For error proofing documents: if you can, you should finish the final version at least 1 day before the deadline. Then you go home, sleep, and look at it the next day, you will find the mistakes more easily. It's a general strategy for any kind of problem solving. Work on the problem -> distance yourself from the problem -> go back to the problem, look at it with fresh eyes.
Hi Heinrich thank you for your content! My tips are to use 1. Templates, checklists 2. sanity check 3. make screenshots of data mining resources and 3. ask again, if it is not clear 4. don't send emails if you are angry (never) )
A really good video thanks. My biggest mistakes were falling behind schedule on a project and not being open with my manager, hoping I could catch up, until it became a much bigger problem.
0:30 directly responsible for: how to deal with if and avoid again. 1:00 strategy: how to .. 2:00 forget task: ... and you have to admit you forget to bring that. 2:30 errors in excel model: wrong formula, and this happens more often than imagine. 3:30 sharing wrong information, missed deadline, spelling mistakes. a big workshop and an associate is responsible for preparing this workshop. partners flying to this important one. And the number is actually wrong. 4:30 this is extremely unfortunate and embarrassing for us as consultants. 5:05 First strategy: wouldn't recommend to say, sorry. but should say, yes I did something wrong and should not happen. work on this not happening again. Second strategy: keep things in perspective. 6:15 should reflect and introspect on what's going on; what's let to this situation; why this mistake was done. 6:20 Third strategy: Leadership and team responsibility 6:50 preparatory call. when especially complex situation goes wrong. Different failures in different levels of the team. should collaborate and quality check. 7:15 Fourth strategy: be honest about what happened. ... let me share one anecdote from work. 7:40 circulate the information. 8:00 project lead lied to the board member. 8:20 the project lead seems likely be a little minor cover-up, the damage from the result of the situation is significant. 8:30 the trust is gone and the project lead needs to face internal consequence. build the habit of tell the truth. don't dodgy things and covers up. 9:00 sneaky hack: share good news in writing but bad news in verbal. they could forward it around the organization. 12:00 to avoid a mistake. at the first place is to not do one. 1. Use checklists to avoid one 2. check sum and plausibility checks in excel. ... ??? do a lot modeling. 3. print out documents for proof-reading. 14:35 spot all the last mistakes. 14:45 leverage the team for quality checks: project on walls and spot any errors and inconsistencies. slide by slide.
I think you touched on a really good point, which is that it's easy and common to blame mistakes on junior associates. Of course more junior employees make mistakes, but as leaders, managers need to hold responsibility for the quality of work at the end of the day, and ensure processes are in place to catch mistakes before they become major problems.
The best thing ever that is good for me is I practice my hobby every day or when I feel that I have to do so. Doing things that you love every day helps in activating your brain and to feel comfortable.
Very good tips. I like the bad news verbally. That’s good leadership. It can be tempting to hide mistakes for short term gains (no one discovered them) but as in your case with the project lead, they can be devastating and they usually come out anyway. Trust is one of the most valuable asset you have and rebuilding it is close to impossible. With excel, I’ve found one thing very useful in models. Start with the variables that are essential to the model and name the cells accordingly. For example exchange rates. By having them in one place with the proper name (e.g. EURUSD). It simplifies the process and you can update the model on the fly and it greatly simplifies scenario analysis. As your tip with checksums that are super useful and part of fail-safe your model. A tip is to hide them for the viewer if you feel like not sharing them :) Thanks for sharing!
This is such a fascinating topic. I work across South East Asia, with many different cultural teams and the process of dealing with mistakes is very different across cultures. Recognition of the error is of course the first step, but addressing it, correcting it, withdrawing recommendations that were based on it etc. are subject to local practice. Morally, it is always the best strategy to come clean and disclose the issue, but the way in which it is done is critical and there is no "one size fits all". Great topic, thanks.
