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- No Mistakes is a BAD Signal
Fear of making mistakes is killing your team’s growth potential
When you're working with global talent (especially from places like South Asia or the Philippines), you need to bear in mind:
They come from cultures where mistakes are punished.
Not just frowned upon.
Not just corrected.
Punished.
By telling them to “take initiative” or “try new things”…
They likely hear “risk getting in trouble.”
How can anyone grow if they're playing it safe all the time?
The answer?
They can’t!
It's like a baseball player thinking “don't strike out, don't strike out, don't strike out”…
What happens next?
To build an elite global team…
You need to create an environment where your team feels safe to make mistakes.
How?
Lead by example
Want your team to be open about their mistakes?
Show them how it's done.
Admit to your own mistakes.
In public.
My favorite move?
Making a mistake early on, then asking the team for advice on how to fix it.
It shows mistakes aren't shameful – they're opportunities for the whole team to learn and grow.
“Oh yeah, I totally messed that up. No big deal. Moving forward, we’ll do xyz instead.”
When your team sees you being open about your mistakes, they'll realize:
“Oh, this team's different. They actually WANT us to try new things, and mistakes are okay”
Normalize mistakes
Make it crystal clear:
If you're not making mistakes, you're not trying enough new things.
Mistakes aren't just okay – they're expected.
They're a sign you're learning new skills
You can even laugh and joke about mistakes to really drive the point home.
Keep perspective
Remember: We're not performing brain surgery here.
Nobody dies if you have to resend an “email with updated information.”
…and when someone messes up, turn them into growth opportunities by focusing on the learning:
What did we discover?
How can we prevent this next time?
What systems can we put in place?
Here’s what this all boils down to:
If your team is afraid to make mistakes, they'll never push themselves.
They'll never develop new skills.
They'll never grow into the leaders your business needs.
But create an environment where mistakes are okay?
Where they're even celebrated as learning opportunities…
And your team will start taking more initiative, ultimately helping your business grow.
Now, when I started hiring global talent, I made my fair share of mistakes.
In fact, the mistakes I made (and the lessons I learned) are a huge part of why we built Sagan Passport.
With Sagan, I've packaged up everything we've learned about global talent into one powerful solution, where you get:
White-glove headhunting that connects you with ambitious global talent (at 80% less than U.S. costs, and without bloated headhunter fees)
Live workshops and expert-led sessions on building unbeatable international teams
A vibrant community of leaders maximizing their global talent's potential and ROI
“We will absolutely be adding additional Global Talent through Sagan. It's just been too easy and too successful not to. It's forcing us to think differently about how we structure our business.” - Ken Otto, SVP/GM, Accelerated Media Technology (Mobile Communications)
If you’re ready to build an elite global-talent team…
And we’ll guide you through your first hires from start-to-finish.
Yallah Habibi,
Jon
Passage of the Week:
“One of the most satisfying feelings I know — and also one of the most growth-promoting experiences for the other person — comes from my appreciating this individual in the same way that I appreciate a sunset. People are just as wonderful as sunsets if I can let them be. In fact, perhaps the reason we can truly appreciate a sunset is that we cannot control it. When I look at a sunset as I did the other evening, I don’t find myself saying, ‘Soften the orange a little on the right hand corner, and put a bit more purple along the base, and use a little more pink in the cloud color.’ I don’t do that. I don’t try to control a sunset. I watch it with awe as it unfolds. I like myself best when I can appreciate my staff member, my son, my daughter, my grandchildren, in this same way.”
— Carl Rogers