"Fintech cofounder Garima Shah said it's "dumb" to "chastise people for making mistakes" in a corporate environment - and at a startup, mistakes need to happen in order to promote innovation. "Every single day is different, which means we're going to have to make mistakes in order to continue moving forward," said Shah, who cofounded fintech company Biller Genie about five years ago. That means taking accountability is "really important," the cofounder told Business Insider."
"As a way to encourage employees at the a B2B SaaS platforming company to do so, Shah launched a "fuck-up of the month meeting" a few years ago, which consists of a monthly all-hands where employees volunteer stories of messing up that month. "It could be anything. It could be that you sent an email to the wrong person," Shah said, adding that it could also be "something a lot more devastating.""
Biller Genie holds monthly all-hands meetings called a "fuck-up of the month" where employees volunteer stories about mistakes. The meetings welcome errors ranging from minor typos or wrong expense numbers to more serious operational blunders. Publicly sharing mistakes normalizes error-making, encourages accountability, and creates psychological safety for employees. Participation varies from a handful to about twenty volunteers per meeting. At year-end, the company awards the employee responsible for the largest mistake. One awarded incident involved resetting settings for 3,500 clients and saving the change by accident; the employee remained with the company and continued performing well. The practice aims to promote learning, innovation, and a culture that retains and advances staff despite errors.
Read at Business Insider
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