How my subordinates deal with their mistakes: 1) Blame the other shifts 2) Explain how much better they are, than the other shifts 3) ??? 4) Profit Seriously though, the worst thing you can do if you made a mistake, is to blame other people. You are then not just the one who made the mistake, but also the one avoiding responsibility, AND also the one trying to unfairly attack, undermine or blame other people. You just turned one bad thing into 3 bad things.
Hi, nice ideas. What would you suggest to people, especially junior team members, who are blamed for a mistake they honestly believe they are not responsible for? Of course they should not start blaming other people right away and start an angry discussion in that moment. Especially a consultant should not blame client employees when a senior client executive faces them with an error he found. But just accepting the blame and apologizing will lead to them being persistently perceived as the one responsible for the error. This could be a significant problem, if therefore for example internal performance reviews get downgraded or, in the example above, the client board thinks the consulting firm screwed up when this is not actually the case.
Hi Tobias, probably best to talk to your internal team colleagues without clients present to explain what happened. Understand that this can be difficult depending on individual circumstances. People will always be able to say that you should have done a better job at managing client perceptions / escalated the situation earlier etc. Best, Heinrich
When a complex and political email/text needs to be written. It helps a lot to send it to your own email address as a final check before sending it to the real recipient. This way you can make the last optimizations. Printing this text also helps a lot.
Very good video ... What I wonder, if this associate made this mistake, admits it and tries to improve... Did he ever face negative consequences or is it really like you said PL did not cross check and partner was not close enough to team > that's it .. in many "normal" corporations you have this fingerpoiting... So this is not the case in MBB firms?!
Hi! Well this will depend on the personality of the individual people involved. In severe cases, examples like this might pop-up in the next performance review. What is important is that these are singular cases. As soon as you do mistakes like this several times, your performance evaluators will start to see a pattern and then this is when it will start affecting your career negatively. Best! Heinrich
Heinrich, I still sometimes think that you have experienced absolute horror stories at McKinsey 😲 That story about the huge workshop at which the client (!) noticed materials were based on wrong numbers sounds terrifying! Poor Associate as well... 😥 I wonder: How did the team save the workshop, and did it still manage to save its face in front of the client?
Algorithm comment. Also the moment he called the person was already enough sign for mistrust even if the person confirmed an interaction. Something must have gone the river previously. Sounds also like you're quite tolerant for mistakes of your employees IF they acknowledge and learn from it.
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For error proofing documents: if you can, you should finish the final version at least 1 day before the deadline. Then you go home, sleep, and look at it the next day, you will find the mistakes more easily. It's a general strategy for any kind of problem solving. Work on the problem -> distance yourself from the problem -> go back to the problem, look at it with fresh eyes.
Also a great one - fully agree!
Thank you for this one! :)
Amen King of Uruk Gilgamesh 🤘👌
Works for me
Hi Heinrich
thank you for your content!
My tips are to use
1. Templates, checklists
2. sanity check
3. make screenshots of data mining resources
and
3. ask again, if it is not clear
4. don't send emails if you are angry (never)
)
Great ones, thanks for sharing Mikhail! Best, Heinrich
Especially screenshot of data pipelines are important!!
For proofreading : Use a realistic text-to-voice engine to read the text out to you
Hi Thomas, never tried this, but cool idea! Best, Heinrich
Thanks for sharing Heinrich. Really helpful for people like me who are in the beginning of their career.
Great to hear that Pranit - thank you for watching! Best, Heinrich
Download the checklist I used in consulting for high-quality documents:
link.firmlearning.com/documentchecklist
This guys got an awesome growth mindset. Would love to see a video about negotiating a substantial pay increase
Hi Matthew, I shared a video called "How to negotiate your salary" on the 3rd of April 2021. I hope that this is helpful! Thanks for watching!
A really good video thanks. My biggest mistakes were falling behind schedule on a project and not being open with my manager, hoping I could catch up, until it became a much bigger problem.
Agree, communication is key. Thanks for sharing Alistair! Best, Heinrich
0:30 directly responsible for: how to deal with if and avoid again.
1:00 strategy: how to ..
