Latest news with #failure
Entrepreneur
4 days ago
- Business
- Entrepreneur
I Created a Meeting to Call Out My Team's Mistakes. What Happened Next Surprised Me.
This story appears in the May 2025 issue of Entrepreneur. Subscribe » There's an idea rooted in startup culture: You've got to fail to win. People love to throw that around, but we still aren't very good at actually admitting or discussing those failures. We'd rather brush them under the rug — and as a result, we never really learn from them. I decided to fix that at Biller Genie, the company I cofounded with Thomas Aronica. It's a platform that automates billing and invoicing to get people paid faster. I wanted to know every screwup my team was making in real time and face them head-on. So I created a "Fuckup of the Month" meeting, where all of our employees gather to share their mistakes. The point isn't to be dramatic. It's to learn together to solve our problems faster. And you know what? It works. At our first meeting, people were hesitant, so I led by example. I started by telling them my own screwups. I emphasized that everyone's going to make a mistake, but the important part is: Will you own it or cover it up? How will you fix it? What will you learn? How do you put up safeguards so it won't happen again? And how do we all move forward? Related: Why Failure Is Crucial in Finding Your True Purpose Over time, the meetings have become livelier and more open. I start by asking for volunteers, and it often begins with something lame, like, Oh man, I locked my keys in my car. But once people get warmed up, they'll share maybe 10 or 15 fuckups — and some are big. I'm usually already aware of those, because I've had to deal with the fallout. But the rest of the team might be hearing about them for the first time. And when they do, the whole room stops — and it's like, we're going to fix this together. Take this example: A few years ago, a team member was on a training call with a customer. When the customer started speaking negatively about one of our partners, the team member agreed and also spoke badly about the partner. Then, to add insult to injury, a manager inadvertently sent that Zoom recording to — yup! — the very partner in question! No one told me that this had happened. Eventually, I got a call from that partner saying, "This is defamation." I confronted the manager, and he brought it up at our next Fuckup of the Month meeting. He admitted that he hadn't fully understood the repercussions, which was useful: It made me realize that I needed to train the entire company on defamation, libel, and slander, and reinforce that our partners are our most important assets — we need to protect them at all costs. I also made a new rule: If you do anything that could put us in jeopardy with our partners, immediately race to my office. When employees share their screwups and see me reacting constructively, it sends an important message: "I won't punish you for failing." However, I do expect people to be open about their mistakes and learn from them. Related: 6 Things You Gain By Embracing Failure and Learning From Mistakes Image Credit: Evana Vazquez Here's another doozy: An employee accidentally did something that caused a customer's invoices to be sent to the wrong company. In this case, he told us as soon as it happened. We discussed this at the next Fuckup of the Month meeting, and the team drew many lessons from it. The first is to get help quickly. Because the employee told us about his mistake immediately, we were able to fix it without any serious repercussions. Additionally, I realized that I needed to emphasize to the team the importance of double-and triple-checking their work. I reminded them that handling people's finances was a big responsibility and that doing it correctly was a major priority. "As a company, we do move fast," I acknowledged, "but not at the expense of accuracy. Take a few extra minutes if you need to." Sometimes, our Fuckup meetings teach us lessons about our technology. This happened when a junior employee was training someone on our system and accidentally changed the billing settings for 3,500 of our customers. Major problem. But again, this employee came straight to find me and even interrupted a meeting we were having with one of our largest partners. She was shaking and said, "I need to speak with you right now." That moment took guts, and I think the culture we built with our Fuckup meetings gave her the courage to do it. Had she not told us, things could have gone very wrong. Instead, with her help, we were able to take care of the problem that day. Plus, her mistake exposed a vulnerability in our system, and we ended up making our technology better. I was so impressed by the way she handled it all that we gave her the "Fuckup of the Year Award" — which we truly consider a badge of honor! What I've learned is this: When you build a culture of owning your failures, you become better at creating solutions. And by talking about your fuckups, you ensure that they don't happen again. Related: Want to Be a Successful Entrepreneur? Fail.
CBC
28-05-2025
- General
- CBC
Independent engineering report says city's response to water main rupture met professional standards
A report conducted by the Association of Professional Engineers and Geoscientists of Alberta, says pre-stressed concrete cylinder pipe, or PCCP, was to blame for the Bearspaw South Feeder Main failure.
