An Honest Account from the Trenches

In the early days of Collective Campus, like most new organisations, we kept ourselves afloat by taking part time jobs on the side and working with a number of small clients who paid us just enough to keep the lights on.

After building up enough case studies and collateral working with smaller organisations, we worked our way up and eventually hooked our first big A-list client, a global law firm with over 1,200 employees and revenues in excess of US$1B.

Long story short, we f*cked up.

When the proverbial shit hit the fan, we could have pointed fingers at each other.

We could have pointed fingers at the client, deluding ourselves that “they expect too much”.

We could have put it down to human error and that “shit happens”.

We could have done all of these things... but we didn’t.

So what did we do?

We looked inwards.

We assessed every step we had taken in that customer’s journey from the initial sales meetings, through to project planning and delivery.

We were as objective as possible in determining where we could have done a better job along that journey and why said shit hit said fan.

We identified a number of things we could have done better.

We came clean to the client about how and why we had screwed up/

But more importantly, rather than just say sorry, we came up with a solution and path of action to make the situation better and went above and beyond over what we had initially promised.

Ultimately, the client was happy that we were transparent, took ownership and worked hard to find a satisfactory solution.

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The Difference Between Blame and Ownership

Making excuses and pointing blame at other people, organisations or external circumstances is victimising.

Looking inwards and taking ownership over what you could have done better and what you can do to solve the problem is empowering. It empowers you and your people to take control and there is nothing more liberating.

When you’re in a hole, be it in your professional or personal life, the best way to get out isn’t to mope and complain. It’s to take action.

This initial hiccup during the early days of our company’s life served to help us build a culture of extreme ownership where excuses are simply hard to come by.

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Didn’t win that piece of work?

We don’t pass the buck and say “they don’t know what’s good for them”.

We ask what could we have done better?

Perhaps we had not qualified the opportunity well enough in the first place and shouldn’t have even submitted a proposal.

Can we get some feedback from the prospect so we can improve next time?

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Didn’t get a 50+ Net Promoter Score for a workshop?

We don’t say “they expect too much”.

We ask participants what could have been better?

Could we have told more stories, run more activities, articulated concepts better, provided lunch or free coffee?

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Prospect didn’t return your call after an initial meeting?

We don’t call them timewasters.

We ask whether we could have better prepared for the meeting.

We ask whether we could have asked better questions.

We ask whether we should have taken the meeting in the first place.

How might we do better next time?

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