"You drown not by falling into a river, but by staying submerged in it." – Paulo Coelho

Every agency makes mistakes. A missed handover. A scope that slips. A client update that never gets logged.

None of these are fatal in themselves. What hurts isn't the fall, it's failing to climb back out.

In other words: it's not the mistake that sinks you, it's leaving it unaddressed.

The hidden cost of staying submerged

In agency operations, mistakes left unchecked rarely stay small.

• A dropped email chain becomes a frustrated client

• An unclear scope turns into weeks of overservicing

• A tool update missed by one person spirals into three teams duplicating work

The problem isn't the original error. It's the silence around it. The longer a mistake sits, the more it compounds, leaks margin, and chips away at trust.

Why agencies struggle to surface mistakes

Leaders often don't lack awareness. They lack time. Busy teams prioritise delivery over reflection. People worry about 'slowing things down' by raising a red flag. And sometimes there's a culture of powering through, rather than pausing to reset.

But in practice, that pause is what saves you.

Operational steps to climb out fast

1. Normalise mistake-spotting
   Build regular check-ins where the team can flag friction without blame. Mistakes caught early are easy to correct.

2. Assign clear ownership
   When a mistake appears, someone needs the mandate to fix it. Diffused responsibility keeps you underwater.

3. Standardise handovers
   Most errors come from gaps between people. A checklist or quick call at handoff can prevent weeks of rework.

4. Capture the learning
   A five-minute debrief at project end - what went wrong, how we'll prevent it next time - keeps the same river from catching you twice.

Why this matters

Agencies live in fast-moving, high-pressure environments. Mistakes are inevitable. But the best-run agencies don't avoid mistakes; they surface them quickly, fix them decisively, and build systems that stop repeats.

Staying submerged erodes margin, morale, and momentum. Climbing out builds resilience and trust.

One question for your leadership team

Where in our current delivery are we 'staying submerged' - tolerating a mistake, inefficiency, or gap rather than surfacing and fixing it?

Pick one. Pull it up. Fix it this week.

Because in agency life, the fall won't drown you. But ignoring it might.

If you found this useful, I share practical, non-boring insights like this in my upcoming newsletter on simplifying agency delivery without burning out your team or your margin.

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