Failure Happens... Here’s What to Expect and What Great Leaders Do Next

When failure shows up at your business’s front door for the third time... Should you offer it coffee or finally figure out why it keeps showing up?

In this episode, Chrissy and Josh dive headfirst into the messy middle of managing failure in leadership, because let’s be real: business mistakes happen, and how you respond can make or break your company culture.

From missed targets to employee slip-ups to operational misfires, this episode is your unofficial guide to handling setbacks with clarity, courage, and just enough humor to stay sane. Whether you’re a founder working on your CEO mindset, a team lead navigating employee expectations, or a manager trying to build workplace trust, this conversation is packed with practical tools and real-world insights you can put into play immediately.

You’ll discover why leadership failure can spark leadership growth, how emotional intelligence and psychological safety drive innovation, and how to run a clear postmortem analysis that focuses on fixes, not blame. We also cover how your failure response, leadership communication, and operational systems shape your team dynamics and define your ability to lead under pressure. 

Listen in, laugh a little, and learn how to lead smarter even when things slightly go side ways.

If you're looking to get help with your culture, or to help out an entire group, reach out to Josh and Chrissy today!  We would love to see how we can help you, your business, or your event. Contact us!

ClarityHR is your fractional HR team, giving you real people, real support, and real solutions. Whether it’s compliance headaches, hiring struggles, or just needing someone to take the people stuff off your plate — we’ve got your back. So if you’re ready to stop using duct-tape and hope as your HR strategy and finally get some peace of mind, head over to ClarityHR.com

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🔗 Connect with Chrissy and Josh at https://www.businessfixpodcast.com/ for more tools, support, and clarity.

Enjoy the episode? Leave us a review, share it with your leadership team, and let us know your biggest takeaway in the comments!

Transcript

Josh Troche: Before we turned the cameras on here, Chrissy just said failure gives her hives. So I feel like this is an excellent topic for us. Don't you think so?

Chrissy Myers: I'm so excited. I'm gonna start itching now.

Josh Troche: Wonderful. So, while Chrissy goes and gets some ointment, so watch the intro. Stay tuned. She's the CEO.

Chrissy Myers: He's the marketing and operations guy.

Josh Troche: If it's broken, you need...

Chrissy Myers: The business fix.

Josh Troche: How is the ointment working?

Chrissy Myers: Yeah, it's. I'm good. Are you sure? I'm going to be okay.

Josh Troche: Should I take my Benadryl? So Chrissy nods off halfway through the podcast. You know, the Benadryl has finally panicked.

Chrissy Myers: It's all good.

Josh Troche: As it's a combination of panic. I'm pretty sure there's no alcohol in there. No, but. Okay, so. No, it's just if she passes out halfway through the episode, realize the Benadryl kicked in.

Chrissy Myers: Yeah. Yeah.

Josh Troche: Says. Yeah, it says may cause drowsiness. It should say, don't make any plans.

Chrissy Myers: No.

Josh Troche: Do not operate heavy machinery. I wouldn't even I mean, I wouldn't even know if I was operating heavy machinery or if I took Benadryl. Thankfully, like this time of year, allergies are finally starting to subside a little bit. And there's some. But yeah, this is bad. Yeah, I can I can deal with this. Football's still going, so I mean, you're I'm happy.

Chrissy Myers: I'll be happy until February. I'll be depressed after like middle of February. I'm like, oh, there's nothing.

Josh Troche: See what I do?

Chrissy Myers: I mean, there's basketball, but it's really.

Josh Troche: Nothing because I'm typically out riding during the summer. I save a lot of the motorcycle like for races to watch during the winter. So I know how they all.

Chrissy Myers: To watch old football games.

Josh Troche: Right. So I, I will put those on and there's 1 or 2 series that isn't that public that I watch. Yeah. So I'll watch those throughout the, the winter when I'm pining to be, when I'm looking out of the window, depressed like you will. Yeah. Yeah. I'll text you and let you know. Okay.

