The habit that many businesses have, the habit that many managers have, when something goes wrong, the first thing they try to do is figure out what went wrong and why?
Instead, Mary Barra, the CEO of General Motors, when she was faced with this, asked the question, “what do we do now?”
She focused on the firm and its values to look ahead and then circled back to review the mistakes they made.
When they stepped up to make ventilators during the Covid crisis, they were effectively shut down and had no intrinsic expertise in manufacturing ventilators.
Yet by focusing on the solution rather than what they missed, they were able to bring many people back to work and, more importantly, help the country overcome the crisis.
They train their people for how to put on a mask and say safe at work rather than place themselves at risk.
GM helped America overcome that part of the crisis by looking at what they should do now, right now, not what they did wrong.
Hint: one of the things that they improved upon was eliminating layers of decision-making so that instead of waiting two weeks for a decision, they were made in 24 hours.
Ⓒ The Big Game Hunter, Inc., Asheville, NC 2020
ABOUT JEFF ALTMAN, THE BIG GAME HUNTER
Jeff Altman, The Big Game Hunter is a career and leadership coach who worked as a recruiter for more than 40 years. He is the host of “No BS Job Search Advice Radio,” the #1 podcast in iTunes for job search with more than 1800 episodes and his newest show, “No BS Coaching Advice” and is a member of The Forbes Coaches Council.
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