How can assistants help build a healthy culture in the workplace? We can start by owning our mistakes.
Admitting you’re wrong is not easy, but it is a necessary skill to master if you want to be an impactful leader who builds a healthy culture in your workplace.
I learned this valuable lesson about company culture while pushing carts at Walmart in high school, and it has helped me out in my career as an EA.
In this episode, I share my memorable experience and what I learned.
Enjoy!
RESOURCES FOR THIS EPISODE
- Let us know what tips you have on improving your company culture in the Facebook group here
- Original blog post on this topic can be found here
Here’s my old Walmart badge signed by Sam Walton himself. 😉
LEADERSHIP QUOTE
The earlier you admit to your mistakes, the more time you would have to learn and grow from them.
– Edmond Mbiaka
THIS EPISODE’S SPONSOR
Thanks to Lola.com for sponsoring this episode! If you manage business travel at your company, check out Lola.com’s corporate travel platform. Lola.com is the easiest way to book, manage, and report on corporate travel. Visit Lola.com/podcast to schedule a free demo and receive a free $50 Amazon gift card (terms apply).
If you’re interested in sponsoring The Leader Assistant Podcast, contact me here.
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EPISODE TRANSCRIPT
00:00:00.680 –> 00:00:06.040
JEREMY: Hey friends, it’s your host Jeremy Burrows with today’s leadership quote from Edmund Mbiaka.
00:00:06.720 –> 00:00:12.540
JEREMY: The earlier you admit to your mistakes, the more time you would have to learn and grow from them.
00:00:13.060 –> 00:00:14.760
JEREMY: Please review on iTunes.
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<v SPEAKER_2>The Leader Assistant Podcast exists to encourage and challenge assistants to become irreplaceable, game-changing leader assistants.
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<v SPEAKER_2>Welcome to Episode 24.
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JEREMY: Hey, Leader Assistants.
00:00:31.760 –> 00:00:40.740
JEREMY: If you manage business travel at your company, which I’m sure you do like most assistants do, check out Lola.com’s corporate travel platform.
00:00:41.060 –> 00:00:46.420
JEREMY: lola.com is the easiest way to book, manage, and report on corporate travel.
00:00:47.000 –> 00:00:55.220
JEREMY: You can even visit lola.com/podcast to schedule a free demo and receive a $50 Amazon gift card.
00:00:55.760 –> 00:01:02.760
JEREMY: Terms apply, but be sure to check out the demo form at lola.com/podcast.
00:01:03.000 –> 00:01:05.920
JEREMY: lola.com/podcast.
00:01:06.300 –> 00:01:11.580
JEREMY: Today I’m going to talk about a story from my time working at Walmart when I was 17 years old.
00:01:12.040 –> 00:01:15.620
JEREMY: I used to work in the pet department at a Walmart Supercenter.
00:01:15.640 –> 00:01:21.780
JEREMY: In fact, my first day was the first day they allowed Walmart employees into that store as they were building it.
00:01:22.200 –> 00:01:33.580
JEREMY: So I literally got to go in and help build the shelves and stock the shelves and do all that work for a month or so before customers were even able to visit the store.
00:01:33.600 –> 00:01:36.660
JEREMY: So that was kind of a fun experience for a 17-year-old.
00:01:36.920 –> 00:01:45.000
JEREMY: But I worked in the pet department, which was kind of ironic because I never had a cat or a dog or even a goldfish.
00:01:45.640 –> 00:01:52.140
JEREMY: But here I was selling cat litter, dog food, selling goldfish in plastic bags.
00:01:53.900 –> 00:02:00.360
JEREMY: Some people that were purchasing these goldfish had just purchased one the week prior and needed a replacement.
00:02:01.580 –> 00:02:03.620
JEREMY: So yeah, it was an interesting time.
00:02:04.440 –> 00:02:19.740
JEREMY: But during one particularly hot and humid Missouri summer, which is most Missouri summers, it was probably 100 degrees usually for this couple weeks stretch with probably 100% humidity.
00:02:20.320 –> 00:02:30.940
JEREMY: Anyway, I was repeatedly asked to go outside in the heat to push carts, which basically means gather all the shopping carts in the parking lot and bring them inside.
00:02:31.940 –> 00:02:33.880
JEREMY: So I was not a cart pusher.