Chrissy Myers: Yeah. We'll record more podcasts. We'll go to two a week. Yes.

Josh Troche: I don't see that.

Chrissy Myers: Let's say that.

Josh Troche: You will find a Josh shaped hole in that wall right behind you. If you say that. Because that will be a giant failure. See? See how I'm saying the segue.

Chrissy Myers: Way to segue out of our banter. Chat up.

Josh Troche: I've always felt like failure is an option. Some people say failure is not an option. Not it. It is an option. It is, if you don't mess up at some point, you're not trying hard enough. Now there's varying degrees. There's messing up and there's, Oh. Right. The the the, we mess this up is one thing. For a business owner, the how you respond to failure. And we're not going to talk about how to fail. I think all of us know how.

Chrissy Myers: We can do that on our own. So.

Josh Troche: Well, we're pretty good on this. That failure can become either a lesson or a liability. And how you react to that? We talk a lot about, I mean, last episode too, we talked a lot about how you react to things in leadership. Yes. I mean, same thing. How you manage the human side of disappointment. I feel like Kim would be better to talk about. She's with me. She's used to disappointment. Is, self-deprecation. Correct. And then how you create an operational system that turns setbacks into forward momentum.

Chrissy Myers: Oh, okay. Ooh. Yeah.

Josh Troche: I mean, look, it's. You got to learn from something. Yes. You specifically brought up the employee expectations of leadership.

Chrissy Myers: Our pre discussion. Yep.

Josh Troche: Yeah. When things don't work out. When a leader admits that a project fails or. Oops.

Chrissy Myers: Boo boo.

Josh Troche: What do you think employees are expecting and how does like how did the how does your demeanor when you handle this? Yeah. How does that dictate the culture and how you do things moving forward?

Chrissy Myers: Yeah. Because your response to failure teaches your team how they're allowed to respond to theirs.

Josh Troche: Ooh. Yeah I like that.

Chrissy Myers: It does. So let's start with what employees actually expect when something doesn't work. How about that? Okay. Employees don't want spend. They don't want perfection. They want honesty, accountability, and a clear next step. So if you mess up and pretend nothing happened, or worse, you blame someone else like the team member that's sitting next to you. That's a fast track to a culture of silence. People are going to shut down. Trust drops, innovation dies.

But if you show up and you say something like, that didn't go how we planned it. Here's what we learned. Here's what we're going to do about it. Now you're modeling ownership and safety. So again we talk about psychological safety. I know people cringe whenever we say anything but psychological, but I mean, psychological safety isn't soft. It's really strategic. And it's what lets your team take smart risk, speak up early and stay engaged even when that road gets messy. And as a CEO, I mean, I get it. You want to be strong. You want everybody to think that you're bulletproof. You're not. But strength isn't pretending that you have it all figured out. Strength is saying, I'll own this and we'll figure it out together.

Josh Troche: The. When you said that, that didn't go as planned.

Chrissy Myers: And go as planned.

Josh Troche: The way you said that is the way you.

Chrissy Myers: Sound like you dealt with it.

Josh Troche: But not only that, but it's very different because you're like, oh, that didn't go as planned. And you said, nice and pleasant. I'm like, oh, that didn't work.

Chrissy Myers: Yeah.

Josh Troche: We present slightly different ways.

Chrissy Myers: To and I think there's been there's been some times where I've done it the same way as you. I think it just kind of depends. And so, I mean, you've really got to work on. And I've spent a lot of time as a recovering perfectionist. And how to reframe failure is, oh, I mean, to me, before it was just awful. Like it was soul crushing career ending. I'm going to be homeless. Why am I even, like.

Josh Troche: Why did I do this?

Chrissy Myers: Why did I do that? Why does anyone listen to me? So, I mean, we've worked on this at AUI and Clarity, and we've adopted the mindset that failure equals data. It's nothing more I like that than data. It's not disaster. It's not shame. It's just feedback, which is a good word. I mean, if something flops, it means we're trying. We're testing, we're iterating. That's the work. That's how things grow. So instead of asking, did we fail? I'm asking, what did we learn and what's next?

