Owning Up to Your Mistakes

Can you give an example of that, when you did make a mistake, and you had to say, you know what? I’m sorry. I didn’t get it right, but I’m going to be better next time.

’ll share a small one, one startup where it was just insane, I was the only person in legal, the only person in HR, the only person in the facility…

You did it all.

And I had too many email windows opened, and I accidentally sent a group of employees something about immigration, but it had an attachment with the offer letter from a former executive. And I was like, “Oh my God, I can’t believe I sent that.” My hope was that, because people mostly read things on their phone, that they wouldn’t see the attachment. But that being said, I went to both the CEO and the CFO, and I told them that I did this, because for me it was important to come clean about it, because I didn’t want them to be surprised. And I told them that yes, this was a result of my trying to do things too quickly, and that I would try to slow down and be more careful in the future.

And how did they receive that?

For a moment, I did think, well, if I don’t tell them, maybe they’ll never find out.

I think we’ve all had those moments. And when you did finally come clean, how was it received?

I think they appreciate the fact that I told them. It’s tough with startups sometimes, because if you do slow down too much, and if you are really careful, there’s a cost there as well. So, it’s trying to strike that right balance. So, I think they appreciated the fact that I did have so much on my plate. And fortunately, nobody ever raised the issue. I think that if it had come up, that could have been a different situation, where they would’ve had a tougher situation to deal with.