When you start a new project or take on a new task in your life, do you spend a lot of time worrying about making mistakes?
In my first job out of university, I took a position that involved traveling to customer sites to implement fairly complex software systems. I had very little experience compared to the other consultants who performed the same role. My company was billing out my time at very expensive rates so the customer’s expectations were very high.
Inevitably, there were times where I messed things up; usually due to lack of experience. In some cases the mistakes would impact other parts of the business, cause down time or delay project deadlines. Obviously the client would not be happy in these circumstances.
Almost 100% of the time I was able to turn a stressful situation like this into a win for both myself and the customer. Here was the simple process:
Take Ownership: I made sure that the client knew I was taking full respo…