To Action: Admitting Fallibility

Over the last few weeks LinkedIn has been serving me up a Telstra Small Business NBN ad. (The jury is still out on whether LinkedIn is aware of the regular dropouts I’ve been experiencing in my rural home office… )

The ad looks something like this:

Here’s the issue.

The ad is so laughably out of touch with the reality of their customers. As you would expect, the comments on the ad have been brutal. The reality for many (including myself a few years back) is a Telstra NBN connection that is well under advertised speeds, with spotty connection reliability and underwhelming customer service.

“All Good” doesn’t come close to the reality for many of their customers. Let alone the idea of a proactive customer service agent checking up on the connection.

The ad shows an amazing lack of self-awareness and refusal to acknowledge reality. Pretending something is so, doesn’t magically create it from the void.

And so this week’s ‘To Action’ is both a lesson in what not to do, and a challenge to be bolder with your own humanity.

As a Change Leader, if things aren’t how they should be, it’s ok to say so.

Can you imagine how different the impact of this ad would be if it was telling a different story: one of redemption rather than perfection?