In Celebration of Mistakes

“Well, I botched that!”

Does your work culture allow for this kind of statement (or something like it?) in your team conversations? Is the acknowledgment of a misstep swept beneath the rug or brought out into the light for proper inspection?

At Cascade Employers Association we train and support work teams, a lot of work teams. And we are always looking for those things that differentiate especially effective and high-functioning teams from average or low-functioning teams. We are convinced that one of the big differentiating factors is those cultures that expect or even celebrate mistakes.

In the last couple of years did you notice that, with COVID being so unpredictable, even the experts (especially the experts) have gotten some stuff wrong? As we humans are hard-wired to find certainty, many of us may have found ourselves being critical of prognosticators. We do this in politics. We do this in our daily decisions. And we do this with our teams.

We love to predict the future and are often not very good at it. I was reading a New York Times review of how well Pundits have been at predicting the outcomes for the world of work over the last year. It was rare that these experts got better than 50% right (let me know how your March Madness bracket went). Our medical experts have missed a lot around how we should protect ourselves against the virus (they also got A LOT right!). But before we crawl down the judgmental rabbit hole, let’s see if we can relate this dynamic to the tone we set with our work teams.

The question we are encouraging is “How do we create a team atmosphere that embraces missteps?”

Important Note: We are not talking about the kind of mistakes that result in injury, damage, or constant customer letdown, but even these errors should be met with a “let’s-learn-from-this” tone.

Consider the characteristics of the high-functioning, mistake-tolerant team:

• Ability to build trust and encourage vulnerability
• Ability to have productive disagreements about situations, issues, behaviors
• Ability to stay committed and engaged (even when things are uncertain)
• Ability to have positive, team-driven accountability
• Ability to get the right results
• Just a pinch of humility and a sense of humor

Turns out all of these positive-team factors are dependent upon our creating and maintaining a mistake-tolerant, mistake-embracing culture.

Tensions drive mistakes underground. Judgment drives mistakes underground. Acceptance breeds honesty and progress.

I have a hunch that those workplaces that have given a positive voice over the last several years to these principles have team members that feel safe being less than awesome once in a while (human?). In your team gathering we invite you to watch the avoidance or celebration of mistakes and how that sets the tone for improving tomorrow.

Please continue to let us know what is working for you to keep your team going.