Josh Troche: I like that.

Chrissy Myers: Yeah, because a team that knows it's safe to learn out loud is a team that's going to continue to get better together.

Josh Troche: The thing that I want to point out with that is the other thing with that is it's not a spin.

Chrissy Myers: No it's not.

Josh Troche: It is. It is very direct. It's not pointing fingers. It's not making anyone feel bad. It's very direct, but it's still let's let's get this on the road.

Chrissy Myers: It is. And I would say it's like final thought in, you know, CEO perspective, a failure is that if you want a culture that takes ownership, moves fast and learns as it goes, you have to lead that way first. So your tone in failure is the culture. Oh yeah.

Josh Troche: And trying to think of a way to word this, but to me it's like everyone is going to react the same way that you do under pressure. And that's going to dictate the thing that's moves forward. Your day to day.

Chrissy Myers: Yeah.

Josh Troche: Is a big piece. But it's that 80/20 rule. It is the 20% that you screwed up. Hopefully it's not 20% but the profit.

Chrissy Myers: It's closer to five right.

Josh Troche: Or two. But how you react in that is the that's the full culture because.

Chrissy Myers: It is.

Josh Troche: If you're fine 98% of the time. But when stuff goes sideways, you're a monster. You're you're always a monster.

Chrissy Myers: Exactly. Exactly. So you want a culture that's honest, that's resilient, that's forward facing, and that's what you need to model as well. And so if you don't know, we have this great program at Clarity called Resilient Operating System that kind of helps you deal with disruption. I love it. Yeah. Love shameless plug.

Josh Troche: No that's I get it because it fits right in there with how to act in that way.

Chrissy Myers: It is. And it's building those skills. I mean, we talked about emotional intelligence. We've talked about IQ. It's really important that you build those soft skills around how you're going to communicate. And couch failure.

Josh Troche: Yeah. No, that makes 100% sense. Love that. Absolutely love.

Chrissy Myers: It. Yeah. So I mean, from an operational standpoint, the emotional part of failure is tough. But the most important thing is really learning. So what are the key operational steps a business must take immediately after a failure to ensure they extract the necessary lessons and don't make the same mistakes again. Keep thinking Star Trek and like damage Report. That's kind of how you when I like I read this I don't know it's like it's like damage report.

Josh Troche: And yes, there is a reason why they still did that. And what a three year, 3000 or whatever the heck that is. All the.

Chrissy Myers: Episodes.

Josh Troche: Yeah. I mean, really to me, first off, we've got to triage this thing. Okay. If if someone comes in with a stab wound, you don't be like, Well, that went sideways. Yeah. No, you figure out what the hell went wrong. And so you look at is this a fixable mistake? Like, is it a tactical error or is it something we just did? Like, did someone stumble? Did someone drop the ball accidentally? Did we did someone click a wrong button? Okay. That's that's fixable. Is it structural? Is this a thing where we were just headed in the exact wrong direction to where we needed to be going?

From a marketing perspective, you can be going one direction and all sudden the market goes another direction. You can be like, oh, hey, we're marketing the no. One. Yeah, because everyone's over here. Something to keep track of. The other thing is document, document, document. Go back. And this is why I love having stuff in processes. This is why I love having stuff in like, Asana or other task managers. When you look at stuff like that. There's two things with that. What went wrong? Yeah. And you can say, did we skip a step? Did we misstep? Did we? How did that work? Yeah. Or is this is this something that we need to change for? Is this something that we're going to start to see more often?

Because sometimes when you fail at something, it's maybe an external reason that caused that failure. It's not because you're a failure. Even though the recovering perfectionist thinks so.

Chrissy Myers: Say always. Yeah, we always blame ourselves.

