What To Do When You Are Wrong

A good friend of mine is one of the founders of WageStream– a new service that lets employees in the UK (who get paid monthly) “borrow” against their future paycheck for little more than an ATM fee. As opposed to payday lenders who create such havoc in peoples’ lives because of how they work and the interest they charge, WageStream is an important tool for employees who are having a tough time managing their money on monthly paychecks. It only takes a government shutdown in the U.S. and a few conversations with teachers in California for me to see what problem WageStream solves.

However, when I first heard the idea, I never thought it would work. If a payroll system could solve the problem by just changing an input to weekly or bi-weekly and employees put enough pressure on the business owners, why wouldn’t the business just acquiesce? I did not fully understand the culture and how businesses have come to operate in the U.K. and many other places over countless generations.  So WageStream solves a real problem. I was wrong and, for my friend, happy to be wrong.

The question is what happens now?  Do I beat myself up for not getting it sooner?  Dig in as to my point of view?  Or do I try to learn more about what I did not know?  Is knowing what I do not know a sign of weakness or courage? How do I truly do better when I know better?

It takes discipline to move forward when your thinking is proven to be off.  Ego has no place here and the conviction of ego is a fool’s paradise.  Easy enough when you are dead wrong, not so much when you are not right enough.  This is the nuance of creative business more than any other kind of business for the simple reason that creative business is subjective and the same message delivered by another artist might soar.  We see it all the time.  For you though, you are wrong or, worse, not right enough.  Instead, what can you learn from the thinking that got you lost?  Not self-flagellation but integrity to come to another way of contemplation.

Inevitably, the question becomes what did you undervalue.  It is too easy to say that you just did not get it.  You likely did, but you mis-weighted what mattered and what did not.  Of course, there has to be agreement as to what you and your client most care about, just not what is behind it. Beauty and craftsmanship can be singular but together can reach the same destination. So it is too easy to say the client, colleague, employee did not care about what you did. That might be true but equally likely is your deafness to why. This is where true empathy can come in. If beauty is all that matters, craftsmanship will fall on deaf ears without relationship to beauty. If you missed the relationship, admitting you are wrong can bring you closer to the relationship and success in the future.  Nuance is everything in creative business.  Who wears it better matters.  A lot.

There is nothing ever wrong with conviction and faith in what you, your art and your creative business is all about.  However, you have to resonate and, to do that, you have to listen and listen with true humility. Your business will teach you a better way if you allow it to.  Or you can blame everyone else for just not getting it. Perhaps this is the sign of the times to blame others instead of looking at what you brought to the party.  It actually does not matter if you believe that or not.  Just know that if your competitor listens and pivots, they will be closer to your clients than you.  For that reason and that reason alone, they will win as they will know not just why your client cares, but why.

So check your ego at the door, admit what you do not or did not know and then do better.