Tim arrives at his first meeting of his new job. He gets there 10 minutes early, wanting to make sure to make a good first impression, and finds he’s the first to arrive. He takes a seat, opens up his notebook, and proceeds to write the date and meeting subject down. Soon after, people that he’s recently been introduced to start arriving.  Each person that comes in waves at everyone and says good morning as they sit down and pull their phones from their pocket.  As Tim looks around the room he sees everyone engaged with their phones and thinks to himself, “Boy, it’s not going to be easy to build working relationships around here.  What happened to the times when we all used to talk to each other as we waited for meetings to start?”  He then remembers that his mother should be getting out of the doctor’s office about now and should have her results from her mammogram.  He pulls out his phone and quickly realizes the irony of it as he looks up as sees everyone still engaged on their phones.  He checks his messages and finds one from his father.  “They detected something.  She will have to go back for a biopsy.” his father wrote. 

The meeting gets started and before Tim can even realize it, an hour had passed and the meeting leader was ending the meeting by giving the summary along with assigned actions.  Tim noticed he had an action assigned, but he was so distracted by the news from his father that he was not able to catch what the action even was.  As he’s stepping out of the meeting he gets stopped by his boss who was in the meeting as well.  “How’s it going so far Tim?” he asks.  “It’s going good”, Tim responds.  “You’re good with completing that action that was assigned by Friday right?  I take it this shouldn’t be a big deal for you?” his boss asks.  “Yes, no problem James, I’ll have it done by Friday” Tim responds.  The last thing Tim wanted to do is admit he did not pay attention in his first meeting.  Fortunately the meeting notes where sent out soon after the meeting.  He found the action that was assigned to him only to realize he had no idea how to get it done.  He spent the rest of the week doing research, trying to figure out how he was going to complete his action.  Since he had already told his boss it wasn’t a problem and didn’t have much of a relationship with anyone, he didn’t feel comfortable asking anyone for help. 

Friday came and Tim stepped into his boss’s office, turning in what he felt met the action assigned.  After his boss looks at the report, he looks up at Tim and asks, “Tim, this has nothing to do with what was asked.”  After a brief pause, Tim responds, “I’m sorry James, I have to admit that I did not pay much attention in Tuesday’s morning meeting.  I had just gotten news that my mother might have breast cancer right before the meeting and was very distracted.”  “I’m sorry to hear that Tim,” his boss responds, “I certainly understand that.  I just wish you would have mentioned it sooner.  We need to present this report this afternoon and now we probably won’t have it ready in time.  I’ll get with Gary about it, he makes these type of reports in his sleep so he might be able to get it done by noon today.  Thanks for your honesty Tim.  Please get with Gary and offer any support you can.  He won’t have time to offer you any training on it, but try to pick up what you can and we can look into training later.  Due to the circumstances I will let this one slide, but I can’t promise the rest will be as forgiving, especially Gary.  You’ll have to work hard to make this one up.”  “Thanks James,” Tim responds, “I will make sure to do so.”

Tim heads over to his parents’ house after work.  His mother had gone through the biopsy earlier that week and was expecting a call from her doctor that afternoon with the results.  He arrives with his parents and after an hour of making conversation with them to help distract them while they waited for the results, the phone rings.  His father answers and soon after Tim feels a big sense of relief and he sees his father smile.  He confirms that the doctor told him it was benign.  After they all hug each other, his mother starts calling Tim’s sisters to tell them the good news.  Tim and his father step outside to the front porch.  Tim had been wanting to share with someone what had transpired at work that week, and who better than his father he thought, especially now that they could put aside the scare they had gotten.  He goes ahead and tells his father the whole story, starting from the meeting that Tuesday morning.  “Well Tim, looks like things didn’t turn out so well despite the leniency of your boss.  Have you thought about how you could have handled it better?”  “Yes,” Tim responds, “It’s pretty obvious now that I should have been honest from the start and mentioned that I was distracted during the meeting.”  “So why weren’t you honest?,” his father asks.  Tim responds, “I was afraid of what my boss and others were going to think of me knowing that I did not pay attention during the meeting, especially being my first meeting there.”  “I understand son,” his father responds, “and I’m glad you came forward with the truth eventually.  I have seen similar cases where people don’t ever come forward, and when they get trapped in a corner they resort to finger pointing and it just gets uglier and uglier from there.  Always remember, the longer you wait to come forward and be honest, the greater the impact on you, the people around you, and the business in your case.” Tim’s father puts his hand on Tim’s shoulder and Tim responds by thanking him for the talk, then they go back in the house with his mother.

Fear of criticism can affect us in many areas, and it certainly was at play in this story.  We often find ourselves not admitting we don’t know and try to play it off because we fear the criticism we would receive if we admit it.  But what usually happens is that we end up in a bigger mess, sometimes going as far as putting companies at risk of taking a big financial hit or even worse, putting lives at risk.  It’s an unnecessary risk that we can quickly dissipate by just admitting we don’t know.  And if we put ourselves on the other end of this, we should approach people in a way that would not make them too uncomfortable to admit they need help.  In the story, Tim’s boss says, “You’re good with completing that action that was assigned by Friday right?  I take it this shouldn’t be a big deal for you?”  The manner in which he asked the question is basically pushing for a “yes” response, so you greatly decrease the chances of someone coming forward if they need help.

The honesty of admitting you don’t know or need help is very refreshing and helps build trust.  This is no different than the honesty in admitting when you’ve made a mistake.  Yes, you do open yourself up for criticism when you do this, but the benefit of being honest greatly outweighs any criticism you would receive.