A click, a button, and a fear that no one could see: three employees shared their failures with hundreds of colleagues, and the entire room could relate to them.
One click on “Save My Changes.” That was all it took to erase the work of a great many people, the night before a key presentation.
That’s how one of the three stories shared at Grupo Falabella’s Talent Day 2026 began, at a private event hosted by Fuckup Nights. It was the second edition of Talent Day with us and the third consecutive year of collaboration with various departments and teams within the group.
It wasn't your typical motivational talk with inspiring slides, nor was it just another team- team -building session or planning retreat. It was an event where three people from Falabella publicly admitted what had gone wrong.
Clicking “Save”: Gabriela Tovar Hiller’s Mistake
Gabriela was working on a marketing document shared by about 15,000 people across all the group's units. Her computer shut down, so she continued working from home, unaware that she wasn't connected to Wi-Fi.
When he reconnected, Google Docs asked him which version to save. He chose his own. He replaced the entire team's work with an offline copy.
The hardest part for her wasn't the technical side of things. It was having to call each person and ask them to redo their part. It's okay to make mistakes; it's not okay to think we always have to do everything on our own.
“In the end, we all make more mistakes than we admit. Everything passes, something remains, and there’s almost always someone to help you come out the other side.” — Gabriela Tovar Hiller, speaker, GrupoFalabella
One button, a 40% service level, and a yellow card: Sebastián's proactive approach
Sebastián had been working in e-commerce for just a few months, on OMS, the system that handles every purchase and every shipment. The team had been working until 1:00 a.m. for weeks. He wanted to do his part.
He saw a button that he thought would fix a technical problem. He pressed it.
At 3:00 p.m. the next day, the messages started coming in. First from his boss, then from his boss’s boss. Communication between e-commerce and logistics had been cut off. The service level dropped from between 95 and 97 percent to 40 percent.
He received a yellow card and lost his first-year bonus. Today, he leads differently. Proactivity without context is a risk, and mistakes made in good faith are lessons to be learned, not punished.
“The first thing I do is ask them what they learned—not what happened to them.” — Sebastián, speaker, Grupo Falabella
The Fear No One Saw: Loreto
Loreto had been at her job for 14 years. Six general managers, ten department heads. No one doubted her ability to adapt to change. Until a different kind of manager came along. She began to interact with her leaders out of fear, and that fear, she said, robbed her of her intelligence.
His failure had no specific date or figure. It was invisible. The hardest failure to describe is the one no one sees. He asked for help, and that’s where his learning began.
“My voice didn’t have to be perfect to be valuable. It just had to be heard again.” — Loreto,speaker
Why does this matter for HR?
Allthree stories touch on what HR measures and champions: psychological safety.
“It’s great to work in a place where we can not only try things out and make mistakes, but also talk about them and learn together.” — Gabriela Tovar
Proof of the value our clients see in the “ Fuckup Nights ” format is its recurring nature: the second edition of Talent Day, and our third year of collaboration with Falabella.
“It has always been a very pleasant experience.” — Aníbal Retamal, Head of Organizational Development atFalabella
A team that sees its own colleagues normalizing mistakes begins to talk about what it used to hide.
Grupo Falabella turned its Talent Day into a space where people could talk openly about their mistakes by giving the microphone to three of its own employees. More than just a workshop, it was a place to hear three people talk about the “click,” the “button,” and the fear that no one saw—and for hundreds of colleagues to see themselves reflected in their stories.
Would you like your team to experience something like this? Learn how we bring “ Fuckup Nights ” to companies and organizations, or read about how Barilla used a storytelling dinner to build trust among its leaders.
If you'd rather discuss this in person, email us at Fuckup Nights At Work, and we'll design a session tailored to your company culture.
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