Getting Your Facts Straight and Earning Credibility

This week we welcome Guest Blogger Tracy Pringle, Director of Business Development with the WindsorEssex Economic Development Corporation.

The other day, I read a Facebook post about Commander Hadfield returning from space to a $1.37 million cell phone bill from Rogers. Having had bad experiences myself with cell phone companies over the years, I pulled the trigger...sadly before I had all the facts. I wrote a scathing post – copied below for your reading pleasure...

Every Rogers marketing person should be fired. On the spot. Immediately. This whole thing could have worked so well in their favour. Think about the "Network Coverage" campaigns. Think about Rogers sponsoring Commander Hadfield's journey with every tweet sponsored by Rogers...sickening missed opportunity. Instead a ridiculous bill. Don't they know who he is and what he accomplished beyond going to space? Did they even realize he was their customer?? Was being the operative word.

Then...I read a little more closely. Only to find out the article was a spoof from “The Beaverton”. Canada’s Satire Newspaper.  My follow up post looked like this:

Wait...was this a spoof article? If so the Rogers marketing people can keep their jobs. Sorry.

Oops. I could try to tell you my comments are still bang on; I could try to tell you regardless of the fact it was satire, the point I made was still valid. But that would be a coward’s way out. I was wrong. I made a decision before I had the information.

Happens every day to nearly everyone I know; bosses, colleagues, family, friends, acquaintances, even in the comments section of the local online newspaper and on radio phone-in programs. Maybe I was trying to make myself feel smart or important by ripping into the Rogers marketing department, or maybe I was trying to prove to someone else how smart or important I am. And I did a great job of proving that I am neither smarter, nor am I more important than anyone else with an opinion. 

A very dear friend of mine pointed out to me just because you have an opinion, doesn’t mean anyone wants to hear it. Sage advice. We all make mistakes – but in my mind it’s about taking responsibility and holding yourself accountable for those mistakes. Most are willing to forgive a mistake when you put your hand up and say – “Uh...sorry about this but I think I screwed up.” It’s when we try to cover our tracks, back pedal, distort the truth, and find a way for it not to be our fault or to be right, even when we are wrong, that puts people on the back foot. 

When dealing with our customers, our colleagues, our team members, our bosses – basically with human beings all of which are fallible and prone to mistakes in judgment – it’s important to set the right example. If you are the type of person who is never wrong, it is never your fault, and you never admit responsibility or apologize, understand you are not to be trusted. 

If you choose not to be trusted, by not being trustworthy, that is your choice to make, provided you really understand the implications of that choice. When your team doesn’t, or can’t trust you the whole thing falls apart like a house of cards in a stiff breeze, no matter what position you hold in the organization. 

If you keep your integrity, by admitting when you’re wrong, apologizing when you know you should (if you hear your grandma’s voice in your head saying “that wasn’t very nice” it’s generally a good sign), and being forgiving of others who from time to time make a mistake, you will gain more respect and credibility than you would any other way. 

Tracy Pringle, Guest Blogger
Director, Business Development
WindsorEssex Economic Development Corporation