In most cases we want to present our best face, our best presentation, our best everything. Criticism is not welcome and if it comes it is to be fought with courage and persistence. Being defensive to justify what has been done and why it is right is the normal way of doing things.

Hence we never learn and often repeat the same mistakes.

What if we could have a fun meeting that unleashes our creativity, helps us learn from the past and plan better for the future.

Its called an “OOPS meeting”. Objective – share all our oops moments from work from the past month or months with all our colleagues.

How can we do it ?

We gather around and the leader begins by declaring

• This is an oops meeting. We are here to share our oops moments / failures / disasters so we can all learn from them
• We will all share – no feedback is necessary unless the speaker is asking for it 
• We will have drinks and snacks !! so you can all enjoy the stories
• Lets begin…My Oops moment starts with….

And then we rotate with everyone sharing their oops moments !

• When I decided to by mistake copy the CEO on email and there was a 100 mails where he was copied up and down until he lost his cool and blasted everyone !! lesson learnt – read your email before you send it

• When I shouted at the top of my lungs about how useless everyone was in department xxx without realizing the VP of the department was on the call !! lesson learnt – when angry do not do calls or emails. Calm down first before communicating to others

• When we decided to launch a barley drink into a market, got a huge order and shipped it. Only after it landed we realized no one knows what is barley and they all drink chocolate. Lesson learnt – do simple checks with a few consumers and customers before every launch on the pack and the product

The journey continues. It is a safe space to share and learn. The more the leaders share, the more everyone is inspired and everyone enjoys. 

You can also do a virtual version given today’s environment – going around the call sharing our oops moments !!

You can say a virtual cheers to each other as well !