Celebrate The Lesson, Not just The Mistake

Experimenting is not enough

Experimenting is a necessary price to pay.

What’s your mistake policy?

I always start with this question when companies ask me to help them build a culture of innovation.

Mistakes are a necessary component of change. However, most organizations don’t have a clear ‘policy’ on how they deal with mistakes. I’m not talking about rules or regulations but an explicit approach to encourage people to take more risks.

Historically, mistakes equaled to incompetency. The message was: “If you commit a mistake, you will be fired.” Though that implicit threat is still present, more leaders now realize that mistakes are a crucial component of learning and development.

Celebrating mistakes has become, not only accepted but cool. A company where errors are given a place of honor is considered modern and innovative. The problem is that we are rapidly shifting from a culture of fear to one of zero accountability.

Teams should be encouraged to make mistakes. But errors are a means to an end, not the goal. We s…