Joshua FraserChief Data Nerd, Data Nerds · CEO at Data Nerds, AI & Data Entrepreneur

Correct in private and praise in public - Monday Mini Lesson #5 - Everyday Entrepreneur

Name: Correct in private and praise in public - Monday Mini Lesson #5 - Everyday Entrepreneur
Uploaded: 2024-04-15T18:30:18+00:00
Duration: 1 min 42 s
Channel: Joshua Fraser
Description: In this short monologue, Joshua Fraser recounts a pivotal mistake he made while rapidly scaling his company after securing a major contract. After hiring…

15 Apr 2024 · 2 min

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1:42

In this short monologue, Joshua Fraser recounts a pivotal mistake he made while rapidly scaling his company after securing a major contract. After hiring 20 engineers, he faced harsh product feedback from a client, which led him to publicly berate the data‑quality manager in front of the entire engineering team. The manager quit the next day, and Fraser was forced to fire the manager’s entire team, causing significant pain to the business. Reflecting on the incident, Fraser acknowledges that he should have corrected the manager privately and praised him publicly, a principle his mentors had taught him. He shares this experience as a cautionary lesson for other leaders about the importance of handling feedback with respect and discretion.

Chapters

Foreign, Public and correct in private. The biggest mistake that I made while scaling estated right after we got the check, we hired 20 engineers to come work for us to build out a product. As, as it turns out, when you hire that many engineers, a few of them will kind of climb the ranks. And they're actually going to be, they're really intelligent people. Engineers aren't always the most talkative, but a few of them, you can see which ones are going to turn into managers over the years that they work for you. And there was an instance where we thought we were ready to go to market. I'd got basically the first contract signed with a big client and we went to deliver them the product and when we did a product review with them, they were basically like this product is shit. And that absolutely crushed me. So I went into the boardroom, I called an all hands with every single engineer and the guy that was managing basically data quality, I lost my shit on in front of 20 people. The next day he quit. True story. And it was extremely painful for our business. I actually was like the next day when he came in and quit, I told him he had to fire his entire team. I was the one that made the mistake. I corrected him in public when I should have corrected him in private. And it's a regret of mine. I wish I would have known that. I was a young, I was in the fast lane, I was moving really quickly and I was very angry and it was just a terrible decision on my part. And something that my mentors taught me throughout the years was that you really do need to praise in public. Correct. In private. So that's number five.