Right Kind of Wrong: How the Best Teams Use Failure to Succeed - Amy Edmondson

Introduction:

“Intelligent failures provide valuable new knowledge. They bring discovery. They occur when experimentation is necessary simply because answers are not knowable in advance.

My eureka moment was this: better teams probably don't make more mistakes, but they are able to discuss mistakes

Next, I define errors (synonymous with mistakes) as unintended deviations from prespecified standards, such as procedures, rules, or policies.

Practices for Learning from Failure

To Avoid

Don’t Say

Try

Skipping the analysis

I'll try harder next time.

Thinking carefully about what went wrong and what factors might have caused it.

Superficial analysis

It didn’t work. I'll just try something else

Analyzing what the different causes of the failure suggest about what to try next.

Self-serving analysis

I was right, but someone or something else messed it up.

Digging in to understand—

and accept—your own

contribution (small or large)

to the failure.

Embracing the Possibility of Failure to Reduce the Occurrence of Failure

My decades-long fascination with error, harm, and failure has left me humble about the complexity of these topics. The mix of factors—technology, psychology, management, systems—means none of us can master every aspect of the relevant knowledge to feel “we’ve got this.” But a few simple practices have emerged from my work that can help prevent complex failures. With these, we all have the power to make that kind of difference—in our own lives and in the organizations we care about.