High-Performing Teams Often Appear to Make More Mistakes

When researchers studied what makes teams effective, they found something surprising: the best teams reported more mistakes than average teams.

At first, it looked like they were executing poorly. But they weren't.

They were simply more willing to talk about what was going wrong.

In many organizations, people hesitate to share bad news. Problems get downplayed, risks are brushed aside, and mistakes stay hidden until they become too big to ignore. As a result, leaders often see a filtered version of reality.

Strong teams do the opposite. They raise concerns early, question assumptions, and admit when they don't know something.

Organizations don't get better by avoiding mistakes. They get better by spotting them early enough to fix them.