Celebrate your mistakes

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November 17, 2011

I gave a speech about happiness at work recently to a Danish IT company, where I talked about the importance of celebrating successes and mistakes in the workplace.

After the speech, one of the developer emailed me this clip from the animated movie Meet the Robinsons.

That’s it right there – failure and mistakes are not embarassing. They’re not meant to be hidden or explained away. Getting it wrong is a cause for celebration.

I wrote about it previously – here are The Top 5 Reasons to Celebrate Mistakes at Work.

Comments

13 responses to “Celebrate your mistakes”

November 17, 2011

James

Definitely, one should always be ready to learn from one’s mistakes. Getting failed can prove to be a nice learning experience if you keep our eyes and ears open.

Thanks for the share!
November 18, 2011

Lainat

If you want to be successful you’ll probably make many mistakes and learn about them.
November 24, 2011

emma

me and my kids love this film and have adopted the keep moving forward theme in our house, this is where the attitude can really shape lives, with your kids. In their lives if they can handle mistakes by simply finding a way to progress through them they WILL be happy. it’s a simple concept. do not make a big fuss just learn and take the next step.

They a currently coaching me through my driving test and as my forth attempt is around the corner my children are full of positive encouragment and tell me to keep going, brilliant!
November 28, 2011

Tamara Vann

This is outstanding advice! If companies and their employees don’t make mistakes, they’ll never learn and progress. A well-handled mistake is a lesson that moves things forward. This goes for customer service mistakes, too. To overcome them and get a real lesson from those types of mistakes, just watch this video for advice:
http://www.upyourservice.com/video-theater/how-do-you-build-and-sustain-a-superior-service-culture
December 8, 2011

clement sadjere

Amazing discovery you have thought me. Its common to see people celebrating success rather than mistakes. Thanks
December 11, 2011

Wagner’s Secret School Research (weekly) | Secret School of Business

[…] Celebrate your mistakes […]
December 12, 2011

Amir Lehrer

I love the video clip. The one important thing that I find from failure is that too many people try to cover up their failures and rob themselves and their co-workers of great learning opportunities.

I don’t remember all the details but there is a story of an employee who loses a million dollars for his company and asks his boss “i guess you are going to fire me?” To which his boss replies “fire you? I just spent $1 million training you.”
December 19, 2011

Steve

Such great advice. I live in the UK, where there’s such a strong stigma towards failure, especially in business. “If you fail, that’s it, don’t try again” type of attitude. But if anything, those people are MORE qualified to try again because they’ve learnt a valuable lesson from what’s happened (what not to do, and what they’ll do next time), while those who haven’t even tried won’t have the experience…
January 16, 2012

Alex

Sometimes it’s the mistakes that teach you something about yourself. It’s difficult to find the beauty in something that you perceive as negative. Being able to take a negative (a mistake) and turn it into a positive is a learned skill that is essential in business today.
January 19, 2012

Adam Tyler

One of the best stories I have heard about making mistakes was from Peter Drucker. Once, an employee in a large company made a mistake that cost the firm sometihng in the order of ten of millions. CEO was asked by a board member if the person responsible for such a loss is going to be fired. CEO answered “no” – he explained that the firm spend tens of millions for training of this particular person and it wouldn’t be wise to let him/her go.
January 20, 2012

Jacqueline

so funny :) my daughter was just watching this movie yesterday. and now that she’s older and watching it again, she questions this scene. “i don’t get it mommy – why are they celebrating his mistakes.” and i was telling her, “because it’s ok if u make mistakes. u learn from them.” her, “ohhh.” ‘enlightened’ ;D
September 27, 2013

Rainer Proksch

When you learn from your mistakes, you will never repeat the mistake. Without making a mistake, you will never be able to understand what you will not if it does not work. On the other hand when you make mistake you will try to find thousands of other ways to make it perfect, learning a whole of lot of opportunities that lies beneath.
June 8, 2015

clement sadjere

Awesome content I must confess. We learn more from mistakes than from success. Thanks from sharing