You may have heard of FOMO — fear of missing out. But have you heard of FOMU? It stands for fear of messing up. Shep Hyken, a customer service expert, wrote about the fear of messing up for hospitality.net and told KMOX what FOMU is all about.
"Where it comes from in the business world is when employers won't let their employees be empowered to do the right thing, and therefore the employees are afraid that they're gonna mess up and get yelled at," Hyken explained. "And basically it creates a bad situation where the customer ultimately is impacted."
The fear of messing up can make people freeze, he said. But there are some simple solutions.
"You hire good people, you train them well. And when they make a mistake, you don't criticize and berate them, you use it as a great teaching opportunity," he said. "You coach and you mentor them. You want them to make mistakes."
Hyken explained one major idea of his article — that whatever is happening on the inside of a company is going to be felt on the outside by its customers. If a boss creates tension and fear for an employee, he said, a customer will feel the effects.
Hear more about FOMU, its effects, and how to prevent it from Shep Hyken's interview on KMOX:
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