Here's how you can navigate the repercussions of missing deadlines in the private equity industry.

The first step is to addressing mistakes is to acknowledge the mistake. Assess the impact of the delay for all stakeholders. Apologize and come up with a solution that works for most stakeholders.

Delay's in Private Equity transactions can have financial consequences related to the deal. TSA's, debt covenants and any number of other transactional agreements that carry penalties, delay downstream projects or revenue can have a ripple affect beyond your visibility. For that reason it is imperative to give as much advanced warning of an impending delay to stakeholders as possible so that damage can be mitigated and impacts minimized. Transparency and honesty are key, but since some delays are out of our control, it is also important to give context and to find the "trade off" in the delay. What is gained from the delay and how will the additional time be used? Of times this will help soften the blow.

The impact of a project delay may be unavoidable, but can be minimized and at times negotiated. For things like TSA exits, the impact may be nullified entirely by mitigating circumstances on the seller side (since both parties are apt to make mistakes in this process, sometimes one mistake may be traded for another on the other parties side). It's important to keep track and tally any delays and impacts on both sides of a transaction to maintain balance between the two parties and to ensure that one side isn't carrying the blame for all delays. By tracking any delays and acknowledging them openly, you not only humanize the problem, but also hold both parties accountable.

Communicating a plan is table stakes for any initiative, but it's especially important in the Private Equity world where things move fast and have many interdependencies. By communicating your plan, you are signaling two things: First, that you've got a plan to course correct any delays or changes. And Second, it's important for everyone to know that leadership has visibility into the details of any plan and understands downstream ramifications and is correcting for those as well. Because there are so many interdependencies early on in a PE transaction, it's vital that leadership stay in sync and that they operate as one. Without communicating plan objectives, you become a bull in a china shop.

The only failure in life is the failure you don't learn from. So it's important that in any professional endeavor, if you make a mistake, you MUST take away the lesson. For this reason it's important to not only acknowledge any mistakes made, but to do a real root cause analysis on the situation as soon as possible, communicate your findings and spread the message of the lesson as widely as possible. Whether it's a procedural change, a system change, incorporating new ideas or tools into a workflow, a mistake is an opportunity to make the organization better. As a leader if you've created a healthy work environment, your team will be able to make mistakes, learn from them and teach others without the stigma of failure.

Relationships in the PE world are critical but none so much as those that are forged in the face of overcoming a delay or mistake. Because it requires humility, ingenuity, trust and ultimately celebration, in order to overcome adversity as a team . Going through this "adversity lifecycle" is powerful. It strengthens trust between teem members, builds friendships and requires everyone's best efforts to overcome whatever obstacle may be in the teams' way. And by experiencing all of these emotions, relationships are cast in the die of a common experience where you experience first hand who you can trust and you can't. It's these relationships you can count on when the next obstacle arises and you're called on or calling for help.