Right Kind of Wrong

Harvard behavioral psychologist Amy Edmondson has become well known for her work on psychological safety in teams. Inspired by Edmondson’s groundbreaking research, leaders around the world have been working to build trust, respect, open communication, and supportive feedback so their people will feel free to experiment, make mistakes, and fail without fear. The rewards include innovation, resilience, better teamwork, and higher engagement.

Now Edmondson turns her attention to failure itself. Despite paying lip service to the Silicon Valley mantra of failing fast and often, failure continues to be a dirty word in many organizations. As a result, people work in fear, problems go unreported, and the potential for learning from errors, mistakes, and experiments goes unmet. Edmondson aims to free failure from its stigma and enable organizations to reap the rewards.