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At the time, I didn't really understand what I was doing wrong. In my last job before Burda, I became a manager after a short time. I started as an intern in May, was hired in August and promoted to team leader in October. At that time I was working on a big project with four teams, one of which I was allowed to lead. There were only three of us, but it was my first management role. I had just turned 24 - and I was lucky. I was really looking forward to it and I was ambitious; I really wanted to prove myself.
At that time I learnt a lot from my own boss; he was my mentor and I liked his management style: direct, authentic; he gave me freedom but was also demanding - and you were always allowed to stand up for your own tasks. In day-to-day life with my own team, I quickly realised that I couldn't just rely on my experience and management style. But I was just starting out; no one is born a manager. I still remember a situation that put me in a bad position:
At that time, we worked closely with the other teams. This included giving each other feedback across teams. We had a meeting with the whole project team, about 20 people; there was a small crisis council. The project was running slowly and we wanted to think together about what we could improve. At the time, I thought: if I think it's important and good, I'm sure others will think it's good too. I thought about criticism: I think it's good, it spurs me on to improve! With this attitude, I gave feedback at the team meeting. I said things like: 'The others have put in more effort before, we need more commitment, you need to be more motivated. Go the extra mile!'
Later my boss came to me and said I had been too harsh. One colleague was frustrated rather than motivated by my words. Another colleague was under enormous pressure and the feedback only made her feel worse.
What had happened? I had transferred my own expectations of leadership and cooperation onto others, hurting and offending people in the process. The issue even came up in my feedback meeting - and it was only then that I really realised the 'mistake'. That's why I remember the situation so vividly - even though the others may have forgotten about it and it wasn't so bad in the end.
I would do things differently today. That incident made me realise that I needed to take a different approach and I learned from it. When I took over my current team, the first thing I did was to ask the members: What is important to you? What do you want from me? What do you want out of your role? It's important for me to get to know the people I work with. I try to take their individual views and needs into account. And my team also knows what is important to me: open communication, equality, regular feedback, trust - we are a team.
Talking about feedback: I believe that if you have a good and open feedback culture, there will be no 'mistakes' at all. What are mistakes? I don't like the word very much and I almost never use it; it suggests that something is really bad, unchangeable and has major consequences. I'm in favour of dealing with mistakes constructively: saying when someone has done something wrong, but immediately coming up with a solution or a suggestion for improvement. Conversely, it's best to admit mistakes directly and ask for help. This applies to my team as well as to me. To improve the culture of making mistakes, you have to find out what is important to you.
Mistakes and feedback are directly related: If you give yourself regular feedback and trust each other, you will not make any major mistakes. If you have a problem, you should ask for advice and work with your manager to find a solution.
So give more feedback! In addition to the annual feedback meeting, I have an interim feedback meeting with my team and monthly feedback blocks in Jour Fixes - so feedback is part of my everyday life. And I also ask for feedback on myself - it's important to me and keeps me on an equal footing.
Admitting mistakes is difficult: but only the first few times! You get used to it - and being open about mistakes will inspire others to do the same.
For employees, this means asking for more feedback! Feedback is not something to wait for and then put up with: It is an opportunity for development and therefore always desirable. But you also have to ask for it.
For managers: It is important to know what is important to you as a manager; it is equally important to know what is important to each member of the team. Talk about it! Leadership is a shared responsibility.
Feedback takes time! So does good leadership. Take your time, open up to each other and see mutual feedback as an opportunity to understand each other better and as a basis for good cooperation.
My quintessence from this experience: we should give each other more feedback. If we address problems on a small scale and don't put them off, big mistakes won't happen in the first place.
By Karo Frizen
We all make mistakes - and that's exactly what our content series ‘My best mistake’ is all about: What mistakes managers at Burda have made and, above all, what they have learnt from them. Because mistakes are not bad, they are part of life. And we can often learn the most from them