Josh Troche: 100% 100%. So you have to look at that process from that to be like, okay, is this an outlier, that okay, we just didn't click the right thing. We didn't do whatever. A problem that won't be happening again. Or is this do we need to change to adapt for future trends? Future issues? Did a supplier change what they do? Like, did an algorithm change from what we do from a marketing standpoint? There's all sorts of external changes that can cause you to fail. So figuring out why that is, do you need to change your process or did you just? Is this a one off thing?

The other thing that I always look at too is performance on it is like I said, if someone didn't click the mouse button, if someone didn't do. The thing is, is this that one off, one off thing?

Chrissy Myers: Yeah.

Josh Troche: I believe it or not, I have missed clicking a box. Yeah. Imagine that. I have missed typing the thing. I have missed a step on things before. Holy cow. It happens to the best of us. Does it happens to those of us that love operations and live and die by this stuff. So is this a one off thing? Oops. Yep. Okay. Do we need to change? Like. The other thing is, is if this is a newer project or something you're trying, do we need to change the role or the person performing that task? That we've all we've all done projects where we've had a person on it, where we thought they'll be able to handle that and suddenly we realized, you know what? This isn't an area that they're comfortable in, but we've got someone else that may be more comfortable. Next time we do this, someone else is doing this instead of that person. Additionally, do we need to coach this person? Do we need to say, look, can we upskill you? Can we do the things to give you this thing that that to me, is it. Last, I believe you've mentioned clarity in communication.

Chrissy Myers: Yes. That's being consistent. Clear and showing care. Yes.

Josh Troche: Okay. That seems. I forget where I've heard that before. Have you ever said that before?

Chrissy Myers: Probably in, like, Episode 21. And then probably like the last episode we just did Episode 28.

Josh Troche: At Clarity seems to be a theme with.

Chrissy Myers: You. You know, you name companies, right? All the things really important, right?

Josh Troche: It seems it seems to be a thing that seems to be a thing for you. For me. Clear communication. Yes. Is it now the big piece that people forget is this has to be done internally and externally.

Chrissy Myers: Oh, yes.

Josh Troche: So many people don't realize that. Like if you have an issue you need like, who could this affect outside of your company? Yes IT clients. Is it suppliers?

Chrissy Myers: Yes.

Josh Troche: Who can this have an effect on? Because you need to address that. Who are?

Chrissy Myers: Those stakeholders in.

Josh Troche: Immediately. And to me it is okay to go to them and say hey look, there's an issue. We're figuring this out. I will let you know what's happening. But it is so much better for them to hear that from you. Yes, than it is from them to hear that from their shipping manager. Or than it is for them to hear it from someone outside the organization. Yes. Tell them upfront, hey there's an issue. Nine times out of ten that honesty will go so much further in the relationship than anything else. Additionally, if that honesty doesn't work in that relationship, it's probably not the right relationship, whether it's a client or a supplier.

Chrissy Myers: Oh, I completely agree. And there's so much there to kind of unpack and value chain. So creating what that value chain is who's responsible for what. And then also who is ultimately responsible for communication in the relationship. Because if the shipping manager or the service delivery person doesn't do the service, the relationship manager who's maintaining the relationship and saying is everything great? And they're like, no, it sucks. And then so it's make sure that you're pulling in the right people in your organization who need to have those conversations.

Josh Troche: Because that relationship manager, they have officially at that point, you know, where I'm going with this. Yeah, they have walked into the shitstorm and you have not told them which direction the wind is coming from?

Chrissy Myers: No. And and chances are that relationship manager deals with that a lot just because of the nature of their job. So you do not, as an organization, need to create any more storms for those people.

Josh Troche: No, no, no, no more poop storms.

Chrissy Myers: No. No more storms.

Josh Troche: The other thing is to me is to address it internally. And there's two ways to address it internally is first off there is the like we have an issue. The you need to react quickly to a saying we have an issue. You need to react quickly to saying we are addressing the issue. You don't need to necessarily react quickly to here's a solution. Take your time. Take that two minutes to breathe.

