How We Learn From Mistakes (Without Assigning Blame)

Six years before grocery delivery became somewhat normalized during the COVID pandemic, Justin Osofsky , current Head of Partnerships & Business Development for Meta, opened his front door to find a massive green bag with a large styrofoam cooler inside.

Reaching down to the bottom of the cooler, past the melted-ice remnants, Justin encountered a strange delivery—two frozen lemons, ordered by his wife.

Justin was confused. Why would they put their lemons on ice? And why were two small lemons delivered in an extra-large cooler and an even larger bag?

It hit him that, in his words, “probably five to ten people worked on delivering this order.” And they likely followed their policies to the letter – if you have a grocery order, pack it in a perishable cooler with ice bags and put it in a green bag, which you then deliver.?

It was by the book, but it’s fairly likely that those involved thought it was an unnecessary and wasteful way to deliver two lemons. They didn’t feel empowered to raise their hand and say the process or policies were broken.?

At the time, Justin was the Chief Operating Officer for Instagram and wanted to ensure this hand-raising problem didn’t happen there, too.

So, he created the Frozen Lemon award, which he gave out when someone on his team raised their hand and told him about something broken within the organization.?

As the organization scaled, Instagram moved away from the Frozen Lemon award, though not away from its culture of embracing mistakes.?

When I spoke with Justin for episode 218 of the Disrupt Yourself podcast, he shared that his team at Instagram participated in incident reviews every Friday. During these meetings, the team reviewed two places “where they have screwed up, globally, and in a blameless fashion” and worked to understand why the mistakes happened.?

Justin’s team at Instagram broke down each issue into its root cause (or, more often than not, root causes), which they then worked to fix.?

In order to not repeat the same mistake, we have to create a culture where teams can correct mistakes without pointing fingers or assigning blame—a spirit of “we can do better, and there’s nothing to be defensive about.”

At its heart, his ability to encourage that culture is why I asked Justin to join me on my podcast in the first place. Justin’s former colleague Angie Balfour (who I know from her work as the former Chief People Officer at Seekwell) shared with me that Justin makes it possible for people to do their best work. He helps people climb S Curves.?

Justin cultivates healthy ecosystems that are resilient – they have the capacity to recover quickly from difficulties and turn mistakes into opportunities.?

And we need to be able to point out mistakes without assigning blame.?

This can be challenging for many people – I’ve shared a number of times about my ongoing work to change my relationship with failure – but, as leaders, we must embrace failure and encourage our teams to do so.?

So, how can you support your team when mistakes occur? Start by reframing the failure. Why did it happen? Was it due to a lack of effort, or was the team trying something new? Is someone in the wrong role or in need of support or training??

After all, healthy ecosystems ensure that the next lemons we order arrive fresh – and in an appropriately sized bag.?

What frozen lemons have you delivered lately? Are mistakes an integral part of your team’s growth and development?