Whether it's their own misstep, or an employee's blunder, the most successful business leaders turn mistakes into genuine learning opportunities. But in order to do so, they have to create just the right workplace culture.
An environment that seems overly supportive of mistakes might send the message that they don't take mistakes seriously. On the other hand, an overly punitive environment may discourage employees from admitting to their mistakes.
The best leaders create a learning culture that helps employees accept responsibility without placing blame. To find out how to create a learning environment, I asked successful CEOs to share their insight.
1. Dave Finocchio, CEO Of Bleacher Report
"It's a major violation of trust with me when people don't admit fault or openly talk about what they could have done better. It's just very rare that you earn an A+ on every test, and arrogant if you act like you do. I think it’s really hard for people to move up the ladder if they are overly hard-headed in this area.
I make mistakes all the time, and talk about them openly with people up and down our hierarchy. It fosters a culture where people should feel comfortable critiquing themselves honestly."
2. Geoff Woo, CEO Of Nootrobox
"Life is too short to learn from your own mistakes, so learn from other people's mistakes by absorbing information from any and all high-fidelity sources (blogs, books, conversations with domain experts).
Some companies have a culture of ‘don't come to your boss with problems, come with solutions.’ It's actually horrible advice. Yes, you want smart competent problem solvers on your team, but you also want an open team dynamic where people are working together with honest open lines of communication, not a culture of fear and perfection."
3. Rob Butler, Founder Of Maestro Health
"You can’t start the remedy process until you know what the total damage is. Most people will give you a second chance.
That said, nothing dilutes your credibility and apology more than having to go back and report a ‘worse than I initially thought’ second communication. ‘Hey, so I told you yesterday we messed up 10 of your orders, actually it was 15.’ Credibility party over. "
4. Ross Cohen, Cofounder Of BeenVerified
“In light of a mistake, it is important to personally take the lead. It’s extremely pertinent that all of our team hears directly from the founders on any issue of confusion, mistake, or change of direction that comes up. A quick email from the CEO can immediately answer any questions and provide confidence to the rest of the team.”
5. Andrew Brockenbush, Co-owner Of Beefy Marketing
“The best way to overcome a mistake is to learn from it and put systems in place not to repeat it. Sure failure is educational, and even necessary in many ways, but that doesn’t mean you want to repeat the same mistake over and over.”
6. Joseph Schumacher, CEO Of Goddard Systems, Inc.
“Transparency. If something goes wrong, it’s important to address it and let the organization know that A) something has gone wrong, B) what happened and how, C) it is being corrected, and D) this is how it’s being corrected. This may also empower employees to offer alternate solutions that wouldn’t have been considered otherwise."
7. Sabrina Parsons, CEO Of Palo Alto Software
“Don’t hide the bad news--mistakes only get worse because employees are afraid to share bad news. Raise the flag and bring it up to your manager or exec team and own up to the mistake."
8. Sarah Nahm, CEO Of Lever
"At the team level, we see different teams tackling the opportunity in different ways. Our marketing team started an internal spreadsheet of 'Marketing Mistakes' that they periodically review in meetings, to show that it's not the end of the world when things go wrong and that the main thing is to learn from the experience.
The people who benefit most from documenting these stories are actually the new hires who weren’t even there when the mistake was made. Unless you socialize errors with newcomers, you risk history repeating itself."
9. Pete Christothoulou, CEO Of Marchex
"Ask for feedback--from your team, your boss, your clients, anyone. Every bit of feedback, good or bad, pushes us to ask how can we do better?
And at the end of the day, this question is what will breed growth and lessons learned from our mistakes or failures. Always ask how you can do better and you will always continue to do better."
10. Geoff Gross, CEO Of Medical Guardian
"Own it. Let go of the pride that doesn't want you to admit that you're wrong. And don't waste time letting the guilt or shame consume you. Use that time to come up with a solid action plan to fix it (or at least reduce the negative impacts of your actions) in conjunction with a plan on how you can avoid such a problem in the future.”
Grow Stronger And Become Better
Acknowledging that mistakes are inevitable can go a long way toward encouraging employees to come forward when they've messed up. Then, it's up to leaders to determine how to turn those mistakes into learning opportunities so they won't be repeated.
Amy Morin is a psychotherapist, speaker, and the author of the bestselling book, 13 Things Mentally Strong People Don't Do.
