Hi Mark, Raven here. It's been a while. I'm gonna try to do more lean blog audio episodes here. This is number three, nineteen. It's a blog post that I published recently, June 28th 2022. It's titled, isn't it? Ironic mistakes that interrupted my webinar about mistakes. So you can read the post, you can find links to the webinar the video of it and more by going to lean blog dot org, slash audio.
So a contractor unplugged, my Wi-Fi router or was there more to it than that, you know, instead of blaming somebody else, what mistakes did I make that led to the Q&A section of my webinar being knocked off line? You know, recently I presented a webinar that was part of the connexxus continuous Improvement, webinar series. It was focused on the lessons and themes from my podcast. My favorite mistake, I hope you'll check that out wherever you listening to this podcast. Do a search.
Search for my favorite mistake podcast and I hope you enjoy it. So that webinar was titled. My favorite mistake, your favorite mistake learning from mistakes as individuals, and organizations. And about 50 minutes in is I was answering the first question. I disappeared from the screens of the audience leaving dead air and unfortunately, leaving our host for the session Morgan, right from Connexus.
She was left to try to pick up the pieces in the wrap things up. I felt really bad for And and it turned out, it wasn't one of those. Momentary things resume cut out. In reconnected immediately, my internet was down long enough that the session was essentially over. So, as I tacked on a message to the end of the webinar recording, you know, that says I'm going to do a separate queue a recording from the audience questions, it will share with attendees in those who
registered. Again, you can you can watch the webinar for what it was online. You can find it on the connexxus you Tube channel or again go to lean blog dot org, slash audio 319. So what I feared. So what went wrong? Ironically enough in webinar about making mistakes. Well, first off, I want to share a few of the key points that I had shared in the webinar one. We all make mistakes to how we react to mistakes. Either mistakes that we make our mistakes of others.
Make that matters a lot, you know, try to show some Grace what matters is learning from our mistakes. Diggs and reflecting on what happened and what we would do differently next time can lead to Improvement and growth. So, as I mentioned, at the end of the webinar, before the Q&A, I had some trepidation about doing a webinar on not just on this topic. But at any webinar here at, what was the end of June? Why was that my wife?
And I are still in the process and it's a process of relocating, most of the way across the United States because of her new New job and I've been pretty fully consumed the past two weeks by managing that move the first week of getting packed up and moved out of our old place.
The second week was dominated by the movers then arriving at the new place, a number of different deliveries and contractors who were in our home at the new location that help us make small improvements and to start settling in. So, like I said, in the session, I was worried. I almost had a premonition that there would be some distraction that was likely to happen on June 27th. I just didn't know what it would be and because of that, I almost
thought. Well no, let's let's just let's wait, let's find, let's work harder to find another presenter. So of those distractions distraction number one, so that day before the webinar, I had some painters back at our place to finish up a few touch-ups and punch list items. No big deal.
They weren't going to be done by 12:45 Eastern when Morgan and I would have to get on the webinar platform in advance of starting, but the painters were prepared to wrap up and let themselves out soon after so that would be fine. So about 10 minutes into the webinar as I'm presenting, I heard the doorbell and then Heard a knock on the door and I thought, oh no, you know, I thought maybe the painters had left something important behind like a phone or a wallet.
So I thought I had no choice. I mean, actually, I did have a choice. I made the choice to excuse myself, to go quickly. Open the door, interrupting the webinar briefly. When I open the door and learned it was not the painters coming back, it was actually someone else. It was the guy who had been there the week before to hang TVs on the walls and a few rooms and and he was back to finish a few things up.
No, I knew he was going to be coming back and I had even asked his boss if Monday would be okay. But he he showed up unannounced and I certainly wasn't expecting that. So, one mistake I made I didn't say in advance. Please come Monday except for the time between 12:45 and 2 p.m. So I let a man, I told him I was in the middle of a meeting, but he could come in, you had his teenage son who Working with
them over the summer. They could do what they needed to do. Since this was all going to be in other rooms, it was going to be quiet to his credit. This guy. Chris had tried calling and texting me to say basically hey I'm here but my iPhone and my MacBook Pro were both in Do Not Disturb mode so that prevented the mistake of being interrupted but that led to the mistake of me not seeing his texture his call which then when he knocked
and rang the doorbell. So you know I saw another mistake I think he Made a mistake though and not checking in to see that I would be home or available. I mean had I seen a text? There would have been a momentary distraction but maybe I could have just texted back. Please come back at 2:05 p.m. That's that's something I probably should have done. Distraction number two.
So maybe 20 minutes later webinar, still going Chris thought he had the he thought that he had to finish up some work on the TV, that's on the wall in my office. I mean, that TV actually required no follow-up work. So there's a mistake here. His mistake was to just barge in. I don't think, I don't remember, I don't think he even knocked. I had to turn around distracted again to wave him off. So he's basically saying, get
out another mistake, though. I was in advance, I wasn't Crystal. Here with Chris's boss about which TVs required the final follow-up work. I mean, that wouldn't have been necessary for me to communicate in advance. If Chris had come at a time, that was actually good for me. Another mistake. My mistake might have been not telling him when I let him in to say something longer and more more specific.
