I created a meeting to convene my team’s mistakes. What happened later surprised me.

There is an idea in the startup culture: You must not win. People love to throw it, but we are still not superb at the actual party or discussing these failures. We would favor to brush them under the rug – as a result we never really learn from them.

I decided to fix it in Biller Genie, a company that I co -founded with Thomas Aronica. It is a platform that automates invoicing and invoicing to pay people faster. I wanted to know that we are screwing up, that my team did in real time and face them. So I created the meeting “Fuckup of the Month”, in which all our employees gather to share their mistakes.

The point is to be dramatic. Learning together to solve our problems faster. Do you know what? It works.

At our first meeting, people hesitated, so I ran an example. I began by telling them my own screws. I emphasized that everybody will make a mistake, but this is an vital part: will you have or stop it? How will you fix it? What will you learn? How do you place security so that it does not occur again? And how do all of us go forward?

With time, the meetings became more vivid and more open. I start with a request for volunteers and often starts with something bad, for example, Oh wounds, I closed the keys in the automobile. But when people warn up, they’ll share perhaps 10 or 15 fucking – and some are big. I normally know this because I had to deal with precipitation. But the remainder of the band can hear about them for the first time. And when they do it, the whole room stops – and it is We intend to fix it.

Let’s take this instance: A few years ago a team member had a client phone call. When the client began to speak negatively about one of our partners, the team member agreed and spoke badly about the partner. Then, to add insult to the injury, the manager by accident sent the Zoom recording to – yes! – Partner himself! Nobody told me that it happened. In the end I got a phone call from this partner, saying, “This is defamation.”

I confronted the manager and he moved him at our next Fuckup of the Month meeting. He admitted that he didn’t fully understand the repercussions, which was useful: he made me realize that I had to train the entire company in the field of defamation, defamation and slander, and strengthen that our partners are our most significant assets – we must protect them at all costs. I also created a recent rule: if you do something that would expose us with our partners, immediately rase to my office.

When employees share their screws and see constructively reacting, he sends an vital message: “I will not punish you for failure.” However, I expect people to be open to their mistakes and learn from them.

Image loan: Evana Vazquez

Here is one other doza: the worker by accident did something that caused the customer’s invoices to be sent to the flawed company. In this case, he told us the way it happened.

We discussed this at the next Fuckup of the Month meeting, and the band pulled many lessons out of it. The first is to quickly get help. Because the worker immediately told us about his mistake, we managed to fix it without serious repercussions. In addition, I realized that I had to emphasize the team’s importance of double and triple checking their work. I remembered that dealing with people’s funds was a great responsibility and that doing it accurately was the important priority. “As a company My Down Move quickly, “admitted”, but not at the expense of accuracy. If necessary, spend a few extra minutes. “

Sometimes our Fuckup meetings teach us lessons about our technology. It happened when a younger worker trained someone in our system and by accident modified the billing settings for 3,500 of our clients. Serious problem. But again this worker got here straight to find me, and even interrupted the meeting we had with one of our best partners. She was buried and said, “I have to talk to you now.”

This moment was dealt with by courage and I think that the culture we built during our encountered meetings gave her courage. If she hadn’t told us, things could go very badly. Instead, with her help we could deal with the problem that day. In addition, her error revealed susceptibility in our system and we eventually improved our technology. I was so impressed with the way she coped with all that we gave her the “Fuckup of the Year” award – which we actually consider to be a badge of honor!

I learned this: when you build a culture of getting your failures, you turn into higher to create solutions. Speaking of your fucking, you make sure they have not repeated themselves.