What the fuck is a Fuck-up Friday?
It’s a radical transparent retrospective to make sure our personal ego doesn’t get in the way of our team’s performance.
The problem with not sharing our mistakes
Mistakes, we all make them, all the time. Some small, others big(ger). In many cases they don’t just impact us, they impact others as well. You have a lack of sleep because you are stressed out finding a new home. You said yes to too many things. You were overconfident in your estimation if you could deliver the project in time. All of these mistakes are fuck-ups in their own ways.
The problem isn’t that you can’t make a mistake, but that we often try to hide our mistakes away from others. We forget to put our ego on the side, and simply ask for help. We hope others don’t notice that we are imperfect. That’s why we call them a fuck-up.
Why we hide mistakes?
Many of us in the workplace think and feel there are terrible (often imaginary) consequences when we admit we made a mistake. Especially for everyone to see. Another reason might be that mistakes make us doubt ourselves, and create the feeling we aren’t worth “it”. Whatever the “it” may be.
The goal isn’t to go through your week without mistakes. The goal is to take risks and share your learnings by the end of it.
How to reflect on your fuck-ups with a Fuck-up Friday
At Blindfeed we’ve done a lot of work to build a radical transparent culture, to take accountability for our work, challenge each other passionately, and share our mistakes in a humble way. We do this every week by closing the week with a retrospective dinner that we call Fuck-up Friday.
The idea is simple. Each one of us shares what they fuck-ed up this week, what they think we fucked-up as a team, and what they think we did really well this week. Here’s how it works.
- Stop work between 4– 5 pm on Friday. Puts some music on to make it clear it’s time to unwind.
- Cook a nice meal together (if you don’t have a kitchen, order or go out for food in a place where you can hear each other) — Between 6– 7 pm we’re eating.
- One by one share your fuck-ups (during the meal) — As the founder and CEO, I went first, initially, to show we’re here to be brutally honest with ourselves and with each other. After a couple of times, we switched the order, to start with the person who wants to improve their ability to articulate themselves clearer (remember Fuck-up Friday is about growth).
- Rotate based on the people who volunteer to go next — This is different than our normal daily Morning Brews. Where we discuss our big rocks and most important tasks the day, where the person left of me goes first, then rotate clockwise, and where I, as the CEO, speak last.
- Encourage to be personal — We found that the struggle for many people when it came to performing really high, had often nothing to do with something work-related. It had something to do with a personal situation. Whether it’s about their love life, moving into a new house, trying a new sleep routine or their diet, they all contribute massively to how much energy people have during the day.
- Always ask, ‘and what else?’ — It’s always a bit difficult to dig into your fuck-ups. Perhaps because you can’t remember, or that you are afraid of sharing them. That’s why we, as a team, always encouraged to keep asking if there is anything else. We keep asking this question until someone really says… no that’s it.
- Ask, ‘What can you/we do differently next week ?’— Depending on the fuck-up, the person then shares what they want to do differently to prevent it from happening next week?
- Ask, ‘How can we help?’ — As we want to make sure everyone can develop their abilities fully, we try to support each other by offering help. Often this ends up in the person asking for holding them accountable for it or make them aware when we see the fuck-up happening.
- Share what you are proud of this week — We don’t end our week with just talking about what we fuck-ed up.
- Summarize the highlights — as everyone gets to take a couple of minutes to put their ego aside, it’s also really key to highlight the behaviors, learnings, and efforts that will help the team succeed in the long-term.
What life after Fuck-up Friday’s looks like
We started doing Fuck-up Friday’s from the beginning. It was a lesson we’ve learned over the years, that raves, beers, and pizza on Friday’s with sharing some updates can be fun, but they are often also superficial.
As fostering a growth-mindset is a priority at Blindfeed, we decided that we close the week in a similar way a debrief goes after a race or match in sports. We really look at what we set out to do, look at the measures at hand, and then ask ourselves honestly what prevented us from achieving that. And like I said, this often has little to do with the work, but often more to do with internal or external obstacles within every individual and their private life.
What this does for us, and we believe it can also for others, is to create a more humble, honest and hungry learning culture inside the team. Which helps people go more relaxed into the weekend, and come back with more energy on Monday to start again.
Yours truly,
{
“name” : “Björn Bakker”,
“role” : “Founder & CEO @ Blindfeed.com”,
“mission” : “Bring Perspective and Understanding to Every Team in the World”,
“location” : “Berlin Valley”,
}
P.S. The perspectives of other Blindfeed members
- Liam’s perspective as our product designer
- Anna’s perspective as our marketing and engagement manager
- Abdelilah’s perspective as a developer and CTO is coming soon
P.P.S. For the curious ones
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