by Charlene Li - Harvard Business Review

When it comes to business, we are incredibly unaccepting and fearful of making mistakes. And forget about admitting to our mistakes, as that may be construed as a sign of weakness.

But business and leadership is all about relationships. And in any relationship, things go wrong, mistakes are made, ups are followed by downs. The strength of a relationship is not how perfect it is, but how resiliently it deals with the inevitable failures.

In a world filled with real-time, tell-all social media, your ability to hide from your failures is, well, non-existent. You are much better off admitting that something is wrong and addressing it in as authentic and transparent a way as possible.

That's what Domino's Pizza CEO Patrick Doyle did in national television ads this past year. Domino's is known for primarily one thing — delivering pizza to your door in 30 minutes. Domino's gutsy move was to acknowledge that its pizza was far from stellar. In the ads, the company flashed quotes from customers like "Domino's pizza crust is like cardboard" and "Microwave pizza is far superior." One customer suggested, "I think Domino's pizza should start over."

That's what Domino's did. The company reconfigured its core product, testing combinations of dozens of cheeses, 15 sauces, and nearly 50 crust seasonings to find one that satisfied customers. In the ads, Domino's admitted that its pizzas were terrible, explained that it redesigned them, and asked people to give them a try.

Viewers of these ads described them as "bold" and "refreshing," and gave the company credit for acknowledging what everyone already knew. More important, people tried the pizza and found they liked it. The result: store sales rose and quarterly profits doubled.

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