Author: admin

I love being a radio host and if I’m honest here it was totally scary the first time I went live. I had practiced hard, had a detailed script and knew what to do and when to do it.

I remember sitting at the desk, with my cohost to one side, excited and ready to go.

The news finished and I pressed the button to play out the adverts and …nothing.

Dead air. Silence. An instant radio nightmare.

Luckily the station manager was standing behind me. He calmly reached down, pushed the correct button and the adverts burst into life. I was saved and my heart could get back to a less frantic beat.

In my haste to get started I’d clicked on the header line for the advert and not the advert itself. The practice studio didn’t run ads and so it was an easy mistake to make, but it does mean that the first thing I ever did on air was cock it up.

If you think I’m going to say that I’ve learned from that and never made another mistake you’d be wrong. I have missed cues, pushed the wrong button, missed the news once (too busy listening to a track, oops, don’t tell anyone) and in general have made every single mistake available to me.

I can now listen to BBC radio shows and enjoy hearing all their mistakes too. Once you know what you’re looking for you’d be amazed how often their hosts get it wrong too.

What I did learn though was that:

A. Live radio is very different to having a practice off air. The stress levels are very different!

B. Nobody cares. If (and when) I make a mistake it feels huge to me and yet our loyal listener doesn’t notice. They don’t care really if a track ends one second too early and there’s a tiny sliver of dead air. The mistake has been and gone in a blink. I’ve learned to let the small stuff go and focus on getting the big stuff right, such as making sure the show flows smoothly between items and that nervous guests are put at ease and enjoy their interviews.

C. What matters is to sort it and move on. Our playout system has the odd glitch, for example when a track hasn’t uploaded properly and what looks like a three minute song ends abruptly after 20 seconds. If that happens it takes a moment to register there is silence instead of sound and I calmly fade up the mic, say something helpful and get the next track started. No drama, nothing to see here!

D. I’m great at managing a challenging live environment. My mistakes mean that I now know what to do in any situation that is thrown at me on air. This is a good metaphor for business, where experience counts in the same way.

I’m not someone who likes to make mistakes really. I’m organised and disciplined and yet radio has taught me to relax and go with the flow more. If we never make a mistake we never learn anything and now I apologise with a smile if I’ve messed up and just carry on. I like to think that I’ve made a mistake well …small errors dealt with professionally are such useful learning points. They build confidence and the irony here is that on the radio I’m much more relaxed than on day one and so I make fewer mistakes.

This translates into a more relaxed business world too. It’s impossible to be in business without making the odd mistake and so many people make life hard for themselves by fretting over the tiniest imperfection. My experience is that people often don’t care so much about the mistake, but they do care what we do about it.

A sincere apology, hearing their issue and doing something about it promptly are what they do care about, and rightly so.

My listener doesn’t mind about a couple of seconds of silence (radio is all about managing the seconds) as long as their overall experience is a good one. The show starts on time and is consistent and fun. I’ve learned to get the big stuff right and not let the small hiccups get to me. Perhaps we should all have a radio show and learn these things for ourselves?

Managers and leaders can learn to get the big things right and be supportive of staff who make small errors. They will learn over time and make fewer errors if we are kind to them.

We can all learn to make mistakes well by correcting them promptly and with a sincere apology to those affected by them.

If you’d like to hear a selection of my radio mistakes then tune in to www.futureradio.co.uk 12.00 noon to 2.00pm each week and see how many you can spot. My #BusinessLife show has been running for 8 years now, it’s great fun and has taught me a lot about the true nature of mistakes. They’re not really as alarming as I first thought. In fact they are human.

So, this week, we can go easy on ourselves. If we push the wrong button then we can learn from that and be a human too!

Next week: What’s Your Stretch?

Have you ever sat with a board of directors, asked them why they spent a stupid amount of money on a computer system they didn’t need and then watched them all squirm and pass the buck?

No? I have. About 25 years ago.

My colleague almost fainted when I asked them and although it was a logical and relevant question, it was totally unfeeling and crassly asked.

But hey, I was young and confident and full of my own sense of right and wrong.

It would have been more helpful if I’d had any awareness of my own personal public relations though. I’m sure if I’d had a PR advisor in the room she would have been weeping at the glaring ineptitude of her client and wondering if now was the right time to quit her profession and do something less stressful, such as juggling knives.

Massively humiliating and irritating a whole board of directors takes a bit of doing and I was fearless in the doing of it. And, of course, spectacularly naive.

It goes without saying that, in due course, my role was made redundant and I left to spend more time with my family. Such is the price of PR ineptitude.

Personal PR is worth taking into account when we think of our performance at work. We can do this with a quick self audit, that runs thus:

Do we tend to smile or scowl at people?

Do we share our successes with our boss?

Do we thank our boss for giving us interesting work?

Do we ask useful questions, in order to move the problem to a good outcome? Or do we grandstand and make people look silly?

Do we take part in groups and committees?

Do we sulk when given extra work, or do we discuss priorities and capacity instead?

Is our reputation that of a grumbler, or someone who is supportive of continuous improvement?

When was the last time we spent time enquiring about colleagues and showing genuine interest in their issues? Or do we tend to be aloof and disinterested?

If we had to give ourselves up to 20 points, total, for all of the above, what would an honest score be, and what is one thing we can do more of, or be more self aware of?

Personal PR is not about sucking up tp the great powers in a vacuous, or manipulative way. It’s about being thoughtful, positive and friendly.

If we have doubts, or concerns, we can ask careful and polite questions.

If we need to discuss something important we can ask for a friendly conversation, instead of charging in with guns blazing.

If we want to be well thought of and get on in our roles we can all pause for a moment and think of just how good our personal PR is at work and how we can improve it.

Humiliating a board may be fun in the moment, but in the argo of business coaches, like myself, it’s a ‘career limiting move’ at best, and a ‘career terminating move’ at worst.

Be nice to people. Smile and the world smiles back. A cliche for sure and yet one worth holding on to.

We can all have a great week improving our personal PR! Have fun!

Next week: How To Make A Mistake Well