Make the most of mistakes
Myeroff meets with every new hire to explain the firm’s expectations. But he’s learned through the changes he’s overseen through the years that even if employees start from the same foundation, they won’t all make the same decisions.
To deal with the difference, he borrows a formula from one of his mentors called the 80 percent rule.
His mentor admitted that he wasted energy getting upset when people didn’t make decisions exactly the way he would. He realized that his standards were high, and he needed to leave some leeway for people to make up their own minds.
“If people can do something 80 percent as well as you think you would have done it yourself, that’s not a reason to be upset. That’s a reason to celebrate,” Myeroff says. “People aren’t going to do things the way you would do them; they’re going to do things the way they want to do them. That’s how they’re going to grow and develop.”
Now, Myeroff operates Cohen & Co. on the philosophy that there are no absolute right answers. He empowers employees to make their own decisions, and as long as those are in line with the firm’s nonnegotiable values, he remains open-minded.
“Delegate. If you don’t start trusting, you won’t develop leadership,” he says. “Give people the experience of making decisions.”
Sometimes, employees may be more than 20 percent off target. But Myeroff believes that mistakes come with built-in recovery. If your employees existed in a vacuum without you, they would still learn from their mistakes.
“You don’t like falling on your face too many times, so either you’re going to stop trying because you don’t like how it feels when you fail or you’re going to get a little upset and say, ‘Alright, I’m not going to let that happen. I’m going to figure out, why did I fall on my face, and how can I avoid falling on my face?’”
The best thing you can do to complement the experience is to celebrate what the employee did right, rather than dwelling on where he or she went wrong. Help employees identify the strengths in their approach and then develop those further.
“Let people make mistakes. It’s OK,” Myeroff says. “Sometimes the only way to learn something is to fall on your nose and get yourself back up.”
How to reach: Cohen & Co., (800) 229-1099 or www.cohencpa.com
