06/17/2026
Conflict and mistakes in business are inevitable. How they are managed is what matters.
Recently, I had a situation play out that is pretty typical. A mistake was made by a business we use. Unfortunately, that mistake will add a not-insignificant amount of risk to our season. On its own, that's one of the many realities of doing business. Mistakes happen. It's concerning, but it's not a make-or-break situation.
What concerned me more was what happened when I raised the issue.
Without hesitation, the person in ultimate authority immediately threw the front-line employee under the bus. The attempted resolution was little more than blame and deflection put on the shoulders of the person lowest in the chain.
Maybe the assumption is that when someone escalates a concern, they're looking for a culprit. Maybe they think we're hoping someone gets disciplined or has a bad day because of it.
For me, that's never the goal.
When a mistake is made, my first question is rarely, "Who messed up?" My first question is, "What allowed this to happen?"
Good employees make mistakes. New employees make mistakes. Experienced employees make mistakes.
I've made mistakes. Every person reading this has made mistakes. If a business depends on everyone being perfect every day, it's only a matter of time before something goes horribly wrong.
The real test isn't whether mistakes happen. It's whether the process is strong enough to catch them, prevent them, or minimize their impact.
When leaders focus solely on the individual, they often miss the opportunity to improve the system. But when they focus on the process, they not only solve today's problem, they reduce the chances of tomorrow's.
Accountability matters. But accountability should be about learning, improving, and building better systems, not simply finding someone to blame.
The best organizations I've dealt with aren't the ones that never make mistakes.
They're the ones that own them, fix them, learn from them, and come back stronger because of them.
I wish more organizations would make this way of thinking part of their culture.
At Guldberg Farms, it's a big part of what "Quality" means. Quality isn't just the feed that leaves our yard. It's the willingness to examine our own processes, own our mistakes, and continuously improve so that the same mistake doesn't happen twice.
