As a fiduciary to your clients’ and their personal wealth, the last thing you want to do is reveal when (not if) you’ve made a mistake. News flash: Your clients already know that you are human. And humans make mistakes. Of course we want to avoid errors to begin with, but when they happen despite our best intentions, don’t compound them by going passive in communicating them. By “passive,” I’m referring to sentence structure:

“Mistakes were made.”

In case your high school English teacher failed to drill it into you, this is a passively constructed sentence. Instead of the subject performing the verb, the verb is performed on the subject. Why does that matter? With no “I,” “he/she” or “they” in sight, there’s no telling who owns the problem, intends to fix it, is sorry it happened and will ensure that it never happens again. The buck has NOT stopped here; it’s still roaming around planning its next attack. Continue reading “Some Active Advice About Passive Mistakes” →