Learn Like A Lobster – Sarah Ellis Helen Tupper (1)

How Taking Accountability Makes Us Smarter “Professionals should not be afraid to make mistakes. They should be afraid of not learning from the ones they do make.” —SIDNEY DEKKER Avoiding our mistakes and failures limits our learning and makes it more likely that we’ll repeat the same “wrongs” in the future. Research has shown that we frequently fail to learn from past errors,[1] because our brains love shortcuts, described as heuristics, which tell us how to behave in a situation. These shortcuts lead to mistake pathways that prompt us to approach a task in the same way rather than try something different.

By taking accountability when things go wrong, we increase the likelihood that we learn from rather than repeat errors. Small mistakes offer a significant learning opportunity. These are the errors that are most likely to get missed and where learning is more likely to be lost. Being more aware of and accountable for the small mistakes you make along the way creates lots of new moments of learning at work.

Two very different kinds of organizations have worked hard to break the “name, blame, shame” cycle: the National Health Service (NHS), a public-sector health-care organization in the UK, and Etsy, the online marketplace. The cycle of responding to mistakes with a “point the finger” mindset means that, rather than accepting that errors are part and parcel of work, individuals are made to feel like a mistake is their fault. Both the NHS and Etsy have been inspired by the work of professor and part- time pilot Sidney Dekker.

Dekker’s work focuses on how to create a “just culture,” where the aim is to balance safety and accountability. One of the simple changes Mersey Care NHS Foundation Trust has made is that when a mistake occurs, its response has shifted from who is responsible to what is responsible. This is part of a larger culture shift to create an environment where people feel safe to speak up and share mistakes, with an emphasis on reflection and learning rather than blaming.

Engineers at Etsy are encouraged to share “Second Stories” when a mistake is made. The first story about a mistake is often what should have been done, which leads to looking for scapegoats and silence rather than sharing mistakes. The second story is owned by the engineers, who identify how a mistake was made and suggest potential solutions.

Copyright © 2026 by Sarah Ellis and Helen Tupper Penguin Random House values and supports copyright. Copyright fuels creativity, encourages diverse voices, promotes free speech, and creates a vibrant culture. Thank you for buying an authorized edition of this book and for complying with copyright laws by not reproducing, scanning, or distributing any part of it in any form without permission. You are supporting writers and allowing Penguin Random House to continue to publish books for every reader. Please note that no part of this book may be used or reproduced in any manner for the purpose of training artificial intelligence technologies or systems.

Tarcher is a registered trademark of Penguin Random House LLC, and Tarcher with leaf design is a trademark of Penguin Random House LLC Cover design: Linet Huamán Velásquez Cover image: Betka82 / iStock / Getty Images Plus Book design by Laura K. Corless, adapted for ebook by Cora Wigen library of congress cataloging-in-publication data has been applied for.

Hardcover ISBN 9798217178728 Ebook ISBN 9798217178735 The authorized representative in the EU for product safety and compliance is Penguin Random House Ireland, Morrison Chambers, 32 Nassau Street, Dublin D02 YH68, Ireland, https://eu- contact.penguin.ie. prhid_prh_7.4_155236830_c0_r0 OceanofPDF.com CONTENTS DEDICATION INTRODUCTION A Surprising Role Model for Learning PART 1 Learn as You Go CHAPTER 1 Learning from Everyday Experiments CHAPTER 2 Questions That Uncover Learning CHAPTER 3 Data for Your Development PART 2 Learn in Hard Moments CHAPTER 4 Feedback That Puts Learning First CHAPTER 5 Learning When Things Go Wrong PART 3 Lead Your Own Learning CHAPTER 6 Seven Ways to Lead Your Own Learning PART 4 Lobsterlike Learners CHAPTER 7 Advice from Lobsterlike Learners GROW YOUR OWN WAY ACKNOWLEDGMENTS NOTES INDEX ABOUT THE AUTHORS OceanofPDF.com To Nanny—the lobster that never stops learning and who always supports me to grow To Rob—for being our first reader and reviewer, you always keep me going and growing OceanofPDF.com A INTRODUCTION A Surprising Role Model for Learning “People seldom improve when they have no other model but themselves to copy.”

This is a short excerpt from the opening of “” by Unknown, quoted for review and introduction purposes. All rights belong to the copyright holders.

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