00:02:33.900 –> 00:02:40.300
JEREMY: I worked in the pet department, but this particular manager was asking people to help gather carts.
00:02:40.540 –> 00:02:41.780
JEREMY: I guess they were short-staffed.
00:02:41.800 –> 00:02:47.660
JEREMY: It was fairly common to happen, but there was a stretch that hot month when it happened almost every night.
00:02:48.140 –> 00:02:53.080
JEREMY: And just a side note, this was before the glory days of the automatic cart pushing machine.
00:02:53.660 –> 00:02:56.340
JEREMY: So my long, skinny arms had to do all the work.
00:02:57.120 –> 00:03:03.900
JEREMY: And also these carts were not the plastic, lightweight target carts you might see these days.
00:03:04.520 –> 00:03:13.920
JEREMY: These carts were the large Walmart Supercenter oversized metal carts, more something you would see at maybe a Sam’s Club or a Costco these days.
00:03:14.420 –> 00:03:20.680
JEREMY: So I was happy to help, but we had a dress code which did not allow us to wear shorts on the sales floor.
00:03:21.380 –> 00:03:29.460
JEREMY: So I would come to work in khaki pants, and then I would get asked to go outside in the heat and push a bunch of heavy carts around the black asphalt parking lot.
00:03:30.200 –> 00:03:39.540
JEREMY: So after a few nights of this, I asked the assistant manager who kept calling me to have me help if I could wear shorts, just in case I was asked to push carts again.
00:03:39.700 –> 00:03:41.640
JEREMY: And he said, no, you need to stick to the dress code.
00:03:42.740 –> 00:03:46.900
JEREMY: So I was kind of frustrated by my assistant manager’s buy the book management style.
00:03:47.620 –> 00:03:50.620
JEREMY: So I may or may not have mentioned it to my department manager.
00:03:51.560 –> 00:03:56.000
JEREMY: And to put it plainly, let’s just say my department manager was not happy.
00:03:57.120 –> 00:04:02.340
JEREMY: So he kind of gave me that look, but I didn’t know what happened after that.
00:04:02.920 –> 00:04:08.060
JEREMY: The next night, I went to work with my pants on, as most do, and I got a call from the assistant manager.
00:04:08.840 –> 00:04:14.660
JEREMY: He apologized for making me go out in the heat to push carts without the proper attire.
00:04:14.880 –> 00:04:20.320
JEREMY: He told me if the temperature was hotter than 90 degrees, I could wear shorts to work just in case he needed me outside.
00:04:21.140 –> 00:04:22.360
JEREMY: I told him thank you and hung up.
00:04:22.600 –> 00:04:30.360
JEREMY: Come to find out later, my department manager had made a call to the store manager, who then called the assistant manager, demanding he apologize to me for his bad judgment.
00:04:30.480 –> 00:04:37.500
JEREMY: When my dad found out about this apology from the manager, he said, son, you should be grateful for working with that team.
00:04:37.520 –> 00:04:43.320
JEREMY: It’s extremely rare for someone above your pay scale to apologize to you and admit they were wrong.
00:04:43.980 –> 00:04:45.520
JEREMY: So I didn’t really get it at the time.
00:04:45.700 –> 00:04:52.040
JEREMY: I thought it was interesting that they apologized, but I didn’t think it was a rare occurrence.
00:04:52.900 –> 00:04:55.980
JEREMY: And I was just simply happy to wear shorts for the next shift.
00:04:56.160 –> 00:05:01.100
JEREMY: I didn’t realize until years later the long term impact that that day would have on me.
00:05:02.060 –> 00:05:07.760
JEREMY: At such a young age, I was exposed to a simple yet powerful tool for building a healthy company culture.
00:05:08.260 –> 00:05:09.700
JEREMY: And that’s called an apology.
00:05:10.900 –> 00:05:15.580
JEREMY: So as assistants, especially, we like to be right.
00:05:15.600 –> 00:05:17.120
JEREMY: We like to get all the details right.
00:05:17.680 –> 00:05:19.620
JEREMY: It’s not easy to admit that we are wrong.
00:05:20.360 –> 00:05:23.420
JEREMY: It’s not cool to admit that you’re wrong in a lot of circles.
00:05:23.540 –> 00:05:26.040
JEREMY: We’re afraid that we’ll be exposed as a fraud.
