Owning up to mistakes

Reflecting on the Patriots vs. Seahawks Super Bowl, I still vividly recall the emotional rollercoaster of that ending. If you’re a Patriots fan, you rode the high of victory. If you’re not (I’m in that camp, for reasons I’ll save for another time), it was a gut punch.

We all know what happened: The Seahawks were just feet from winning. Instead of handing the ball off to their powerhouse running back, they called a pass play into a crowded end zone. The result? An interception, and the game was over. Social media exploded, everyone was asking, “What were you thinking?”

That moment got me thinking about some of my own missteps over the years—and how I handled them. I’ve made plenty of mistakes in my career. None were illegal, and while some cost time and money, nothing was catastrophic. But one stands out: the time I accidentally deleted about 75% of our clean test data.

We’d spent over six months cleaning up our database to make automated tests run smoothly. It was tedious, mainframe-based work, and required meticulous attention to detail. During a routine data move, I accidentally hit the space bar at the wrong time. The result? All the junk data from our “sandbox” database got mixed into the clean one. Months of work were suddenly at risk.

My stomach dropped as I realized what had happened. I couldn’t stop the process, and there was no hiding it. Instead of scrambling to cover it up, I went straight to my boss, explained the situation, and outlined my plan to fix it. Luckily, we discovered the system had weekly backups, so we only lost about a week’s worth of work.

Mistakes happen—sometimes with massive consequences. (Remember the story about Toy Story 2 almost getting deleted at Pixar? If not, check it out here.) In IT, a single keystroke can trigger a domino effect.

However, here’s the thing: owning up to your mistakes and working with others to rectify them demonstrates genuine leadership. Even if you’re not in a formal leadership role, taking responsibility builds trust and keeps problems from festering.

Let’s swap stories and talk about what we learned. If you want to build a culture of accountability and resilience within your team, please reach out to jberriault@berriaultandassociates.com.

Let’s turn mistakes into lessons—and lessons into real growth