short failure

A short failure story:

Once a group which reported up to me had a bad boss.  She was kind of lazy, but made up for it by being a bit vindictive.  Her direct reports came to me and my leadership partner.  We listened.  We told them the situation was "not ok."  We sympathized.  We FAILED to tell them, "We are going to act on this."

We acted, and some of her reports got burned.  I was at fault for not spelling out the next steps of the course clearly.  That would have prepared them, and I could have set ground rules and "escape hatches" for them.   The result: they didn't trust me any more.  They thought we were playing more rounds of, "We gripe, you listen, and we all hope that something changes."  I was playing, "You gripe, we listen, we act." 

A little clarity at the right time goes a long way.  Don't let your people get caught out by what you're going to do after they come to you.  Make sure you're all playing the same game.