When Leonard Cohen forgot the words to his own song (...and how to make mistakes work for your benefit)

I just came across this rare Leonard Cohen clip again

I love it because it shows he's human and even he can forget the words to his own - most famous - song.

But the best part is what he does afterwards, and how he turns this mistake into a memorable experience for his fans.

If you know the song Suzanne, you'll see how he makes new words up on the fly - not only the words, but also the melody - and creates a whole new song that makes fun of himself.

This might feel unrelated at first, but I actually used to use this clip in customer service trainings in the past, to bring this point across:

When you make a mistake that affects another person (customers, staff, fans) - acknowledge and own it! And then fix it in an unexpected, memorable way.

As humans, we are wired in a way to remember unexpected things better, than expected ones. And as customers, we will talk about unexpected things more to others than expected ones. Especially on social media.

Nobody calls their friends, saying, "Heeey, you know what? I got exactly what I expected!!"

No. We only share awesome experiences, which were way better than expected, or horrible ones, which were worse than expected.

Anything in the middle is not newsworthy.

So from a marketing point of view it's important to create positive experiences, that people want to share.

And from a service point of view it's important to turn around negative experiences in such a positive & memorable way, that our customers will be glad in the end, that the mistake happened in the first place.

Which performance, do you think, will the fans of Leonard Cohen remember and talk about forever?

This one, or the million other times he sang Suzanne?

We don't have to be perfect in life or in business. We're all allowed to make mistakes.

What will stay in the other party's memory, though, is how we act and connect afterwards.