Sometimes, it’s best to admit you screwed up and take responsibility for your actions. Over the weekend, I had an individual call me with a concern. I indicated to them, I’d address the concern with the appropriate individual in charge of the matter, and that I’d have the appropriate individual contact him on the resolution of the problem.
The next morning, I thought about what I had done. At that point, I realized I had solved the problem all wrong. In fact, I hadn’t solved the problem at all. I could have easily addressed the problem with the individual on the phone and even solved the problem. From that point, I then could have addressed the matter with the appropriate individual.
In the end, I called up the individual that had raised the problem. Apologized for not immediately solving his problem, and then I proceeded to solve his problem. From there, I emailed the individual who should have addressed the problem and copied the person with the problem on my follow up. End result, the problem was solved and the individual was held accountable for their lack of action (thus leading to the creation of the problem).
My life lesson was simple. When presented with a problem with which you have the ability to solve, solve the problem and then address the situation with the individual tasked with the actual responsibility of solving the problem. The external individual does not care who is responsible for solving the problem. They just want their problem solved. Such a simple lesson, yet so difficult to execute on a real-time basis.