The Trauma You Need To Learn

Learning from difficult experiences like firing employees and shipping bugs is essential for growth in management and engineering. Shielding people from the emotional impact of their failures prevents them from developing better judgment and practices. Managers who experience the full weight of firing someone become more careful about hiring and performance management. Engineers who directly engage with customers affected by their bugs develop stronger commitment to quality. Organizations should expose people to appropriate levels of discomfort from their failures rather than creating buffer systems that remove accountability and learning opportunities.