By Emily Soccorsy

A few months ago during a team meeting, when discussing project management and workflow, I said something one of my team members captured. She found it pretty resonant and suggested I write about it. 

What I said was, “Your needs in a good working relationship don’t rely on you being perfect.’

“We all make mistakes. And that doesn’t negate your position.”

I don’t remember exactly what I was referencing, but I was probably speaking to myself. 

I fall into this old pattern again and again and again in my life and work – and need to pep talk myself out of it.

That old, default mindset says, in order to be fully valued and maintain a solid working relationship requires perfection. Flawless execution. Nailing it in every meeting, email, and project. 

This default and faulty mindset usually sends my thinking mind into a draining, all-out grind, and leaves the real secret of my success (my heart, intuition and creativity) in the dust in its frantic race for speed and productivity.

This likely springs from the deep-seated notion that mistakes may become moments other people will decide to opt-out. This terrifies me at a jugular level. That something I didn’t do well would get me kicked out of the relationship/conversation/circle. 

For most of my life, this has not held true, so I’m not sure how the story took hold. 

In my rational, conscious, I’m-an-adult-who’s-worked-on-her-shit-self, I don’t believe that to be true. At all. And I don’t typically operate from this belief. 

I believe mistakes are moments to love people more, to find our own humanity, to exercise compassion and to display grace. 

Imperfect moments are actually opt-in moments. 

They are moments when we connect to our own humanity through another’s and can choose to accept that about ourselves and others. 

Mistakes give us chances to see and honor one another’s authenticity and to hold another’s vulnerability with kindness. 

I dislike making mistakes, but I’ve learned over four decades to embrace myself when I do. To be gentle. To allow them to ground me, and let them lead me to greater authenticity. 

Which is really what we all want – to be seen, heard and known as we truly are.

Good working relationships rely on authenticity. They rely on seeing, hearing and knowing one another. On accepting we will make mistakes. Within ourselves and within our teams, we have the chance to go further and bring mistakes and imperfections out into the light. 

Expecting your own future mistakes and those of your team can be a powerful act of team-building. To explore this, consider the following: 

Invite the conversation: how will I treat myself when I make a mistake? How will we treat one another when we make mistakes? 

Set some ground rules for how to address errors. 

Talk through how each person would like to be addressed when they make mistakes. Consider the idea that mistakes may offer a chance to improve the process or systems you’re using. Dialogue on how you’ll go about doing so. 

Embracing imperfection is a bold move. It’s likely counter-intuitive. 

But, if we’re bold enough to do it for ourselves first, then others, it gives us a chance to learn, to grow and to validate our own humanity.

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