Chrissy Myers: Yeah.

Josh Troche: Because if the people know you're working on something they're okay with that. Yeah. I mean if you've got someone hanging by their belt strap by the ceiling okay. That that needs immediate addressing. But for the most part, most of these things, whether you address it in 10s or ten minutes, is not going to be the difference in like that. Adding that speed is not going to make a difference. If anything, it's going to make a difference for the worse. Yeah. Because now you've probably reacted emotionally to this. Yeah. You're going to change a project or a product based on an emotional decision, based on an emotional reaction. It's the same thing we talk like in podcasts. I tell people all the time, if someone gives you a comment about your podcast that says, you should do this. Don't do.

Chrissy Myers: That.

Josh Troche: Because that's one person's opinion. It's not. If you get 200 people saying that then yeah, you should probably change it. But don't react emotionally to that one comment when they say change your podcast to this because you've got 200 other listeners that were perfectly happy with how it was, and you're changing it because of that one thing, because they emotionally drove you to that change. When failure happens, it's the same thing. Slow your roll. Say yes. We know there's an issue. Yes, we are working on it. Gather information. Figure out. Go through that earlier process where I talked about like, look, I mean documented. Is this fixable? Is it structural? The postmortem, all those things go through those before you really start having a conversation about it. How do you handle the blame game? No. Do you like how I did that in the game show voice?

Chrissy Myers: Thanks.

Josh Troche: Welcome to the blame game where all your employees hate you.

Chrissy Myers: Yeah. Oh. Gosh. So Chris is loving it is I mean claims easy. It is, it is. Leadership says what's next. And what did we learn. So I mean finger pointing is reactive. It's a defense mechanism. It's not a solution. No. So if you don't address it quickly it spreads. It diminishes trust. It slows momentum. It erodes culture. So there are a couple of things I would say the the Blue Angels, every time they go out they do their show. They come back. Or any time they practice, they come back and they do a postmortem of everything what went right, what went wrong. And every one of them, every time they're giving feedback, says, happy to be here.

So part of that is, you know, creating the culture of where, you know, let's figure out where the process process failed, but not who failed. It's not it's not the person we're talking about. The process. So shifting that language changes everything. Having a culture of appreciation. I know for the Blue Angels, happy to be here every time. And they will literally rip each other apart like you were three three inches from killing me. But you know, I'm so happy to be here. I mean, it's it's really interesting to watch kind of how they, they communicate with each other. And so it's been something that we tried to foster at AUI and Clarity, it's like, how can we create that culture of, you know, not a blame game. You didn't do this. So because of that I have to do this. It's what was the breakdown in the value chain here. How can we have a conversation. What was what was the issue with the process? How can we make this better?

Josh Troche: I the thing that I want to add to that, that I look at it slightly differently. I'm okay with saying if someone failed, but then it's like, look, what can we do to make sure that that doesn't happen to you again in the future? Because yes, if that person feels even a little bit bad about it and you step in to say, look, how can we make sure that this doesn't happen in a in a genuine way?

Chrissy Myers: Yes.

Josh Troche: Because so many people will be like, how can we make sure this doesn't happen in the future because they say it in this balancing, like put it on, you know, it is the what can we do? How can we work together? Is it can we give someone else attack? Would it help if someone checked in with you? Do we need to? Do we need another tool? What do we need to make suggestions and ask them like, hey, how can we help if you're genuine in that?

Chrissy Myers: Well, and it's shifting the language and that shift changes everything because, you know, blame looks backward, accountability looks forward.

Josh Troche: Yep yep yep. How how can we get better? That's the big thing left. When do you think like when you say up? Bob screwed this up four times. I don't know why I keep picking on Bob. Bob? It's my fault for hiring him. I see accountability. When when do you say? Hey, look, it's been real. It's been fun. H.R., I'll call you about Cobra soon.

