 Today, we're embracing the art of f***ing up. Yup, you heard me right. And why failure in a public setting is actually a good thing for you and your design team. Hi, I'm Chris, and in my last role, I managed 20 designers. And now I run multiple companies with my own employees. So let's talk about why celebrating failures helps foster a fail-safe environment and can stimulate innovation and creativity within your own organization and hopefully assist your team to avoid major pitfalls. Stick around until the end of the video where I share my own personal f***ing up story. So what's a f***ing up? Well, f***ing up are self-confessed failures. This idea came from f***ing up nights, a global movement based on sharing business failures in more than 185 cities and 62 countries. F***ing up are essentially the exact opposite of wins. We're destigmatizing mistakes to reinforce accelerated learning. Companies that stand out typically have this kind of approach to failures. They are eager to try new things, fail as quick as possible, learn from them, and adapt subsequently. Instead of sharing victories, it hones in on questions like, why did I fail? What did I do wrong? How did I cope with it? How can I do better? What did I learn? What would I do differently? It's time to admit and say, I f*** up. Easier said than done, of course. The goal is to come together and learn from each other's mistakes. Whether you're in a startup, corporate environment, shortening the cycle to learn will greatly benefit you and your team's trajectory. So how do you use f*** ups to establish a safe environment and bring your team closer together? Here are some tips. Number one, lead by example. Encourage the most senior leaders in the room to admit his or her mistakes or failures to start with. Regardless of where you are in the work hierarchy, you can always share your failures and what you learn from them. Number two, no blaming or shaming, please. Number three, make the f*** up sessions more tangible by offering rewards to appreciate your team members' best learnings. And finally, number four, never force it. People in general find it hard to open up. If that's the case, be patient and focus on establishing trust first. So where do you actually use f*** ups? Some ideas could be during regular meetings, such as committee check-ins or weekly team gatherings. You can use it as an icebreaker. You can use it to wrap up a meeting. You can use it during one-on-one. I'm not a kid. Maybe during stand-ups or during a workshop. Here are some prompt questions to ask yourself or your team. What did I fail at this week? What didn't go so well? What did I do wrong this week? What made you feel like sh*** this week? How did you cope with it? What challenges did you face? How can you do better? What did you learn from it? What would you do differently? As promised, here is my personal f*** up story. When I decided to leave my head of product design role back in 2020, I prepared to address the team for the final time. I outlined problems I see, how we could potentially tackle it and admitted how I f***ed up. And this is how. I wasn't transparent enough. I didn't communicate this enough. I didn't fully take ownership. Being able to share this vulnerability and lessons learned meant others were more open about the things they could have done and what they can still do in the future. A new information of struggles, mistakes, and how we could mitigate them started to surface. It was a productive conversation we needed, albeit not soon enough. Ever since then, I've always discussed how I could be a better leader in every job interview I've had. I've come to understand my strengths, and pitfalls better. Sharing this upfront has helped me build trust during these interviews, which led to a gig offer of 150K a year, one that I eventually turned down. Just remember this, you're going to fail, so you might as well do it smartly. Our ability to learn when things go south is what helps us grow. Not just as individuals, but as an industry. The key to a good f*** up sharing session is to encourage your team to talk openly about what went wrong, what could have been done differently to prevent the errors, and how they could do better next time. By making f*** ups part of your culture, you will allow your team to admit and learn from their mistakes. If you're interested in learning more about f*** ups with detailed guides and templates, check out the link in the description. Or, or, or, hit the big red button for another play-by-play breakdown of UX frameworks. Bye!