Zakaria plagiarism time-management lesson: "Other things will have to go away"

From a New York Times report on the plagiarism charges against Time & CNN correspondent Fareed Zakaria ("A Media Personality, Suffering a Blow to His Image, Ponders a Lesson"):

Mr. Zakaria’s career suffered an abrupt setback recently after bloggers discovered that his column of Aug. 20 for Time magazine had passages lifted almost entirely from an article by the historian Jill Lepore that appeared in The New Yorker in April.

Mr. Zakaria quickly apologized. But within minutes, Time had suspended him for a month and CNN, which had posted parts of the column on its Web site, removed the article and suspended him until further notice. Both began investigations of his work, as did The Post.

On Thursday afternoon, Time and CNN said they had completed their reviews, found no evidence of plagiarism and restored Mr. Zakaria to his demanding schedule. Just as quickly as his employers had questioned his credibility, they rallied around him....

In an interview on Friday in his CNN office, Mr. Zakaria again apologized for what he had called “a terrible mistake.”

“This week has been very important because it has made me realize what is at the core of what I want to do,” Mr. Zakaria said. He said he wanted to “help people to think about this fast-moving world and do this through my work on TV and writing.”

He added: “Other things will have to go away. There’s got to be some stripping down.”

There's a section in the Mistake Bank book (currently in development) about the tendency of time pressure to create mistakes. The temptation for Zakaria to "make hay while the sun shines" needs to be measured against the cost of a significant mistake such as this one.

Sometimes there's no time to process a failure before you have to act

We mentioned last week that learning from your mistakes takes time - time to process the complex emotional reactions people have to the failure of a project or initiative.

But what if you don't have time?

Imagine that you are Jamie Dimon, CEO of JP Morgan Chase, lauded as the most hands-on manager and best risk management CEO in the financial services industry. You've just learned that a series of trades from your "London Whale" have gone bad, very bad, and you will need to write down more than $2 billion. What do you do?

This is no ordinary mistake. This is a crisis. A leader such as Dimon has no choice but to do what University of Indiana professor Dean Shepherd, in his book "From Lemons to Lemonade: Squeeze Every Last Drop of Success Out of Your Mistakes" calls "working through the loss." He must very quickly get the facts, make decisions, provide information to the public, and maintain morale among the company's employees.

This Wall Street Journal article highlights Dimon's activities over a 45-day period, starting in early April 2012 when the first signs of a problem began to emerge into public view until the first week after the full-blown crisis began. The article paints a picture of a conflicted but ultimately resolute leader determined to guide the company through the crisis, and mindful of his own culpability.

Dimon certainly deserves much criticism for the predicament JP Morgan finds itself in. But his behavior in quickly assessing and acting on the problem has allowed him to weather the storm. Repairing the damage to the company will take years, but the crisis has been averted.

He will need to find some time on his own, this year or sometime down the line, to process his own role in the crisis and fully learn from it.

Allan Norton's 10 Immutable Laws of Mistakes

I love this essay on mistakes by Allan Norton in the TechRepublic blog 10 Things. I especially like #10: "Failing to learn from your mistakes is a mistake."

Another great quote from the essay:

It is no coincidence that frequently, the worst mistakes occur at the worst time. End-of-project mistakes happen due to stress, time pressures, and fatigue. A deadline often leads to mistakes in the scramble to complete a task. Less time to recognize and fix mistakes is often the genesis of what can and will go wrong.

Clearly, Norton knows a lot about mistakes. And I mean that as a heartfelt compliment.

[Hat tip to Marty Rosensweig for pointing this out. Thanks Marty!]

Things can go awry - don't forget to include buffers in your daily schedule

The 99 Percent blog had a great post today by Scott Belsky entitled, "Nobody's Perfect: Why We All Need a Margin for Error" and explained how an unexpected phone call and bad weather combined to upend an entire day's schedule. Writes Belsky:

Upon arriving at the office, my two morning meetings were already waiting. I had to reschedule my lunch, and the ripple effect continued throughout the day.

Needless to say, it was a tough one. Noticeably absent was the opportunity to think, get any real work done, and connect with my team. With no margin for error, the whole day became compromised.