00:05:26.420 –> 00:05:30.460
JEREMY: We hide behind the one thing we have going for us, which is being right all the time.
00:05:31.440 –> 00:05:35.340
JEREMY: But deep down inside, we know that we’re wrong much of the time.
00:05:35.780 –> 00:05:46.340
JEREMY: Since that day at Walmart, when my assistant manager apologized to me, I’ve been blessed to have worked at a nonprofit that encouraged and accepted the practice of admitting when you were wrong.
00:05:46.420 –> 00:05:49.780
JEREMY: But I know this is not the norm, particularly in the for-profit world.
00:05:50.980 –> 00:05:56.160
JEREMY: So I started thinking about how do we create a culture of taking responsibility for our actions?
00:05:56.180 –> 00:05:59.200
JEREMY: How do we encourage our team members to admit they screwed up?
00:06:00.180 –> 00:06:02.260
JEREMY: Well, I think we lead by example.
00:06:02.440 –> 00:06:06.840
JEREMY: We say we’re sorry and we admit we’ve screwed up publicly and privately.
00:06:07.840 –> 00:06:12.820
JEREMY: And another way we can build a culture of responsibility is to lead by asking others to apologize.
00:06:14.020 –> 00:06:18.880
JEREMY: For example, if someone else was wrong or does something inappropriate, ask them to apologize to those affected.
00:06:19.340 –> 00:06:22.360
JEREMY: If it was a public offense, ask them to apologize in public.
00:06:23.080 –> 00:06:25.340
JEREMY: If it was private, make sure they address it privately.
00:06:25.640 –> 00:06:30.860
JEREMY: One of the most crucial partnerships in your office is your relationship with your executive.
00:06:31.400 –> 00:06:37.500
JEREMY: So the assistant executive relationship is crucial, as most of you know, listening.
00:06:38.060 –> 00:06:44.060
JEREMY: So I think that in your next one-on-one meeting, I wanted to kind of give you a takeaway and an action item.
00:06:44.420 –> 00:06:50.100
JEREMY: In your next one-on-one meeting with your executive, apologize for what you need to apologize for.
00:06:50.760 –> 00:06:52.060
JEREMY: Maybe there’s something you did wrong.
00:06:52.360 –> 00:06:55.060
JEREMY: Maybe there’s something that you messed up, that you kind of hid.
00:06:55.320 –> 00:07:02.120
JEREMY: I know it’s going to be very vulnerable and challenging to do this, but I really want to encourage you to bring it up and say, hey, listen, I screwed this up.
00:07:02.140 –> 00:07:02.780
JEREMY: I was wrong.
00:07:02.800 –> 00:07:08.520
JEREMY: I just want to let you know it’s not going to happen again, but I just wanted to be open with you about that.
00:07:08.720 –> 00:07:16.380
JEREMY: I know it’s not easy, but it’s a necessary skill to master if you want to be an impactful leader who builds a healthy culture in your workplace.
00:07:16.920 –> 00:07:22.320
JEREMY: And us leader assistants have just as much impact on the culture of our workplace than our executives do.
00:07:23.240 –> 00:07:25.440
JEREMY: So again, who do you need to apologize to?
00:07:25.860 –> 00:07:26.940
JEREMY: Seek them out ASAP.
00:07:27.540 –> 00:07:28.460
JEREMY: Admit you’re wrong.
00:07:28.840 –> 00:07:31.340
JEREMY: The longer you wait, the more difficult it will be.
00:07:31.360 –> 00:07:33.060
JEREMY: All right, I hope this was helpful.
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JEREMY: Good reminder for most of you or a challenge to some of you.
00:07:37.760 –> 00:07:42.520
JEREMY: Please check out the show notes at leaderassistant.com/24.
00:07:42.960 –> 00:07:46.340
JEREMY: Thanks again to lola.com for sponsoring.
00:07:46.500 –> 00:07:59.880
JEREMY: And also join our Facebook group at facebook.leaderassistant.com to join our community that is growing and help each other out and get extra resources and videos and content in that group.
00:08:00.500 –> 00:08:02.800
JEREMY: Thanks again for tuning in to The Leader Assistant Podcast.
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JEREMY: This is Jeremy Burrows and I will talk to you soon.
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<v SPEAKER_3>Help my dad out in review on iTunes.
