According to the Financial Times, she is the author of the book of 2023 and her main mission is to analyze failure in business and teach others how to work constructively with it. No one can avoid failure, and according to psychologist and researcher Amy C. Edmondson, failure is the essence of humanity. In addition, the way we know how to work with it can be our significant comparative advantage on the way to growth.
Distinguished Harvard professor of leadership and management Amy C. Edmondson accepted the invitation of Newton University and gave a unique interview to Forbes.
In it, she talked about the potential for failure, the breakdown of teamwork and home offices, toxic hyper-individualism and how to be the best leader.
«I’m in favor of four days at work and three days with family. I consider that productive. Let’s not lie to ourselves that we can spend time with family, do good enough work, and be a good enough team player at work all at the same time,» says Professor Amy C. Edmondson.
That her lifelong work in the field of business is groundbreaking is also evidenced by the fact that last year she was placed in the prestigious global «thinkers50» ranking for the second time.
Your book about failure is very successful. The Financial Times named «Right Kind of Wrong: The Science of Failing Well» as the best book of last year, and jury president Roula Khalaf called it extremely readable. How does it feel?
Great. It was a big surprise and a huge honor for me. I thought there was zero chance of placement.
Really?
I was surprised that my book was chosen. Even more so that she made it to the narrow selection of the best six. Those other books are amazing and impressive. They have a lot of work to do. It was an honor just to be shortlisted and I didn’t think I could win.
Why do you think your book won?
The subject of my book appealed to and appeals to many people and they will find themselves in it. It resonates with all generations. We’ve all experienced the pain that comes with failure.
The title of your book could be loosely translated as «The Right Kind of Failure». What should one imagine under that?
I call him «intelligent failure». It is one of the three archetypes that I have identified in my research. It is unwanted, but thoughtful. It is part of a deliberate experiment where you try to do something new. You don’t yet have the knowledge and ability to do it perfectly, but you want to try.
It is an intelligent and conscious decision. You are in new territory and the path to progress is all about trying. We’ve thought it through, we’ve prepared for it, and we have a good enough feeling that it could work.
So is it correct to call such a failure a failure?
That’s a very good question, and one I’ve been asking myself. I have come to the conclusion that it is. And I have two reasons for that. Although this process is accompanied by a certain knowledge and we offer to help ourselves with this word, at the same time we know very well that this is a failure, because it is accompanied by feelings of disappointment and failure.
I am against naming things with diluted and neutral words when we know very well what they are about.
And the other reason?
If we don’t call it failure, we contribute to stigmatizing failure. We should learn to accept smart and intelligent failures. We can label them «cognition» or perhaps «a step forward» and it will be appropriate. But there will still be mostly failures.
How should a capable leader approach failure from a business perspective?
He should analyze what kind of failure it is. Is it intelligent, simple, or complex? Next steps depend on that. It is of the utmost importance that he treat this as a learning opportunity.
Not in any false positive sense. But put your heads together, think about the process that led to this, what happened, where we could have done more, where the unexpected happened. It is important to learn as many points of view as possible. That’s the only way we can move forward.
What is the practice? Is it time to scrutinize where and how we went wrong? Is it being done enough?
I think leaders realize that. Whether this is actually happening is the question. In my experience, yes, but not consistently enough. Rather, human desire and pressures in the organization direct us forward.
I find that the opportunity to learn from failure is taken away. Ultimately, however, this is unfortunately wasteful behavior. If we learn from what happened, it works as prevention. You will save time and costs in the future.
I suppose the fact that there is nothing pleasant about analyzing failure also plays a role…
It isn’t, of course it isn’t. But that’s part of the job, we don’t just deal with pleasant things. It can be meaningful and rewarding, but it’s work. Many companies try to avoid failure as much as possible and reduce its probability by all possible means.
However, it is also necessary to learn from failures, because they provide us with an output that is important for our next steps. Maybe you’re trying to hire a new employee and have been turned down by the first three. Find out why to get the fourth nod.
What questions should we ask ourselves?
First, what happened. And break it down from many angles. Then — why and what it means for us in the future.
You distinguish between error and failure in your work. Can you tell me more about it?
An error is a deviation from how it should be. Maybe it was intentional, maybe not. Failure is the undesirable result of effort and activity. Some failures stem from mistakes. But not intelligent failures. They are part of some kind of experiment that didn’t work. We were hoping for a desirable result, but we were moving into new territory, so it was not a mistake when such a result did not come.
What to do with people who blame themselves or blame others for failure?
Failure and mistakes are the essence of humanity. Each of us experiences and will experience failures, that’s how it is. Our tendency to blame it on something or someone is also very human. But we can learn to suspend it and overcome it.
Blaming failure or blaming it on others… that’s just wrong. If you failed due to a mistake or unfamiliarity with the new environment, this is not a reason for regret. This is an opportunity to learn something. If you don’t accept this part of humanity, you will be unhappy.
