How do you show care without sounding manipulative?
I was running a workshop the other day when someone asked me a question that hit me deep:
Davide Pagnotta · 13 July 2026 · 4 min read
Make It Safe to Be Wrong
Owning mistakes as one team Summary We all know we need a culture where mistakes can be shared, but most teams don’t know how to build it. Here’s a simple shift: move attention from who erred to what conditions made the...
Davide Pagnotta · 7 October 2025 · 4 min read
Owning mistakes as one team
Summary
We all know we need a culture where mistakes can be shared, but most teams don’t know how to build it. Here’s a simple shift: move attention from who erred to what conditions made the error likely. People don’t repeat mistakes because they don’t care; they repeat them because the conditions around them haven’t changed. So handle mistakes as one team, let each mistake prompt a small system change (how decisions are made, how work is handed off, how processes are designed), and you’ll get faster progress and a stronger team.
No one wakes up wanting to mess up at work. We make decisions with the time, context and tools we have in that moment. When something goes wrong, we have a choice: blame the person who pressed “go”… or look at the system around them that made the mistake likely. Only one of those choices helps the team grow. Only one of those choices makes your business stronger.
Finger-pointing breeds hesitation (which kills innovation and speed) and fear (which hides mistakes and lets damage grow).
Why this matters in any organisation
Ignoring mistakes doesn’t make them cheaper; it makes them recurring. Hidden errors drain budgets, delay decisions, and quietly erode trust. Talking about them early has the opposite effect: it speeds up learning, keeps energy high, and reminds everyone we’re on the same side.
Some data:
- In the office, teams with high psychological safety deliver 26% higher OKR attainment.
- On the factory floor, manufacturing lines that report more errors fix defects 33% faster.
- In startups, teams that surface mistakes early pivot 1.8× faster.
What’s really behind repeat errors
People don’t repeat mistakes because they don’t care; they repeat them because the conditions around them haven’t changed. If deadlines, incentives, hand-offs or checks stay the same, the same choice will look “right” next time too. The fix isn’t willpower. It’s improving the environment we work in.
Shift the focus: person → system
Instead of asking, “Who did this?”, try “What around us made this happen?”
The answers live in everyday things: unclear ownership, rushed handovers, missing data, meetings with no decisions, KPIs that reward speed over quality, or silence because people don’t feel safe raising concerns. When you change those elements, the whole team gets better, without calling anyone out.
What a fail-forward culture feels like
- After a slip, people speak up quickly. They know they’ll be met with curiosity and collaboration, not punishment.
- Debates stay with the event, not the person. You explore the conditions that led to it and agree on better ways to handle them next time.
- Improvements stick. You change a process or norm so the smarter choice is the easy choice next time.
Now spot the difference…
A couple of simple, universal examples…
… that actually happened in real teams.
A marketing campaign goes out without the link.
Everybody’s too busy to realise until a week later.
In a blame culture, people send a new email and hope no one notices. Next time, everyone is still be too busy, and the mistake might happen again.
In a fail-forward culture, someone tells the team the moment they realise; together they fix it. They also add a small safeguard: an automatic alert if a campaign generates zero clicks on day one. People can still be busy, but if the error repeats, it lasts one day, not seven.
No finger-pointing, just a systemic fix: both the team and their campaigns are now stronger.
A unanimous decision backfires.
The executive team gets on brilliantly. One of their decisions, however, proves to be completely out of target. The whole company spends months developing and trying to sell a product that is just not fit for the market.
In the review, a few leaders admit they had doubts but stayed quiet to keep the good atmosphere.
You could blame those execs for not speaking up (and, by the way, that’s the typical reaction when I share this story. So if you’re feeling the same, you’re not alone). Long story short, the team decided to stop assuming that unanimous = right; from now on, big decisions are debated and a dissenting view is required, not only encouraged. Again, no finger-pointing, just a systemic fix: both the exec team and their decisions are now stronger.
The payoff
If you want to see how this looks in real life, and how to build it without drama, join our free Fail Forward workshop (we run it at least once a month, the next one is on October 14).
You’ll see fewer surprises, faster recoveries, and a steadier team. More importantly, you’ll feel the shift: less fear, more honesty, and the quiet confidence that comes from solving problems together.
Studies:
- Google’s Project Aristotle: What Google Learned From Its Quest to Build the Perfect Team
- HBS, Framing failure for learning and innovation
- Techstars, 2023 State of Innovation Survey
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