Chrissy Myers: Yeah, well, because not every not every failure is a firing offense, right? Sometimes it's a leadership mess. So when something goes wrong, we gotta pause before reacting as a leader. So I would say, as you're thinking about these as a leader, you've got to ask yourself three primary questions. And that is, you know, were the expectations clear? A lot of times the answer was now correct. Did we train well? Second one usually if you didn't do one then number two is a now. And then. Did we give them the right tools and support if all of those things happened? I mean if that's not the answer then it's a process failure. And that's on leadership to fix. So I mean, but if you've done all that, the person still can't perform. We're not talking about innovation here, where we're trying a whole bunch of different new things and it may fail, but if they still can't perform or this is the one that is the red flag that they're not willing to grow. I'm not going to change that. Then that's a competency failure, in which case we're going to be looking at, you know, knowing the difference between the process failure and a competency failure. That difference matters. One requires better systems, the other requires hard decisions. So that clear expectations, frequent feedback, those early check ins kind of help to spot which one you're dealing with. Before you end up stuck in resentment. Because if you have repeated failure as a leader, then oftentimes we get to resentment, we get to burnout, we get to culture damage. We get to frustration, we get to labeling somebody toxic. But before you label that person is toxic and resistant to change or resistant to success, ask those questions about clarity of expectations, training and tools and support.

Josh Troche: The other thing is, is I. I've always like to ask like, what part of this doesn't seem to work for you?

Chrissy Myers: Yeah, that's a good one.

Josh Troche: When you ask that to people like, what? What are you finding difficult in this? Because it's to me, once again, you have to present it in a way like, look, I'm trying to remove barriers for you.

Chrissy Myers: Yes.

Josh Troche: As long as you approach it in like, hey, how can I help with, like, what are you finding the most difficult in this? Yeah. When you approach it that way, that is that is giving people the chance to voice and say like, look, I'm, I'm having a problem with this. Is this something once again, can we adapt for it? Can we bring maybe they can take someone up part of someone else's job and we can switch some roles around? It's about making sure that you're putting people in the right places. Yes.

Chrissy Myers: And ensuring that you're not seeing a pattern of failure. We talk about like in our household, we say like once a tragedy, twice as a pattern. So. Well, how do we eliminate the pattern?

Josh Troche: And there's some people that I like to say that I mean, and I have experienced and I always like to say this, they may have the Midas touch. It does not turn to gold.

Chrissy Myers: No.

Josh Troche: There are some I mean, I've hired people where I'm like, I have too good culture fit and you're like, okay. And everything they touch turns straight to poop. And you're like, okay, let's I like how they fit. Let's see how they work on this. And then let's see how they work on this. And suddenly you realize it is just a charismatic person where you're like damn, they don't fit. And they know that we're not in their skill set now.

Chrissy Myers: And there is a difference too. You've got you've got that adage of right person, right seat. Sometimes at the right person, you don't have a seat for them or they have to get it, want it and have the capacity for it. And if they don't have all three, then they're not the right person.

Josh Troche: And then you've both failed.

Chrissy Myers: You have you have.

Josh Troche: A leadership when we're going to say it this way, when sh*t goes sideways, how can you project confidence and stability? Because once again, when when the fan needs are pressure washing because a giant bucket of poo just somehow got dumped in the fan?

Chrissy Myers: Yeah.

Josh Troche: It's tough to be like, guys, be confident. We're good.

Chrissy Myers: I know. Well, here's what here's something that I will say for emerging leaders or people that are still trying to figure out how to lead through uncertainty or lead when they want to vomit. Okay. Because I've had those. I mean, I've had to deal with a company dealing with receivership, that I took that was in Texas. So your team read your energy before they hear your words.

Josh Troche: Yes. What other percent? Yes.