Why is it difficult for us to admit that we were wrong?
We have a saying like «a certainty is a certainty», but in today’s world full of innovation, we have to be able to take risks. If we are not constantly learning, we will fall behind. Both learning and innovation require risk-taking. And with taking risks comes failure.
Sometimes we feel that it is better and easier to wait for what others do. And in the short term it is safer, but in the longer term it puts us at risk.
We have no control over the uncertainty in our lives. We don’t know what will happen to us or our loved ones. But we can learn to control our reactions to the unexpected. The mature response is – yes, this is unexpected and inappropriate and I can handle it.
Life is a series of problems. Some are small and some are larger. Certainty does not come from controlling the outside world. This is unrealistic. It can only come from self-confidence. Whatever happens, me or my family or my team can handle it. We will help each other, support each other and solve it.
Do you have personal experience with this?
I often find myself anxious about things that are somewhere in the future precisely because of the uncertainty. Will it work? It will work? Well, when I look back later, I find out how much time I spent worrying and how it actually didn’t help anything.
How to fight it?
More aware that it will just be good. It might not be what I hoped for, but it will be okay. Also, realize that too much anxiety can stress us out and cause us to burn out.
Does this also apply to the work environment?
Yes, we work together on a common goal, and within my term «psychological safety», such a supportive environment should be established at work that colleagues do not judge us for mistakes and failures, but rather support us. This is a feature of a high performance environment.
What changes are you observing within the work environment?
From a shared identity and a shared passion for the cause and the words «we» we reorient ourselves to «I». Brand me. Mutual respect ceases to be relevant. We send e-mails after midnight, we go to meetings with an open laptop. We also become addicted to instant and immediate gratification. We do not work with a long-term view. People know what they want for themselves and they want it now.
That sounds like an advertising slogan…
That’s right, the world around us suggests and commands us in various ways to fulfill our dreams and needs. But from a psychological point of view, our true deeper needs are of a completely different nature. They are filled with the feeling that we belong somewhere, that we are a part of something and that we are a necessary and somewhat contributing link of the unit.
That I am part of something we could never do alone. This is where the joy and joy of being comes from. It saddens me to see people becoming more and more unhappy in the pursuit of their personal happiness.
How did the home office affect the feeling of belonging and teamwork?
Working from home contributes to hyper-individualism in our society. Maybe even toxic hyper-individualism. We are extremely dependent on each other, but we forget that because our needs are the most important after all. You simply don’t feel the bond through the computer screen, we are getting poorer. When we see each other in person, we care about each other, but put a computer screen between us and it’s different.
What with this?
When we are without ourselves, our work begins to lack meaning, the bond is broken, we lose energy and joy. The research shows that the resulting work from the home office is not of such quality. Let’s discover the magic of mutual presence and immediate cooperation. But I’m not saying that we have to be together from nine to five, five days in a row.
Many argue that at least they can be with family more. Is it okay to take work into a family environment?
Maybe we should think about how much time we spend at work and how much time we spend with family. I am in favor of four days at work and three days with family. I consider that productive. Let’s not lie to ourselves that we can spend time with our family, do a good enough job and be a good team player at work all at the same time. We can’t do two things at once.
Let’s be honest with ourselves about what we actually do and how well we do it. Many work tasks are primarily individualistic, but others need not be and others cannot be. For the middle category, we stand to lose the most if we work remotely.
Furthermore, you claim that problem solving is a team discipline…
Problems and solutions have many categories. Did your phone die? Here’s your charger, done. But what happens in organizations needs more perspectives and different expertise in order to find a viable and sustainable solution. It is often located in the area of intersection between individual departments.
My grandparents had one job all their lives, my parents the same. My generation stays in one job for a maximum of five years. Is it the job of a good leader to ensure a stable work environment and retain employees?
You don’t need a leader for that. Let’s not wait for someone to do it for us. Let’s be the best version of ourselves at work. Let’s be curious, let’s be interested in others, let’s help each other. If we behave this way, we will also influence others. It’s a bit contagious and your colleagues will start copying it unwittingly.
What surprised you the most in 2024?
I teach a business course where we decided to make it more interactive for a change. We wanted to give students a hands-on opportunity to experience complex situations in the workplace, including communication over complex decisions. An opportunity to be the forceful person to say and deal with unpleasant things.
We found out that the students who criticized everything before and we gave them leadership rights, actually couldn’t do it. It’s always easier to see the matter from the outside and tell yourself that it didn’t work out, even if the student thought it would.
Are you planning another book?
Many have asked me if my next book will be anything like The Wrong Kind of Success. My colleague Mark Mortensen and I want to write a book about employee value. We are conducting research on this topic. We deal with the topics we talked about, such as home offices, individualism and meaningful work where we care about each other.
