Right kind of Wrong

by Amy Edmondson

Mistakes are a part of life and in organisations, mistakes are what move things forward. An organisation that does not make mistakes is an organisation that is in stasis. At the same time, an organisation that makes too many mistakes will perish sooner than later.

The author is a researcher in the area of failure and this book is a treatise on how to fail well within organisations.

The author starts by describing the types of failure that an organisation should embrace. The right kind of mistake is described as an intelligent mistake. A mistake which is made in an area that nobody has trodden before, one that cannot result in a catastrophic disaster and one from which provides you the opportunity to learn something.

Three kinds of mistakes are described in the book:

Basic mistakes - You are distracted reading a text on the phone while driving and get into an accident.

Complex mistakes - Almost all aeroplane accidents are complex mistakes because there are so many checks and balances at so many levels. All of them have to fail simultaneously for a failure to take place. Enough attention from even one of the people - ground staff, air traffic controllers, pilot, co-pilot, and navigator can result in the mistake being avoided.

The same holds for complex work environments such as hospitals where right from a nurse anyone can call out an anomaly but when nobody does, things can quickly escalate.

Intelligent mistakes - These are the third kind where usually a person is trying to do something that has not been done before, maybe it is Research and Development, an organisation’s design change, or any such new activity. Here mistakes are often a result of not being aware that doing something a certain way could be wrong.

The most important thing about encouraging intelligent mistakes in an organisation is Psychological Safety. If an employee feels that they might be persecuted or singled out if they point out something wrong, they will learn not to point it out. This was at the heart of the Challenger disaster. It is not like the O-Ring issue was not known it was just a psychologically safe environment that did not exist for someone to fight about it.

I found the book interesting. It is replete with case studies while providing a great theoretical framework alongside that.  Whether running an organisation or part of one, you would resonate with it.

I highly recommend the book.