"No matter how far you have gone on a wrong road, turn back."
--Turkish proverb
Like many proverbs, this simple line captures a universal truth: as hard as it may be to admit you've made a mistake and correct it, it's always better to do so than to try and brazen it out. The wrong road won't somehow magically turn out to be the right road just because you're too embarrassed or bull-headed to acknowledge that you're heading in the wrong direction. And assuring everyone around you that it's really-truly-the-right-road-just-wait-and-see isn't going to help, either.
A number of years ago, I saw this played out on the corporate stage. We were working with a company where the CEO had brought in a head of marketing to whom she was really committed – he was her first big hire, and she was convinced he would be great for the business. As time went by, it became clearer and clearer to everyone but her that he wasn’t. He didn't have a good feel for the brand, he was a terrible manager, and he had alienated nearly all of his peers on the senior team. And ultimately, it turned out that he had been - at best - irresponsible with company funds. Throughout, the CEO continued to support him, and to refuse to listen to any negative feedback about him. She kept assuring everyone that that he was a misunderstood genius, and implied to the other members of the team that it was their fault they couldn't get along with this guy.
The sad ending of the story: she ended up losing her job, as did he. The wrong road was the wrong road.
And I think she actually knew in her heart of hearts that she should cut her losses and let him go; swallow her pride and go through the pain and disruption of finding a replacement. But the further she went down that road, the harder it became to acknowledge the need to turn around.
I don't think any of us are immune to this. For instance, I once held onto a long-time employee, trying to work around the ways in which that person was no longer the right fit for the company or for me, even when my business partner was giving me very clear feedback about why it wasn't working, and even as I saw the evidence of it before me every day. I suspect each of you has similar stories in your personal or professional life.
So, how does one 1) recognize when it's time to turn around, and 2) do it?
Recognizing the need to change course: If you've been a reader of this blog for long, you've heard me talk about "becoming a fair witness." If not, here's another post where I explain it in depth. Basically, it means to listen to your self-talk (your mental monologue) to see whether it's neutral and objective, and - if not - then question (and alter) what you're saying to yourself to make it more neutral and objective. When you're talking to yourself about a situation in a more accurate way, you're much more likely to be able to make a proper decision about how to proceed.
For instance, if my CEO client had listened to her self-talk, she might have noticed that she was pretty consistently defending her marketing guy inside her head, saying things to herself like, "Nobody understands what he brings to the party – he’s a creative, of course he’s not going to make everyone happy, or worry about deadlines, or be a great manager..." Once she became aware of that self-talk, she could question and change it: "Wait a minute, I'm making a lot of excuses for him. Maybe I should get curious about what everyone else is telling me. And maybe I should observe him without assuming that everything he does is OK." Then she'd have a much better chance of realizing just how wrong her road was, and how deeply she needed to turn around.
Actually ‘turning around’: Even when you allow yourself to come to the realization that you need to change directions, it’s easy to avoid doing it. Your self-talk is likely to focus on all the things that will be awful about making the change. In the case of my CEO client: the difficulty and awkwardness of having the conversation with her head of marketing, who was a friend as well as a colleague; the embarrassment of explaining to her board that this guy (whose praises she had sung just a year earlier) wasn’t cutting it; the deep discomfort of letting her team know they had been right and she had been wrong; the complexity of finding a replacement.
In other words, your thoughts are likely to dwell on all the bad things that will happen if you make the needed change. However, you can make it seem much more doable by thinking through the bad things that will happen if you don’t make the change (for example, in the case of my client: she'd lose credibility with her board; good employees who were fed up with him might quit; the marketing would continue to be sub-par), and the good things that will happen if you do make the change (her senior team would be grateful and more productive; she'd have the chance to learn from her mistakes when re-hiring for the position; the marketing team would be ecstatic.)
Once you’ve thought through the outcomes of making the change in a more balanced way, it generally makes it seem more doable (and more necessary) to correct your mistakes. And it also makes it easier to plan for: you can figure out how to move ahead in a way that will minimize the negative impacts and amplify the positive.
If the process of admitting and correcting your poor decisions seems daunting - just think how much simpler and more productive your life will be if you get better at reducing the time spent wandering down unhelpful paths. And remind yourself that once you turn around and start heading down the right path, it will be a big relief...
(A version of this post first appeared here on February 10, 2012)
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