[Of course this was fun to read the same week as I related my "Sorry I'm Late" mistake story.]

Remember this Ira Glass quote cited by Kathryn Schulz in her TED Talk? "A story is when you expect something to happen, and something else happens instead." Our daily runarounds are full of moments when something unexpected can happen, and as Belsky notes in his story, not taking those possibilities into account can hurt your productivity and raise your stress level.

Putting it another way: a full day's schedule with no breaks is a bit of a lie.

Belsky continues:

Capacity -- specifically, the amount of time and energy we have to expend each day -- is limited. With so much that we want to accomplish, most of us are eager to fully utilize our capacity. But should we?

I would argue, "No." Without a certain amount of capacity left idle, you lose the flexibility to adapt to the unexpected or to capitalize on circumstantial opportunities. You need to create and preserve some margin in your days to reach your full potential.

I like the idea of building buffers into your daily schedule a lot. Not only can they help absorb unexpected situations, they also have a great side benefit. Sometimes things do go as planned, and you don't need the buffer. Then you find yourself with one of the greatest gifts of all: a few free moments to think.

"Sorry I'm Late" - nearly missing an important lunch date

Many years ago I worked with some great people at GTE in Tampa, Florida. I was on a six-month assignment and, during my last week there, I had a ton of things to do to get ready for my next move to Boston. That Thursday, I had agreed to meet my friend Phil for lunch, but before that, I rushed over to another part of town to return my cable box. I ran in, dropped the box off, and ran back to my car. There was no car in the space in front of me, so instead of backing out, I zipped forward.

When the tires hit the concrete curb at the front of the parking space, I knew I was in trouble. I took my foot off the gas, but the car didn't stop until the tires had run up and over and the underside of the car had fallen hard onto the curb.

I backed up over the curb again, then out of the parking space. There was a grinding noise from the bottom of the car and it wouldn't go faster than 20 miles per hour. I carefully creeped along the side roads for several miles till I reached the dealer. It took a while for them to look at the car and let me know what needed to be fixed (thankfully, it wasn't bad).

By now I was terribly late for lunch. I went to a pay phone (see how long ago it was?) and called Phil at the restaurant. "I am so sorry, but I won't make it for lunch. You see, my car..."

Phil interrupted. "You need to get to the restaurant now. There are 25 people here for your goodbye lunch."

I hung up, called a cab, and eventually made it to the restaurant. In the dining room, a long stretch of tables was full of empty drink glasses, plates, and about a dozen people who were still there after 90 minutes of waiting. It was a memorable good-bye lunch, for them as well as for me.

One thing I took away from that experience: hurrying often makes you later. It's a lesson I'm still learning.

Jill Konrath - 5 minutes to engage a prospect, and nothing to say

A sales mistake story from "Selling to Big Companies" author Jill Konrath.

When I walked in the front door of The Kaplan Company, there were at least 30 desks filled with women who were busy doing order entry and handling customer service issues.

I told the receptionist that I wanted to speak to the person who made copier decisions. After a quick check with the boss, she escorted me past all those working women into his office.
"Sit down," he said gruffly. "You've got 5 minutes. Talk."

"If you're busy, I'll come back later," I said, trying to be gracious.

"Nope," he stated. " 5 minutes. Tell me why I should buy your product. Your 5 minutes is starting now."

I mumbled. I stumbled. I tried to engage him in conversation. I tried to explain that I needed more time. He wasn't one bit interested. After 5 minutes, he arose and said, "Your time is up. You can leave now."

That ticked me off. I told him he was rude and obnoxious. Then I turned and stormed out of his office past all those women, shouting back at him, "I'll never sell you a Xerox machine. You don't deserve to work with Xerox."

I know it's hard to believe, but I really did lose my cool. And I'm also sure that guy never wanted to work with Xerox again. But he had a point. I couldn't concisely state why he should listen to me.

I wanted to build a relationship and warm up the call. That made me feel better. He was a busy man who chose to use his time judiciously. I didn't respect his needs. After that cold-calling disaster, I learned to net it out. That lesson is even more important today than it was years ago....

The hardest thing in the world is to look at your own complicity in the situation, yet that's where the maximum growth is for you and ultimately, the key to your long-term sales success.