Drs. Naples and Doorley offer insights from their experiences as a surgeon and a performance psychologist on recovering in the turbulent aftermath of mistakes (landing the plane) and leveraging mistakes for the long-term growth they can provide (leveling up). 

Few mental performance coaches go viral. But in 2016, Graham Betchart was profiled in several major media outlets, including Vice. His work with NBA Finals MPV Jaylen Brown was recently highlighted in a New Yorker article. Betchart has some simple yet powerful messages for his players. His catchiest concept, we think, is “next-play speed”: a measurable and perhaps overlooked performance metric capturing the time it takes to move on from a mistake to the next performance demand. 

Lingering on a turnover or missed layup is too easy and leads to even more mistakes. This applies beyond sport. Whether during a keynote, a product pitch, or an 8-hour surgery, real-world mistakes rarely allow for time-outs. You must course-correct quickly and shift focus back to the task at hand. In surgery, we remind our trainees that a case isn’t over because you made a mistake. We must recover and land the plane.

Landing the Plane

In 2009, Captain Chelsey Sullenberger III (“Sully”) famously landed a plane carrying 155 passengers on the Hudson River after a flock of geese disabled both engines. The time from the bird strike to the water landing was less than 4 minutes. Sully noted that he had made a career’s worth of “small deposits” in the bank of experience and preparation allowing him to make a “large withdrawal” when needed. The following tips can help you make your own deposits, which can be withdrawn after a mistake or crisis to help you lock back in and “land the plane.” 

Have a pre-loaded routine. After double faulting in tennis, you’ll see players enact pre-set routines to stay grounded and re-focus. They may step away from the baseline, take a deep breath, or touch their racket strings. Players might also visualize a successful point and repeat a simple mantra in their head; “relax and hit.” Like the “P.A.S.S.” acronym for using a fire extinguisher (Point, Aim, Squeeze, and Sweep), these routines provide step-by-step guides for navigating mistakes under pressure. These routines must be practiced. Rehearse your pre-loaded recovery routine consistently when the stakes are low so it shows up when it matters. 

What’s the next important action? I (JD) worked with a soccer coach who often asked his players that question. It doesn’t matter if the last action was a success or a failure. What’s the next important action? Once you control your stress response using your pre-loaded routine, ask yourself this question. Find the right answer and anchor your attention there as quickly as possible. 

Win the next moment. You can’t avoid mistakes, but you can learn to control your response. You might be tempted to hold onto a mistake and broadcast your frustration – “I messed up, and just so it’s clear, I’m not happy about it!” This will only decrease your recovery speed. Instead, ask yourself: How can I have a world-class response to this mistake? If my reaction were televised, what would I want people to see? A mistake often represents a failure or lapse in a single moment. Don’t let more moments pass you by. Get back in the game and win the next moment. After a mistake, focus on the task, not on ego. It’s not about you; it’s about making things right for your team. 

Leveling Up

Here are some long-term practices to help you respond more effectively to mistakes, shake off the psychological residue, and help your teams level up their performance over the long term. 

Take an accurate share of responsibility. Moving on from mistakes is more challenging when you shoulder disproportionate blame. Popular podcasts and books promote “extreme ownership” and “radical responsibility” – taking full blame for everyone’s mistakes on our team regardless of the context. We don’t find this view helpful for the leaders and high performers we work with, who are already hard on themselves. Instead, think of responsibility like a pie chart. Identify your role or slice of the pie, recognize the many other slices, and clarify what you and your team can control next time. Strive to be accurate, not “extreme,” in partitioning responsibility. 

Do a structured, post-performance debrief. Any experienced military leader or surgeon will tell you about the importance of debriefs. While your performance is fresh, huddle with your team and review what happened. Have a system for who leads and allow time for all voices to be heard. A simple yet effective structure for de-briefs might look like this: What went well? What can we improve? What now? This isn’t abstract brainstorming. Be concrete. Isolate one or two key performance areas that must be prioritized, create a plan for improving them, and a method for measuring improvement. 

Process your emotions. This may seem counterintuitive for the hyper-rational leader, but research shows that our feelings after mistakes drive performance improvements more than our thoughts. In one study, researchers found that participants who focused on their emotions after a mistake in a web search task corrected their error by spending more time and effort on similar tasks. Those told to think about their mistake showed no such improvement; their thoughts often turned self-protective (“It wasn’t a big deal”), undermining progress. Emotions following mistakes serve a valuable function, prompting us to pause, process, and do better next time. 

Mistakes: The best learning there is

Each year, when new surgical residents join our program, I (JN) share a list of my own memorable mistakes as a trainee. This sets the expectation that mistakes are both unavoidable and valuable. We're wired to learn from mistakes – not textbooks and PowerPoints. Mistakes drive valuable meta-cognitive processes like self-reflection, self-monitoring, and re-evaluating what we thought was good enough. 

Growth from mistakes only happens if you actively engage with them. Own the mistake, reflect, and get feedback. While high standards may have fueled your success so far, the downside of these expectations is a fear of failure that hinders learning – trade high expectations for helpful ones. Perfection shouldn’t impede progress. Use your own stories as a leader to demonstrate how you’ve bounced back from mistakes. Leading is not about preventing mistakes but maximizing growth from them.