By Rob Cooney (@EMEducation)
Right Kind of Wrong
by: Amy Edmondson
A little over a decade ago, a chance encounter with a book would make me rethink how I thought about teamwork. That author was Amy Edmondson and the book was Teaming. Dr. Edmondson’s most recent book is back to challenge what we know and assume about failure. In Right Kind of Wrong, she delves deeply into a topic that sits at the heart of learning organizations: failure.
Drawing on decades of research in organizational behavior, Dr. Edmondson argues that not all failures are created equal. Certain types of failure are not only inevitable but essential for innovation and progress. She distinguishes between basic failures, which arise from preventable mistakes in routine work; complex failures, which occur when multiple factors interact in complicated systems; and intelligent failures, which result from thoughtful experimentation in pursuit of new knowledge. While the first two can and should be minimized through better systems and training, the third represents a crucial lever for those seeking to innovate and should be celebrated instead of avoided.
Learning from failure is easy to say but hard to do. Reasons for this stem from many reasons, including social stigma, lack of mental models to make sense of failure, and a general emotional aversion to failure. As you can imagine, Dr. Edmondsons extensive research around the construct of psychological safety has implications in making it easier to learn from failure.
We also learn that failure isn’t just for you and me; organizations can improve as well. In larger settings, leaders should do more than acknowledge failure; we need to study it. The most effective teams analyze setbacks systematically, share lessons openly, and integrate those insights into future practice. When it comes to intelligent failure, learning requires discipline. Experiments should be small, carefully designed, and focused on areas where new knowledge matters. When approached thoughtfully, failure becomes a powerful driver of improvement.
In Right Kind of Wrong, Edmondson offers a compelling reframing of one of the most uncomfortable realities of professional life. Rather than seeing failure as the opposite of success, she shows how the right kind of failure can accelerate learning, strengthen teams, and ultimately lead to better outcomes. For us as medical educators striving to innovate while maintaining high standards, her message is both reassuring and practical: the goal is not to eliminate failure entirely, but to ensure that when it occurs, it advances the work rather than undermines it.
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