BBC News
28-05-2025
- Entertainment
- BBC News
Comedian embracing 'failure' after scooping Reading comedy award
A comedian who only took up stand-up at the start of the year says he is embracing the occasional failure that comes with his new career after winning a Singh moved to the UK 14 years ago to study and finished his PhD in physics eight years was crowned Reading New Comedian of the Year at the Reading Indie Comedy Festival, beating more than 100 applicants to win, earlier this his confidence improving, he said he still had difficult gigs with jokes that have been successful elsewhere. "I think you have to accept that you will fail. The first time [performing] was to survive the five minutes and not run away from the stage," he said."And even after that, after I'd finished my first five minutes, I thought I had killed it. I thought I was amazing. I was so confident and watched my video and no-one was laughing."It's a process that I'm still getting used to. There are nights that I completely bomb with the same jokes that won competitions. "I know it's about such subtle pauses and how you come across on stage. You torment yourself about it but you just need to have a thick skin and think 'this is me getting better'."The new comedian said moving to Scotland as a student was a difficult transition and, while he could speak English well, he "couldn't understand anyone, especially after one pint"."Imagine you learn Japanese for five years but in the UK – and then you go to Japan," he said."They have their own slang, their own culture, their own humour, which is so different to the UK humour you're used to. That was the case with me." You can follow BBC Berkshire on Facebook, X (Twitter), or Instagram.
The National
28-05-2025
- General
- The National
SpaceX's latest Starship test flight ends with another explosion
The test flight ended in failure as the rocket spun out of control and disintegrated during re-entry over the Indian Ocean
Yahoo
25-05-2025
- General
- Yahoo
Guest column: Letting kids fail is part of the learning process
Failure is not separate from learning. When a child fails, something essential happens — which we see if we are attentive. In this world of comparison, failure can turn into shame. We live in a culture that idolizes success and recoils at failure. This conditioning can seep into how we raise and educate our children. We may feel compelled to protect them, correct them, and shield them from disappointment, mistaking comfort for care. When a child fails, it offers an opportunity for something sacred to occur. Not the polished version of life, but life as it is: uncertain, complex, and at times, painful. To deny them this experience is to deny them the chance to grow. When we rush in to rescue a child from failure, we reinforce that failure is something to fear. We teach them not to explore but to perform — not to question, but to comply. But if we hold space, quietly and attentively, a deeper intelligence may emerge — not from instruction, but from self-awareness. Letting children fail — with compassion and without shame — may be one of the most radical, healthy acts we can offer in a success-obsessed culture. When children fail and are allowed to feel — regret, frustration, embarrassment — we must not rush to numb these feelings. They are the soil from which resilience and wholeheartedness grow. But this is only possible when shame is absent. When failure is met with curiosity instead of criticism, the child does not internalize the failure as 'I am bad,' but recognizes, 'I tried and I learned.' This is the difference between shame and growth. Positive psychology, which focuses not on what's wrong but on what helps people thrive, reinforces that resilience, grit, optimism, and meaning-making are not inherited traits; they are built through experience — especially hard experiences. Growth mindset psychologist Carol Dweck's work shows that when children believe ability can be developed, they interpret failure as a step toward mastery, not a statement about their worth. Meanwhile positive psychology founder Martin Seligman's research into learned optimism also teaches us that children who are encouraged to interpret setbacks as temporary, specific, and changeable rather than permanent, pervasive, and personal are more likely to bounce back and flourish. These are deeply empowering beliefs, but they are only learned when children are given the freedom to fail and the tools to reflect. Letting children fail does not mean letting them fall without support. It means resisting the urge to fix, to protect, to manage the outcome. It means trusting the child's capacity to learn from the world directly. This takes courage on our part. We must sit with our own discomfort — our need to be needed, our fear of judgment, our silent wish to control the narrative. Imagine a school, a family, a culture where failure is not a problem, but a signal of growth. Where mistakes are not met with disappointment, but with questions like, What did you learn? What would you do differently? How did this experience change you? In such an environment, children are not performing — they are becoming. And this, as Oak Grove School founder and philosopher Jiddu Krishnamurti points out, is the true purpose of education — not to mold the child to fit society, but to free the child to meet life in wholeness. Jodi Grass is the Head of School at Oak Grove School in Ojai. Founded by renowned philosopher Jiddu Krishnamurti, Oak Grove is a progressive school serving students from preschool through to 12th grade, assisting them in developing those qualities of mind, heart, and body that will enable them to function with excellence, care, and responsibility in the modern world. This article originally appeared on Ventura County Star: Guest column: Letting kids fail is part of the learning process