2:00 forget task: ... and you have to admit you forget to bring that.
2:30 errors in excel model: wrong formula, and this happens more often than imagine.
3:30 sharing wrong information, missed deadline, spelling mistakes.
a big workshop and an associate is responsible for preparing this workshop. partners flying to this important one. And the number is actually wrong.
4:30 this is extremely unfortunate and embarrassing for us as consultants.
5:05
First strategy: wouldn't recommend to say, sorry. but should say, yes I did something wrong and should not happen. work on this not happening again.
Second strategy: keep things in perspective.
6:15 should reflect and introspect on what's going on; what's let to this situation; why this mistake was done.
6:20
Third strategy: Leadership and team responsibility
6:50 preparatory call. when especially complex situation goes wrong. Different failures in different levels of the team. should collaborate and quality check.
7:15
Fourth strategy: be honest about what happened. ... let me share one anecdote from work.
7:40 circulate the information.
8:00 project lead lied to the board member.
8:20 the project lead seems likely be a little minor cover-up, the damage from the result of the situation is significant.
8:30 the trust is gone and the project lead needs to face internal consequence.
build the habit of tell the truth. don't dodgy things and covers up.
9:00 sneaky hack: share good news in writing but bad news in verbal.
they could forward it around the organization.
12:00 to avoid a mistake. at the first place is to not do one.
1. Use checklists to avoid one
2. check sum and plausibility checks in excel. ... ??? do a lot modeling.
3. print out documents for proof-reading.
14:35 spot all the last mistakes.
14:45 leverage the team for quality checks: project on walls and spot any errors and inconsistencies. slide by slide.
Yes the verbal communication of bad news is useful!
Glad to hear, thanks for watching Emily! Best, Heinrich
I think you touched on a really good point, which is that it's easy and common to blame mistakes on junior associates. Of course more junior employees make mistakes, but as leaders, managers need to hold responsibility for the quality of work at the end of the day, and ensure processes are in place to catch mistakes before they become major problems.
I liked the "deliver bad news only verbally". A problem of mine.
That is a good tip for sharing good news via email vs bad news verbally
Thank you for watching Gary!
The best thing ever that is good for me is I practice my hobby every day or when I feel that I have to do so. Doing things that you love every day helps in activating your brain and to feel comfortable.
Thanks for watching!
Very good tips. I like the bad news verbally. That’s good leadership. It can be tempting to hide mistakes for short term gains (no one discovered them) but as in your case with the project lead, they can be devastating and they usually come out anyway. Trust is one of the most valuable asset you have and rebuilding it is close to impossible.
With excel, I’ve found one thing very useful in models. Start with the variables that are essential to the model and name the cells accordingly. For example exchange rates. By having them in one place with the proper name (e.g. EURUSD). It simplifies the process and you can update the model on the fly and it greatly simplifies scenario analysis.
As your tip with checksums that are super useful and part of fail-safe your model. A tip is to hide them for the viewer if you feel like not sharing them :)
Thanks for sharing!
Hi Gustav, thanks for watching and sharing. Definitely good points! Best, Heinrich
You the man Heinrich. Love your positivity and growth mindset
I am so glad that you enjoy the channel! Thanks for watching!
Thank you so much. Please add more of these videos.
Amazing and super useful content as always! Thank you a lot, Heinrich!
Printing out drafts and using a red pen is a great way to check for errors. I have a mountain of scrap paper now which is always useful ;-)
Thank you for watching and sharing your thoughts Roman!
Great video, loved it. Watching every one of your videos now from the beginning of the channel. Greetings from Minnesota, USA.
Thanks so much for your support! I am so glad that you enjoy the channel :)
This is such a fascinating topic. I work across South East Asia, with many different cultural teams and the process of dealing with mistakes is very different across cultures. Recognition of the error is of course the first step, but addressing it, correcting it, withdrawing recommendations that were based on it etc. are subject to local practice. Morally, it is always the best strategy to come clean and disclose the issue, but the way in which it is done is critical and there is no "one size fits all". Great topic, thanks.
