Pave your way, a Lesson learned about Disappointment.

The Boss said; “I’m disappointed !”.

These are two painful words for anyone to hear from a Boss whether you’re an engineer, at a senior level or even in a higher organizational hierarchy. Work Disappointment is one of the most unpleasant things to experience in your life career.

After a lesson learned experience I had recently in my career, I found it as a must to share some thoughts on how you can surpass a situation when you disappoint someone at work, which I believe it is inevitable for us all.

Something that you might not easily learn until you experienced it and it is on how can you address your Boss disappointment to rectify the situation in the quickest and most productive way.

For some of us, we always consider an apology as a quick win. So do not hesitate on this and Apology. Don’t consider the “if” just consider that you are responsible and apologize for the disappointing behaviour. Don’t let the disappointment lead to an upset. And don’t try to be smart and try to Get defensive as this will only cause the situation to get even worse. Apologize for your role in the shortfall of expectations and look for ways to address the situation. Apologies with no excuse.

Sit down with yourself, think about it, assist and Understand it. What happened to cause disappointment? What did you do or what did your work perceive? Was it a simple misunderstanding?  Could it be something simple, like you rushed through a project or forgot to check a detail of the project that made a significant impact later?  Maybe you took on more than you could handle and this is a wake-up call to scale things back. Find the cause so you can understand how to go forward positively. Don’t rush, be quick but watch your steps. As this time, another wrong result will not be followed by a disappointment rather it might be a step to an end.

Identify a fix, not a quick fix but a definite fix. Come back to the table with possible solutions to prevent a repeat of the disappointment in the future. This has the potential to immediately reduce disappointment and negative emotions. The person you are working with will be relieved to know that you are taking them seriously and willing to prevent future disappointment.

Accept the lesson and forget about “nobody is perfect”, it’s not about it. You are not a “nobody”. You exist, you deliver, you have your impacts and you have your patients. So your bad results that caused such disappointment was a result of work. Without judging this result, but it is a result of a certain work. Means, You have tried. Means, that if there has no try then there will be no learning point.  And the fact you feel bad about disappointing someone is a sign of maturity. You are the kind of person who is intentional about keeping commitments and doing a good job.

No one wants to intentionally disappoint another but there will still be situations where it occurs. When faced with the challenge of falling short, try to use these ideas to minimize the downsides and pave the way for future improvement.