Handling Mistakes
Senior Application Developer and Full Stack Engineer at Thoughtworks with almost a decade of experience working primarily as a Backend & DevOps Engineer. I've worked on Ruby & C# projects and am currently working on a Python one. I am an AWS Certified Solutions Architect and an Oracle Certified Cloud Infrastructure Architect at an Associate level. I also have reasonable experience working on GCP, primarily with Google Kubernetes Engine.
I'm also an aspiring public speaker who likes to give talks on soft skills and tech.
I also write blogs on various psychological aspects of work primarily to improve teamwork & interpersonal skills.
One of the things that will determine growth in an organization is the way mistakes and failures are looked at.
Around two years ago, I was presenting at an internal conference in Thoughtworks along with my teammate. It was her first time presenting in front of a big audience and she was understandably nervous.
During the presentation, she forgot what she was about to say and completely froze. I didn't know what to do to encourage her but thankfully I didn't have to.
The entire audience started clapping and shouting words of encouragement. A 150-strong audience cheering for you when you are stuck can do wonders. My teammate was able to continue and we finished to a full minute of applause.
Still gives me goosebumps when I think of it.
If you are looking to build a great org culture, this is how mistakes and failure should be handled. Not with shame and blame, but with encouragement and celebration.