Thanks for your input and for supporting the channel! :)
Thanks for the great tips. I will definetely use the cheecky trick with telling bad news verbally.
Glad to hear it is helpful! ;) Thanks for watching Temirlan! Best, Heinrich
How my subordinates deal with their mistakes:
1) Blame the other shifts
2) Explain how much better they are, than the other shifts
3) ???
4) Profit
Seriously though, the worst thing you can do if you made a mistake, is to blame other people. You are then not just the one who made the mistake, but also the one avoiding responsibility, AND also the one trying to unfairly attack, undermine or blame other people. You just turned one bad thing into 3 bad things.
Thanks for sharing. Fully agree, just blaming others when something goes wrong will almost never be taken positively. Best! Heinrich
Hi, nice ideas. What would you suggest to people, especially junior team members, who are blamed for a mistake they honestly believe they are not responsible for? Of course they should not start blaming other people right away and start an angry discussion in that moment. Especially a consultant should not blame client employees when a senior client executive faces them with an error he found. But just accepting the blame and apologizing will lead to them being persistently perceived as the one responsible for the error. This could be a significant problem, if therefore for example internal performance reviews get downgraded or, in the example above, the client board thinks the consulting firm screwed up when this is not actually the case.
Hi Tobias, probably best to talk to your internal team colleagues without clients present to explain what happened. Understand that this can be difficult depending on individual circumstances. People will always be able to say that you should have done a better job at managing client perceptions / escalated the situation earlier etc. Best, Heinrich
When a complex and political email/text needs to be written. It helps a lot to send it to your own email address as a final check before sending it to the real recipient. This way you can make the last optimizations. Printing this text also helps a lot.
Thank you very much for watching and for sharing your insight Eric!
Thanks, Heinrich!
This is really helpful for me. Thanks for sharing 👌🏼👌🏼👌🏼
Thanks for watching Fadira! Great to know that you found the video helpful!
Great insights, Heinrich. Thank you!
Glad that you enjoyed it! Thanks for watching!
Thanks so much for useful content!
Really good stories. Thank you for this, Heinrich!
Glad that you found the video helpful! :)
Very good video ... What I wonder, if this associate made this mistake, admits it and tries to improve... Did he ever face negative consequences or is it really like you said PL did not cross check and partner was not close enough to team > that's it .. in many "normal" corporations you have this fingerpoiting... So this is not the case in MBB firms?!
Hi! Well this will depend on the personality of the individual people involved. In severe cases, examples like this might pop-up in the next performance review. What is important is that these are singular cases. As soon as you do mistakes like this several times, your performance evaluators will start to see a pattern and then this is when it will start affecting your career negatively. Best! Heinrich
Very useful, thanks!
Great to know that you found the video useful! Thank you for watching!
Mistakes are made, not done 😉
Fair enough ;)
Thank you 👏👏☺️
Thank YOU for watching Muhammed! Appreciate it! Best, Heinrich
How should a consultant behave in this very embarrassing situation?
I couldn’t sleep over some typo that went out to a client
Heinrich, I still sometimes think that you have experienced absolute horror stories at McKinsey 😲 That story about the huge workshop at which the client (!) noticed materials were based on wrong numbers sounds terrifying! Poor Associate as well... 😥 I wonder: How did the team save the workshop, and did it still manage to save its face in front of the client?
Definitely some tough experiences, but overall cannot complain :) Great start to the new year to you! Best, Heinrich
@@FirmLearning Are you going through old comments as part of a new-year clear-out? 😀A happy New Year to you again, too!
Trank you!
Glad that you enjoyed the video!
11:55 Tips to avoid mistakes has a mistake 😂
;)
Algorithm comment.
Also the moment he called the person was already enough sign for mistrust even if the person confirmed an interaction. Something must have gone the river previously.
Sounds also like you're quite tolerant for mistakes of your employees IF they acknowledge and learn from it.
Thank you for watching and sharing your thoughts, I completely agree!