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Moving on often best fix for blunders

Embarrassing the boss doesn't have to mean the end of your career; it could, perhaps, enhance your relationship

By Susan Chandler
Tribune staff reporter
Published June 19, 2006

It was all so innocent. Standing in for his boss at a ceremony to kick off the Field Museum's King Tut exhibit, Exelon executive Randy Mehrberg casually mentioned that Exelon Chief Executive John Rowe loves Egyptian artifacts so much that he keeps a sarcophagus on display in his office.

As he sat on the same stage, Zahi Hawass, head of Egypt's antiquities council, could hardly believe his ears. A cultural treasure from his homeland squirreled away in the office of a Chicago utility executive? It was an outrage!

Hawass stepped up to the microphone and launched an all-out attack, threatening to cut off ties with the museum unless Rowe surrendered the sarcophagus immediately. A day later, Rowe caved and offered to lend the artifact to the Field indefinitely.

So where does that leave Mehrberg, the Exelon executive vice president? He still has his job, and workplace experts say he may be able to put the incident behind him if he plays his cards right.

Embarrassing the boss clearly is a no-no, but it doesn't have to be the end of the line. Much depends on how the subordinate handles the aftermath, say career coaches and public relations experts.

"More times than not, assuming it isn't incredibly egregious, most people are not fired out of the blue," said Barry Zweibel, a business and personal life coach in Northbrook. "In basketball, you get five fouls before being ejected. So in sports, at least, there's precedence for and acceptance of imperfection. Same goes for business."

Most of us will probably do or say something that embarrasses our superiors at least once in our careers. It can happen by saying too much or not enough. In the e-mail age, it can happen instantly when the message you sent complaining about your manager was actually addressed to your manager. Or it can come about the old-fashioned way when your joke about the boss at the company picnic comes a bit too close to the truth.

Numerous experts agree that the first step to putting an embarrassing moment to rest is to accept responsibility for it and tell the boss you're sorry.

"You fess up, fall on your sword and move on. Too many people spend too much time on the first two and not enough on the third," advises Ron Culp, the former head of corporate public relations at Sears, Roebuck and Co. and Sara Lee Corp. "Most CEOs will say, `Let's move on.' They're not in the take-no-prisoners mode."

Susan Catania, a former Republican member of the Illinois House, cautions that the apology must be genuine. "It can't be one of those '90s apologies, which goes, `I'm sorry if you were offended by what I said.'"

Catania ended up on the receiving end of an apology when she chaired the Commission on the Status of Women. A staff member gave Catania some information that she said was thoroughly researched. The information turned out to be wrong, and Catania found out after she had cited the research. Her staffer was in tears, apologizing for her error. "She was devastated," Catania remembers. "I told her, `We will both live through it. People make mistakes, but don't ever do it again.' What you say in the legislature is what it's all about. If you lose your credibility, you're lost."

Veteran Chicago public relations man Daniel Edelman believes that lingering on the apology isn't quite the right tack. He suggests diverting the boss with something pleasant.

"Bring the boss some good news to change the subject. In our business, it would be a new account or a great story in the Tribune or The New York Times. It should be something that takes his mind off the thing that bothered him."

Phil Jackson, the Zen acolyte who successfully coached the Chicago Bulls to six NBA championships, believes the way to get the best out of players is to be compassionate with them even when they screw up. In his 1995 book, "Sacred Hoops," Jackson described how he handled it when Scottie Pippen refused to go into a game during the final seconds because he disagreed with the play Jackson called.

"I felt sorry for Scottie as I walked off the court and made my way to the dressing room. I knew the fallout from this incident would haunt him for days if not the rest of his career."

In the locker room, Jackson let Pippen's teammates tell him how disappointed they were. The venting was cathartic, and Pippen came back the next day ready to play, Jackson said.

Of course, sometimes a blunder is embarrassing enough that the boss decides the employee has to go.

Last summer, Gary Skoien, a 15-year veteran with real estate developer Prime Group, was fired for offering a $10,000 reward for information leading to the indictment and conviction of Mayor Richard Daley. Skoien made his offer as chairman of the Cook County GOP, but that didn't matter to his boss, who showed Skoien the door, citing the firm's need to maintain good relations with the city.

Most missteps, however, aren't nearly as public or juicy, and are usually resolved quietly.

Mehrberg, for instance, is not in any trouble, Exelon says.

"There's not any feeling internally that Randy had done anything he shouldn't have," said Exelon spokeswoman Jennifer Medley. "He was sharing information that has been out there and that John himself would have shared had he been there."

Rowe and Mehrberg declined interview requests.

When managing the aftermath of a gaffe, Chicago psychoanalyst Robert Gordon advises clients to look inward to explore why it happened.

Embarrassing the boss may have been an offshoot of a mental process the employee wasn't aware, or a subordinate may have been jealous of the perks and privileges enjoyed by the boss and covertly tried to get even. There are other possible explanations as well.

"People who feel stuck or are smarter or more competent will try to do things to embarrass the boss, consciously and unconsciously," said Gordon, a member of Chicago Institute for Psychoanalysis and a partner in Analytic Consultants, a consulting firm that deals with psychological issues in organizations.

The frustration may show up when an employee jumps in and answers a question directed to the supervisor or gives a presentation that is much more impressive than the boss'.

After an employee figures out what triggered the slip-up, it is crucial not only to apologize but also to empathize with the situation the boss is in. It may help to offer to do something to make up for the awkwardness, Gordon says.

Whether the boss can forgive and forget has a lot to do with the strength of his or her ego. A person with good self-esteem probably will be willing to move on. But someone with poor self-esteem, Gordon says, "will feel tremendously diminished and embarrassed. They will make life difficult."

If that happens to you and you sense that good opportunities are passing you by, you should decide if remaining in the job is the best strategy, Gordon says.

Assuming the employee can clean things up, however, there may actually be benefits to having gone through a crisis like this, says career coach Zweibel.

"You get to show your boss that you can capably `make good' and mend fences. You can demonstrate your poise under pressure," Zweibel said.

You also may be able to improve communication with the boss so that something like that--whatever it was--doesn't happen again.

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