I could have said, hey I'm presenting a webinar right now which means I can't be interrupted. By the way, the TV in that office. That's fine. Please just work on the other rooms. But when I first saw them in, I was in a rush to get back to the webinar, it might have been better. If I had taken 30 seconds longer to explain the situation more fully, So what happened with the
Q&A? We got to the Q&A portion of the webinar Morgan. Had just asked me the first question from the audience and I was answering that question. I could tell there was an internet problem. Is, I could see Morgan's video, just it just froze.
Now, I didn't know, right away. If the problem was hurrying or never mind, so I kept talking and about a minute later, I could tell that Zoom had disconnected me from the webinar and again this wasn't just momentary I gave up and I realized again Even our was just over. I mean, I could do some Q&A. In a future separate recording. We can send that out to people. So, I left the office to go, talk to Chris, and the check on his work. Finalizing. The TV is now I was doing my
best. I was doing my best to stay, calm, and to show some Grace, with him. As I had literally just been talking about in the webinar. There's a slide. And there were some stories in there actually, about previous Connexus webinars. The slide literally says lesson show Grace, Mistakes are made. There's an opportunity for me to practice this so I did try to explain to Chris as calmly as I could like that. It wasn't ideal that he just showed up without advance.
Notice I appreciated that he was they're following up on these final details but the timing was really, really bad. Now, he was very apologetic for that and for coming into my office without asking, he kept apologizing, he didn't mean to interrupt my webinar. That was an important thing to keep in mind. I saw, you know, as we were talking, he was continuing to work on the cabling. The wiring for my living room TV, including their DirecTV
receiver. I saw he was working near my internet Wi-Fi router and I blurted out. Oh no, did you unplug my router? So there's a mistake. That's why my internet went down, that's why the webinar was ended early, it wasn't an outage or a glitch with the internet provider. Chris had indeed unplugged the router. So, thinking back again, to the
lessons that I talked about. In terms of learning from mistakes one, he didn't intentionally kill my internet to. He wasn't trying to interrupt the webinar and three, he didn't know from first glance that the device Was a Wi-Fi router I mean you know. So there's a picture in the blog post at lean blog dot org, slash audio 319. You know, it's a round circular thing with a bit of a thin on top. It's designed to not look like an ugly typical function first
router. Now, he probably should have noticed that there was an ethernet cable. Going into it but you know, that's that's not his specialty. So I mean, at that point in a very quickly, got to the point where I could really only chuckle it, you know, about the irony of a mistake, a series of mistakes, interrupting my webinar about mistakes. So again, when he realized this, Chris felt horrible, About unplugging the web, the the
internet. So again, that's one of the points that I made in the webinar. People feel bad enough when they realize they've made a mistake. So what's the point of me getting upset or piling on or yelling? I mean, it would have been a mistake for me to get mad or to be disrespectful to Chris. I'm quite certain that Chris will learn from these mistakes, you know, I hope I do too. I hope Chris is boss, learns from the feedback. I gave him.
So I bet he won't repeat these mistakes if he learns from them, you know, life goes on the better onward and upward with all of this but you know I was reminded and this is actually something I shared in the webinar, my podcast, guest a friend of mine, from San Antonio, Lenny walls, he's a retired NFL cornerback. He said this as a player, especially on defense in professional football, he said we were taught to have Short-term memory.
It taught me a lot about bouncing back from failures and then I love this. He said failures are Stepping Stones toward women. That's brilliant. Something to remember. So, to wrap up here, what will I do differently in the future and the spirit of improvement and with the aim of not repeating mistakes, what should I do? What will I do differently? You know, it's very likely that my wife and I will be moving again for her career.
I should listen to my gut and this is probably generally true, listen to my gut and not take on something like this. When there's the risk of distraction or interruption or just being mentally. Loaded. I've been saying, thanks. No, thanks to quite a few offers and requests recently. I probably shouldn't have signed up for this webinar at this time now. I mean, again, I signed myself up for it so quite possibly my
mistake. The next time we move, I should probably just block off a whole month, as a no new commitments Zone and hold myself to it. I'll try not to feel pressured. And again this is just pressure, I place on myself, I won't feel pressured to have a chi Nexus webinar each and every month just because that's been the habit and the history of it, if it doesn't work out one month. So be it.
You know, I stepped up as stepped in to offer to give this talk because my attempts at following up with some other potential presenters, it didn't pan out, you know, they had they'd agreed conceptually in general that, they would do a webinar, but it's tough sometimes. In the summer time again, maybe others are better at saying no to things and I am if I'm faced with a distraction during a
webinar. Going forward, I should really just do my best to ignore it. I shouldn't have gone and opened the door even if it had been one of the painters who had left, let's say their phone or wallet behind. They could have waited till 2 p.m. since leaving something behind would have been their mistake.
I didn't need to turn it into mistakes of my own to compound that, I mean I think Even though I meant well, and I was trying to think of others and their needs, I probably should have been more selfish but maybe doing so for the benefit of that webinar audience so I will keep reflecting about this. I invite you to go check out the webinar. It's relatively new talk it's a presentation I gave in person at the connexxus user conference back in May you can find all of
that. Again by going to lean blog dot org, slash audio 319 or you can look for the look for a link. Link in the show notes wherever you're listening to this podcast?