely difficult.  That's insulting.  Your staff will likely know as well as you do what went wrong.  So eat your humble pie and raise your standing in their eyes.  Staff who trust you will be more productive for you – they will also be more willing to admit their own errors, giving you time to step in before a situation gets out of control.  Net result? A happier, productive team controlling its own risks.  Better results (whatever 'results' means in your environment) and more kudos to all concerned.

Be clear on your knowledge and skills - and about the gaps

Whatever you do and wherever on the career ladder you are, One thing is for sure: you do not know it all. No-one does.

Be honest about this: to your managers, to your potential employers, above all to yourself.

Being honest about your abilities has two strands to it.

The first is about being clear about how good you are.

A wise man once said "if you don't know how good you are, who does?"   If you are after a new job or a promotion, you have to sell yourself.  So if you are really good at something, make sure you highlight it.  Gather your evidence, prove your point.  You won't help your career by being unnecessarily humble at the wrong moment.  If you've been given an interview or a trial use it to your best advantage.  Demonstrate your talents.

But beware arrogance.  Don't over-sell.  If you really need to down-play an achievement get that in at the beginning and leave the 'good stuff' lingering in the mind.  "The whole database would have been a bit better if we'd thought about including x at the beginning, but despite that small shortfall, what we've achieved is….. and the impact it's had is….."  works a lot better than "we've done….which has helped…. But of course what we should have done was to involve x at the beginning which would have…."   Both are honest.  It's a question of emphasis.

The second strand to being honest about your skill-set is owning the gaps.

Never ever try to kid an interviewer.  Forget what the TV shows suggest. Any law firm worth its Manhattan office block won't just check the database – they'll phone up all of their personal contacts to see what they know about you!  If you lie at all, you will be found out.

Even if you wouldn't dream of actually faking your CV, it can still be tempting to overplay what you know.  Don't.  If you even begin to suggest you're aware of the latest developments in your field, be sure you'll be pushed for more information and if you haven't got it or can't explain the impact it's going to have, you'll look worse than you had if you'd not mentioned it at all.

Both at interview stage and at all times during your employment, be aware of what's happening in your industry, but also be very clear on just how much you know and don't know about it.  Seek out development opportunities.

Admitting to an interviewer that you're aware that this change is coming along but you're not yet up to speed on what it means can play positively if you follow that up with a plan for getting yourself up to speed (on your own time at your own expense – this is your career after all).

Once in post telling your managers where your competency gaps are gives you the best opportunities for addressing them.  Most firms will support training and development of trusted staff – equally most firms have limited money with which to do so.  Get in quick.  Identify your need and commit to filling it; this will give you best bite at the training cherry.

Confront the brutal facts

Whether you have started to climb the career ladder, or you are still on the front line, it will not have escaped you that some folk perform better than others.  Performance management is one of the key skills for getting ahead.

Initially, you just have to manage your own performance, which simply means being brilliant at whatever you are being paid to do.  Easy?  Yes? (Maybe not)

The minute you step into a supervisory role, you have to start managing other people's behaviour and performance.  Not so easy.

If you like the people concerned, or if you're a particularly good person even if you don't like them, there might be a tendency to fall back on "kindness." There is a place for 'trying to help' and 'being sympathetic.'  But only up to a point.  There is a point at which you have to 'confront the brutal fact' that this person is not doing what they are paid to do.

They are not ill. They do not have extenuating family (or other) circumstances.  They simply are not doing the job.  There can be any number of reasons but they boil down to two main categories: attitude and capability. Either they don't care enough or no matter how hard they try it is sadly, simply, beyond them. The approach to dealing with the individual will depend upon which area they fall into and how much scope you have to try to help.

For our purposes here confronting the brutal fact is the simple matter of recognising that this person cannot (or will not) do this job.

You need to be honest about this.  You also need to be aware that on another day, it might be you in this position.

There is no need to be harsh or cruel in your response to the situation.  Kindness does have its place here, but you do need to business-like and honest.

Avoiding a situation that is damaging your or your team's productivity essentially damages your career.  Facing up to the situation and dealing with it, with integrity and professionalism is an absolute necessity.

Having faced up to the situation an action plan can be developed to resolve the situation and get your team back on track.  The higher management are not interested in your day to day problems, they are only interested in the results.  If you are not achieving those results you need to be honest about why that is.

Defend against unfounded allegation by all means, but be ready to stand up and be counted when the assertions are in essence correct – and have your action plan ready. Many problems can't be solved overnight, but you will build your reputation just by being open about what they are and showing a willingness to get to root cause and work on the improvements.

Being honest won't always be easy or comfortable.  There will even be times when you might wish you hadn't been quite so up front about things – but it will benefit your career in the longer term, and in the meantime, at least you'll be able to sleep at night.

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