Chrissy Myers: And so when things go sideways and they will, your demeanor becomes message. And you don't need to pretend everything's fine because they know it's not correct. Don't lie. You have to stay steady, grounded and solution focused. So one that I have used I used it in 2020. I've used it. I used it when I was dealing with the company in Texas. I've used it when we've had pivots at AUI and Clarity. I'll go, here's what we know, here's what we're doing and here's where we're going. And if I have uncertainty, I'm going to say that too. But at least with the with the calm and the competence and the confidence to say, here's what we know, here's what we're doing, here's where we're going. And I'm not going to lie, if I don't know the like, do not make stuff up in that moment, right. Because your tone creates psychological safety, and that safety is what keeps the team thinking clearly, instead of bracing for fallout and updating their resume while you're sitting in the middle of the meeting. You've got to be able to project calm. So like with clients, we're talking about, you know, being proactive, owning that issue, communicating early and with your team. Don't be a disappearing leader.

Josh Troche: Oh gosh, I've seen that.

Chrissy Myers: And or don't sugarcoat it. Yeah. Because it's one or the other. We're Pollyanna and it's all sunshine and rainbows or you don't exist. And they're like, where is this person? Like, I will say this, if you have to deliver really bad information, there is a there's a major change in your industry, there's a major change in your company. You may have had that vacation scheduled for months. You better not go on it. You better stay and you better talk to your team. Yeah.

Josh Troche: It's interesting that I've addressed things a little bit differently. I have gone to my team before and it's flat, said this has me worried.

Chrissy Myers: So.

Josh Troche: When you address it that way, you're like, they're like, oh, okay. They're human. They're they're worried. Also. But I typically have a tendency to follow that up with something of like, okay, because this is worrisome. We going to work on this?

Chrissy Myers: Yes.

Josh Troche: There's there's a I once again, anyone that knows me knows that I am not going to blow any sunshine where the sun normally does not shine.

Chrissy Myers: Correct. That is very correct.

Josh Troche: I is that understatement of the week? But to me, it it is that that directness to say, look, there's an opportunity in here somewhere. Yeah. We need to sit down and look for that. Yeah. To figure out what we can do to get through this. Yeah. It's okay to be worried. And it's okay to tell your people that you're worried. Don't tell them. Pack your bags.

Chrissy Myers: Not if you want them to help you problem solve.

Josh Troche: Right.

Chrissy Myers: But you want them to help.

Josh Troche: Being a little bit vulnerable.

Chrissy Myers: Yes.

Josh Troche: Goes, tremendous distance in not only them believing the things that you're going to say, but also them being like, oh, they're worried too. I, I could get behind that. Like they want to work for.

Chrissy Myers: Someone.

Josh Troche: That can be worried also. Because they think all of us as business owners have golden parachutes. You may not be able to make payroll next week, but they still think you have a gold issue.

Chrissy Myers: They absolutely do. Unless you share your numbers with them, then they're like, oh really? That's what we do. So I encourage you, when you get to that point where you're working with in and you've gotten to a, to a larger scale, that you share some of those numbers with your employees so they understand how the business works. But the other thing I will say to Josh about, you know, we talked about, like, not disappearing and not sugarcoating. I think it's really important when you've got uncertainty and you're working on solving problems together, that you speak clearly and you speak often. Yes. You cannot disappear because in the absence of information, I know this is just this is me. I probably you probably don't ever do this. I will create the worst, worst case scenarios. If someone is not giving me all the information. Yeah. And so straight. It's it's you're it's important for you to fill that silence with truth. Especially as a leader. That is your if you have one responsable and leading during uncertainty or leading through failure, it's being able to fill in the silence with truth.

Josh Troche: Would that be clarity?

Chrissy Myers: That would be clarity and consistency and care all three.

Josh Troche: Once again, please get Chrissy this t shirt. No you would you would wear that.

Chrissy Myers: I would I would wear it on an episode. Yeah. No questions.

Josh Troche: Asked. Yes. Should we move to key takeaways and like how they can make an action out of this?

Chrissy Myers: We probably should.

Key Takeaways

Josh Troche: Yeah, I want to I want to start with the first one. Own it. Own internally. Externally own that. And if it's someone in your team that screwed up it's your team. Yep. You have to own it. The coach loses just as bad as the rest of the team. So yeah that's that's my number one.

