Right Kind of Wrong: The Science of Failing Well

Amy Edmondson distinguishes between three distinct categories of failure: basic, complex, and intelligent. While basic errors involve simple mistakes in known territory and complex failures result from a combination of internal and external factors, intelligent failures occur when researchers or leaders take calculated risks in new domains. Edmondson uses her research on psychological safety to demonstrate that organizations often stifle innovation by treating all failures as shameful. She provides a framework for identifying the right kind of wrong, which requires a clear hypothesis, a limited scale of impact, and a defined path for extracting knowledge from the outcome.

This book serves executives, project managers, and team leaders who operate in high-stakes or experimental environments. Readers use these strategies to build teams that identify early warning signs and communicate bad news without fear of retribution. The text provides a toolkit for calculating risk-reward ratios and establishing systems that prevent avoidable errors while accelerating learning. Those who finish the book walk away with practical methods for transforming unexpected setbacks into data points that inform future business decisions.