Always Make a New Mistake
Create psychological safety while preventing repeated failures
- Difficulty
- Moderate
- Time to result
- ~months to results
- Steps
- 5
- Confidence
- 99%
Always Make a New Mistake combines psychological safety with a clear accountability boundary. Leaders explicitly tell employees that errors are expected when people use judgment, innovate, and serve clients in uncertain situations. Employees must disclose mistakes quickly so the organization can repair any harm, reimburse clients when appropriate, and understand the faulty decision or process. The event is then converted into a lesson that changes future behavior, training, or controls. The employee is not punished simply for an honest, recoverable mistake, but repeating the same mistake is unacceptable because it signals that learning did not occur. By separating responsible experimentation from negligence and concealment, the framework encourages initiative without abandoning standards. Its output is a workforce willing to act, report problems, and continuously improve.
Origin
Edelman Financial teaches this rule during new-hire orientation. It reflects the firm's entrepreneurial experience of spending money on unsuccessful experiments and treating those outcomes as lessons about what not to do next.
Core principles
- 01Experimentation inevitably produces mistakes
- 02Concealed errors are harder to repair than disclosed errors
- 03Leaders should make recoverability explicit
- 04Learning must change future behavior
- 05Judgment improves through responsible action
How to run it
- 1
Define recoverable risk
Clarify which decisions employees may make independently and which high-consequence actions require escalation.
Pro tip Give concrete examples during orientation.
Watch out Do not imply that legal, ethical, or safety violations are acceptable experiments.
- 2
Act with judgment
Let employees use their knowledge and reasoning to do what they believe serves the client best.
Pro tip Provide decision principles rather than requiring approval for every minor choice.
Watch out Autonomy without competence or boundaries creates unmanaged risk.
- 3
Disclose mistakes immediately
Report what happened before delay, defensiveness, or concealment makes the consequences worse.
Pro tip Leaders should respond first by stabilizing the situation, not assigning blame.
Watch out Psychological safety collapses if honest disclosure triggers humiliation.
- 4
Repair the harm
Correct the work, compensate the affected client when appropriate, and restore trust.
Pro tip Tell the affected person what will change as a result.
Watch out Learning language must not become an excuse to avoid restitution.
- 5
Prevent recurrence
Identify the lesson and update behavior, training, documentation, or controls so the same mistake is not repeated.
Pro tip Share transferable lessons without unnecessarily shaming an individual.
Watch out A repeated mistake indicates that reflection or process change was incomplete.
In the wild
An employee makes a good-faith operational decision that costs a client money. The employee reports it immediately, the firm reimburses the client, and the team identifies the assumption that caused the error. Training and procedures are updated before the employee resumes similar work.
→ The client is made whole and the organization becomes less likely to repeat the failure.
Common mistakes
Punishing honest disclosure
If reporting a mistake predictably leads to humiliation, employees will hide errors until they become more expensive.
Forgiving without learning
Psychological safety requires process improvement; otherwise permission to err becomes permission to repeat negligence.
Ignoring irreversible risks
The framework applies only where errors are recoverable and must be supplemented with stricter controls in safety-critical work.
Is it for you?
Best for
Organizations where employees must exercise judgment and most errors can be repaired.
Not ideal for
Safety-critical environments where a single uncontrolled error can cause irreversible injury or death.
From the transcript
“You're allowed to make mistakes, You're expected to make mistakes. You're simply not allowed to make the same mistake twice.”
“Always, always a new mistake. Go make a new one.”
“And if you do make a mistake, tell us we'll fix it.”
From the episode
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