Feeling bad about acting like a monster? Ask Yogesh Sood.
Dear Yogesh,
I believe I overreacted to a recent event that took place at our office. We had to coordinate with our international office and the coordinator Nath (name changed for confidentiality), who was just not acting right. He was completely off track and didn’t even have the basic details of the event. He had been inaccessible in the past, and the miscommunication led to a lot of confusion.
His team was also not up to the mark, which was creating further confusion. I got Nath on the telephone and reprimanded him. I have consistently been focused and to the point when it comes to execution, which has actually worked for me. Also, I was focused on the fact that there were things going downhill to the point of losing our company’s reputation.
Recently, I discovered that Nath’s parents experienced serious medical health issues due to COVID-19 and were hospitalized.
I have recently found out pretty much all of this, and I truly regret it. My reputation has suffered, and I am being seen as inhuman. How would I recuperate from this? How might I regain my image back?
Regards,
Nisha
Dear Nisha,
I recognize your problem and that you might find yourself accountable for causing someone else pain and difficulty. There are a lot of people who choose to ignore their problems and continue with their work. It is good that you’ve taken out time from your life to address this issue.
To address this, I’d like to draw your attention to two things you need to consider right now. First is a short-term thing that you can consider doing. That is to apologize. People refrain from apologizing, and this can be very damaging in the later part of life. When you have realized your mistake, you should talk and sort things out.
When you raise that apologizing for your mistake is the best thing you can do, try to keep the conversation in a way that:
- You must apologize quickly in order to avoid further misunderstandings.
- Be careful and open about what you did wrong and how you would address it if you could.
- Do not think about what might happen if you’ve decided to say sorry.
- Think about how you can fix things and share them with other people.
Long-term considerations will include you thinking about the efforts to make and things to change on how your belief framework is defined or perspectives about administration and individuals impacted the way things worked out. What may have to change to prevent such behavioral conduct later?
Start with your close group and then branch out to peers and your skip-level people. Substantial steps could be the best, includes meeting people in a one-on-one gathering and having informal conversations other than your daily task discussions.
Work connections resemble other connections and can be cherished outside working hours as well. They simply require a little attention. Two or three basic guidelines to consider:
- Except in the cases where you have past knowledge of people, consider the best about them. If you can't do that, your recruiting practices may require some modification.
- There is always an opportunity to reprimand mistakes after you have found out that it is the best thing to be done and is highly required.
- If everything else fails, pose questions first. What's happening? Is it a suitable spot to begin? To question yourself whether you are overreacting or whether there are other ways to work things out.
Don’t be too stressed about what has happened. Nobody will think you've become repulsive. People may really see you as somebody who cares—but it now needs a little more effort to convey what you really feel.
Hope this helps!
Best,
Yogesh
The above is inspired by a blog written by Madeleine Homan Blanchard on August 28, 2021: