Accept mistakes
Years ago, on Fulton’s first day as an assistant manager at Comerica Inc., he was feeling around his desk and accidentally set off the alarm button, and 10 minutes later, he had three police officers bursting in the front door. He initially didn’t fess up about it out of fear of getting in trouble, but the incident was eventually traced back to him.
It’s not the only mistake he made early in his career either. On his first day as a teller — his first job with Comerica — he was out of balance, which isn’t the best way to start in a bank. While he’s made countless other mistakes over the years, he’s learned from those and recognizes that he needs to be accepting of other people’s mistakes, as well.
“If I remember those things, 37, 38 years ago, I think people really learn from mistakes,” Fulton says.
By moving forward instead of dwelling on mistakes, it’s gotten him to where he is today — and as a result, he welcomes employees making mistakes when it’s a learning experience.
“Trust their judgment, and on something where they’ve used their best judgment, mistakes are forgiven, and you learn from it,” he says. “I find that kind of environment fosters growth, creativity and makes it more enjoyable.”
Fulton sometimes shares his embarrassing mistakes with his people to show them that it’s OK to make them, as long as they learn from them.
“If occasionally they don’t [make a good decision], we’re not going to come down on them so hard that they’re afraid to even make a decision anymore,” he says. “It’s seeing that when someone did make a mistake, they were forgiven. It’s promoting the mistakes I made so people know I don’t think I’m immortal.”
By forgiving people for their mistakes, it also helps foster trust between himself and the people below him. It’s also important to help people learn how to make better decisions, and to do that, you have to give them guidelines or parameters. At Comerica, the company has policies and procedures to help people make decisions.
“You can draw the box, and as long as I stay within the box, whether I’m in the upper left or lower right, and that box is big enough, I have lots of flexibility to do my job,” he says.
While you can create guidelines to help people, recognize that sometimes people may have to stray outside of that box if the situation calls for it.
“If I inadvertently stray a little outside the box to get a deal done or I thought there was a really good reason with the right kind of explanation, I would hope I’m forgiven, too,” Fulton says. “Most often, I am, and most often, I would want to treat my people the same. I don’t like micromanagement, and I don’t want to micromanage my people.”
You have to recognize that the more policies, procedures, guidelines, or checks and balances you put in place, the more people will fear making decisions and the longer it will take to make those decisions.
“Every company has policies or controls,” he says. “I think when you put those together, you have to make sure that you’ve given enough latitude. If you require something has three levels of approval, you just have to recognize that you’ve added more time in the decision.”
