Mistakes happen. We’re only human, so even the smartest and most experienced employees make mistakes: forgetting a client’s name, sending an email prematurely, incorrectly tallying results, shipping a product to the wrong location. Big or small, workplace blunders inevitably occur.
But what if these mishaps and accidents were posted to the company intranet or communicated at a department meeting to reward the owner of the mistake? For a few companies, this seemingly taboo tactic has successfully taken their previously closed communication and free thinking-opposed cultures and transformed them into ones that openly applaud employees who own up to their mistakes.
Are we not told to learn from our mistakes? Why not then learn from others’ mistakes, too?
Sam Swaminathan from The Center for Creative Thinking, a company which focuses on developing leadership capabilities for organizations, was hired by one client to bring about change in a somewhat closed communication organization. Swaminathan created the “Mistake of the Month,” asking employees to record their biggest mistakes by the 25th of each month on the company intranet. A small employee-appointed committee reviewed and chose the most glaring or ridiculous mistake. The owner of the winning mistake would be greeted by a red carpet and given a gift tailored to the individual such as cake, restaurant gift cards or even a six-pack of beer.
While rewarding these inevitable instances can help other employees learn from mistakes and can be a fun way to engage employees each month, could the lack of personal/physical interaction lead to a misinterpretation of the concept?
According to an Academy News report by Carolyn Rogers, “only about 7 percent [of communication] is actual words used,” with non-verbal communication, tone of voice and other factors contributing to the majority of communication. Considering this, it appears very possible for something like using humor to “reward” mistakes to get lost in translation in an online platform.
Another company took on this tactic by awarding a traveling duck each month to the person with the silliest mistake. The duck would then sit on that person’s deck for the rest of the month – a visual reminder of the “oops!” moment delivered in a humorous and positive way. Since the company intranet was not part of the mistake submission or recognition process, this approach seems less open to virtual misinterpretation.
While employees at Swaminathan’s client were initially timid about responding, within a few months, he said the idea had “taken root” and employees recognized the honor as management support of employees owning up to their mistakes. A few years later, the organization’s “Mistake of the Month” garnered national media attention from outlets like CNN, CNBC, Bloomberg and Reuters.
So is “rewarding” a blunder a mistake in itself? Or is there potential to turn an “ooportunity” into an opportunity?
Leave a comment and tell us what you think.
I think that rewarding mistakes can be a very positive way to communicate ways to improve, share best practices, and promote more open sharing within a group or team. I might just need to start using “ooportunity” in a few correction emails in the future. Great write up!
One organization we work with was trying to drive a significant business transformation process, underpinned by foundational culture change. One tenet was to become a less “risk averse” culture. Their leader stood up in one business update and actually recognized a team who had been so jazzed about making the desired changes with customers, they ran out and sort of … imploded. It was way too much, too fast, for this customer. Of course, the team learned from the process, collaborated together (another tenet of the culture change), adjusted course, and went back to the customer with a new more suitable approach to their dialogue. But what sticks with me is how the organization was so impressed with a leader finally standing up and saying, “If we are asking you to change, and to experiment, then we understand that you ARE going to fall down from time to time; the important thing is that we learn, and apply it next time.” It stuck with me – and with employees, who brought it up more than two years later about how much they appreciate that recognition that “learrning mistakes happen” when companies want more innovation and experimentation.