Chrissy Myers: Yeah. Mine is, you know, conduct a blameless postmortem. The Navy Seals do this really well. What went right, what went wrong? What can be better? It's those three questions every time.

Josh Troche: Write it down. Don't turn it into crappy wall art. Write it down. We haven't heard that yet today. The thing is, to me, write it down. If you do not write it down, if you do not make notes about it, it may very well crop up again. Ask me how I know this one. Please don't.

Chrissy Myers: I would say be a thermostat, not a thermometer. Right? Control the emotional temperature of the room. Stay calm. Project clarity and forward momentum.

Josh Troche: Oh, I love that. But then all I can hear is my dad. Don't play with the thermostat. Last one, like something. Something went sideways. Yeah. Don't run away from it. No, you need to. We're business owners. Were managers. Were leaders. You need to get you. You need to take a risk at some point. Again. Yeah. Don't hide in a bubble, because that is a risk in itself that you don't want to take. What's one immediate phrase a leader should use when there's a major kablooey? When the poop hits the fan? To reassure the team that, hey, we got this.

Chrissy Myers: Yeah, it's here's what we know. Here's what we've learned, and here's how we move forward together. Ooh, yeah.

Josh Troche: Together.

Chrissy Myers: Even together. Because it communicates three things your team needs to face. In the face of failure. That's transparency, stability and direction. Because you don't need to pretend that everything's fine. But you do need to help people feel anchored even when things feel uncertain. So the key is to stay calm, be honest, show up in the conversation. It's not about blame, it's about learning and leading forward.

Josh Troche: I love that.

Chrissy Myers: That phrase does all three.

Josh Troche: Ooh, look at that. Nicely done. Yeah.

Chrissy Myers: What's the single most important piece of documentation needed after a project fails?

Josh Troche: Anything? That's communication. It all has to be communication. And the thing that I that I love about the communication piece to this, if you can solve all the problems in the world, if you do not communicate that both internally and externally, it doesn't matter. Know all that work you did. It doesn't matter. It doesn't matter. Additionally, you can't I mean, you can give the initial, hey, something's messed up, but you can't really communicate until you've done all the other steps that we've talked about in terms of the postmortem, the other things, you have to do all those other steps before you can really officially communicate. So communication's kind of the is that the bread and the poop sandwich, like the thing you need to do in the future. Now I know. No, I know that's that's, I know that one irritates you. And that's why I was like, oh, yeah, let let's let's, let's, let's serve up a nice steaming hot sandwich for Chrissy. But but to me, it you're like, no thanks, I'll pass. I don't care how much ketchup and mustard is on it, but to me and it it is that like you communicate up front and then, I mean, that is how it starts and that is how it finishes. That's much it's much like a podcast. Yeah. It's it's all about communication. And a bunch of other stuff happens in between.

I think we've helped people turn some setbacks into successes. Or at least not continued failure. For everyone that joined us. Thank you. Thank you for spending the time. Thank you, Chrissy, for being resilient enough to. Now we are 29 episodes in.

Chrissy Myers: Oh that's amazing.

Josh Troche: Yeah, that's a true test to your fortitude. That's why having that's why the Resilient Operating System, I believe is is working is yeah. Been able to do this and you haven't had to check in any place. If you're looking for past episodes or other information you want to book as a speakers, because we are a lot of fun.

Chrissy Myers: We are a ton of fun.

Josh Troche: https://www.google.com/search?q=Businessfixpodcasts.com. Follow us on all the socials, The Business Fix. A review, a subscription. Comments. We love to see the comments. They go a long way and they help us reach other business owners. We're going to talk about resiliency in the ups and downs because there's many of them. Sometimes they happen in a five minute stretch. It's amazing how you can smile and cry at the same time as a business. So I never thought it was possible. Yeah. As always, do me a favor. Take care of yourself. If you can't take care of someone else, we will see you very, very soon.