Have just been witnessing a few dear ones falling into this trap over the last few months.
This was quite a few years ago. I was supposed to send an update email to all my clients. This email contained an attachment. After sending out the mail, I realised that I had sent the wrong word document as an attachment. Instead of sending the final version of the file, I had sent one with errors.
Immediately I sent a mail recall request. Within the next 1 minute, I attached the correct file and sent out the second mail. This time, I forgot to write the subject in the mail.
Immediately, I updated the subject line and resent it only to find that I had mentioned the year in subject as 2008 instead of 2009.
Got a call from my Boss:
Boss: "Gulshan, you have sent 3 wrong mails to all the clients in less than 3 minutes. What are you trying to do?
Gulshan: "I'll fix it now"
Boss: "The best way to fix it is - JUST DON'T DO ANYTHING ANYMORE. Take a break and come back."
Have been seeing that around a lot for the last few days.
Each one of us falls in that trap some time or the other, and it goes in the same order - We make a mistake, we panic, we try to fix it while panicking and end up making more mistakes.
This is true not just for emails, it goes the same way for work, relationships, and very often in communication. Very often I find myself speaking something I shouldn't have, I say something to fix it and that turns out to be more wrong and so on.
How to get rid of this trap?
Simple - Don't panic. Pause, Think and Act.
The moment I realise I have made a mistake, panic is the first and the most natural reaction. But thats when I decide not to take any action. As soon as I realise my mistake, I pause, stop, wait and think what happened, see what is impacted and systematically start making the corrections. (mind it, systematically and as per the process).
If the task is time sensitive, I send out an email saying that the earlier mail was incorrect and the correct data will follow shortly.
I guess as humans, we are all bound to make errors at some time, the beauty is not to fall in the Trap of Errors...
This was quite a few years ago. I was supposed to send an update email to all my clients. This email contained an attachment. After sending out the mail, I realised that I had sent the wrong word document as an attachment. Instead of sending the final version of the file, I had sent one with errors.
Immediately I sent a mail recall request. Within the next 1 minute, I attached the correct file and sent out the second mail. This time, I forgot to write the subject in the mail.
Immediately, I updated the subject line and resent it only to find that I had mentioned the year in subject as 2008 instead of 2009.
Got a call from my Boss:
Boss: "Gulshan, you have sent 3 wrong mails to all the clients in less than 3 minutes. What are you trying to do?
Gulshan: "I'll fix it now"
Boss: "The best way to fix it is - JUST DON'T DO ANYTHING ANYMORE. Take a break and come back."
Have been seeing that around a lot for the last few days.
Each one of us falls in that trap some time or the other, and it goes in the same order - We make a mistake, we panic, we try to fix it while panicking and end up making more mistakes.
This is true not just for emails, it goes the same way for work, relationships, and very often in communication. Very often I find myself speaking something I shouldn't have, I say something to fix it and that turns out to be more wrong and so on.
How to get rid of this trap?
Simple - Don't panic. Pause, Think and Act.
The moment I realise I have made a mistake, panic is the first and the most natural reaction. But thats when I decide not to take any action. As soon as I realise my mistake, I pause, stop, wait and think what happened, see what is impacted and systematically start making the corrections. (mind it, systematically and as per the process).
If the task is time sensitive, I send out an email saying that the earlier mail was incorrect and the correct data will follow shortly.
I guess as humans, we are all bound to make errors at some time, the beauty is not to fall in the Trap of Errors...
No comments:
Post a Comment