I’ve been reading Amy Edmondson’s Right Kind of Wrong, and I have to say it’s very worthwhile. I’ve been a fan of hers since her book Teaming introduced me to the notion of psychological safety. It’s an element I’ve incorporated into my thinking about innovation and learning. This new book talks about how we have beliefs about making mistakes, and how we can, and should, be failing right.
In this book, she uses examples to vibrantly talk about failure, and how it’s an important part of life. She goes on to talk about different types of failure, and the situations they can occur in, creating a matrix. This allows us to look at when and how to fail. Along the way, she talks about self, situational, and systemic failure.
One of the important takeaways, which echoes a point Donald Norman made in Design of Everyday Things, is that failure may not be our fault! Too often, bad design allows failure, instead of preventing it. Moreover, she makes the point that we have a bad attitude towards failure, not recognizing that it’s not only part of life, but can be valuable! When we make a mistake, and reflect, we can learn.
Of course, there are simple mistakes. I note that there’s some randomness in our architecture, e.g. To Err is Human. But also, there can be factors we haven’t accounted for, like bad design, or things out of our control. At the most significant level, she talks about complex systems, and how they can react in unpredictable ways. Along the way, what counts as ‘intelligent’ failure is made clear. Some fails are smart, others are not justified.
She also talks about how experiments are necessary to understand new domains. This is, in my mind, about innovation. She also gives prescriptions, at both the personal and org level. Dr. Edmondson talks about the value of persistence, taking ‘good enough’, but also not taking it too personally. She also talks about sharing, as Jane Bozarth would say: Show Your Work. This is for both calling out problems and sharing failure.
Along with a minor quibble about the order in which she presents a couple things, a more prominent miss, to me, is a small shift in focus. She talks about celebrating the ‘pivot’, where you change direction. However, I’d more specifically celebrate the learning. That is, whether we pivot or not, we say that learning something is good. Of course, I’m biased towards learning, but I’d rather celebrate the learning. Yes, we possibly would do something different, and celebrating action is good, but sharing the learning means others can learn from it too. Maybe I’m being too pedantic.
Still, this is another in her series of books exploring organizational improvement and putting useful tools into our hands. We can, and should expect to not get everything right all the time, and instead should be focusing on failing right. Recommended.
Leave a Reply