Learning from mistakes builds successful teams

Author: Aodan Coburn

07.02.2022

In Global Coaching Delivered®'s engagement with high-performing teams, we note that the one key characteristic that continuously defines the very best of teams is that they simply take the time to learn from their mistakes.

Being open and honest about what has worked and what has not, supports and builds upon a culture of psychological safety, where it's OK to fail, to not know all the answers, and where every question is a good one. 

In such an environment, sharing failures in an open non-judgemental fashion provides a significant learning opportunity both for the individual and the organisation overall.

Too often the focus is on exaggerating positives whilst ignoring the opportunities to learn together from each other.

Senior leaders can effectively address this by formalising the organisational “learning loop “, and by demonstrating their own vulnerability by openly speaking to their recent successes and failures.