Why do I believe that I want to hire someone who is okay with making mistakes?
I want to build a culture that values growth, and growth is achieving by taking steps backward and forward and by leaps at a time. I’ve become not only okay but actually embrace making mistakes so that I can learn from them. If I know I’m intentionally making the mistake, then that’s not good. But if I live up to my potential, and along the way I fail, then that failure is one more way that I’ve learned something along the path. I just have to keep failing forward.
There is value in culture-add compared to culture-fit. But I think there has to be some sort of values alignment. That if they have a fixed mindset vs a growth mindset, then that’s not someone I can grow with. Someone afraid of making mistakes may be too risk-averse. Or may need micromanagement. There would be less autonomy if they had this fear because they don’t want something ‘bad’ to come to their name / image. They may not want to step outside their comfort zone to try something new. But taking something new on, being flexible and adaptable to external circumstances but not succumbing to them.
Mistakes are a key way to ask better questions. They almost force more reflection. I think I Have to take more effort to reflect when things are going well compared to when I’ve made a mistake. So if you make honest mistakes more often and fail more frequently, then you’ll reflect with greater quantity and quality. And I value reflection a lot too. Being able to look back at what you did, said, thought individually and collectively with the team and company and then to grow from it.
If I’m around growth-minded people all the time, then that will become the default. I believe that I can learn just as much, if not more, from my supervisee as I can from my supervisor. I believe that because everyone has something to give and share. There is wisdom inside each of us.
I think I also believe it because if I allow others to make mistakes, then they will also allow others to make mistakes. And that can pervade from professional life to personal life too.
I think I may believe that too also because I was given the opportunity to make mistakes. I would note it and learn from it as best as I could, hopefully to not make the same mistake again.
That also means they accept themselves. That person would probably have a high level of self-esteem if they can make mistakes and grow from them. And I want my company to have high self-esteem. If they don’t, it just feels like my own self-image and self-worth go down.
I think I also may believe it because I’ve seen and experienced the opposite. Seeing the lack of full expression of self, operating with an overabundance of caution inhibits us from fully growing. Second guessing every decision we’re about to make at work is not something I want at all in my career. It stifles innovation, ingenuity, and inspiration.
I think also failure is just misaligned intentions and results. I may have had one intention of reality but the resulting perception may have been different. So then we try to reconcile the difference between why our intentions and outcomes didn’t match up.
I value the intention of somebody even more so than the result.
So by hiring someone who is okay with failing, I’m validating their feelings and effort that they are still accepted and celebrated even if their intentions didn’t result in exactly what they had expected.
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