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Do good teams make fewer mistakes? It seems like a reasonable hypothesis. However, in the early 1990s, Amy Edmondson, a young researcher, discovered evidence that contradicted this belief. She found that the teams displaying the best teamwork were actually making the most mistakes. This discovery puzzled her, leading her to question what was truly happening.
In her new book, Right Kind of Wrong, Edmondson unravels the complex web of confusion, contradiction, and empty positivity surrounding the idea of embracing failure. She eventually solved the puzzle: the best teams weren’t making more errors, they were simply more open about acknowledging their mistakes. Dysfunctional teams, on the other hand, rarely admitted to their errors because no one on those teams felt safe enough to take responsibility.
The commonly used euphemism for a mistake is a “learning experience,” but Edmondson’s story reveals a fundamental truth about this cliché: organizations and individuals cannot learn from their mistakes if they deny that those mistakes ever occurred.
This denial is commonplace, especially at the organizational level, driven by the desire to protect one’s reputation. However, the implications of this denial can often be overlooked. For instance, Edmondson recalls a meeting with executives from a financial services company in April 2020. Despite the global pandemic causing chaos and uncertainty, these executives claimed that failure was temporarily “off-limits” during this time. This mindset is nonsensical. The unprecedented challenges presented by the pandemic called for calculated risks and rapid learning. Demanding perfection in such circumstances only leads to stagnation and denial.
Edmondson explains that aiming for perfection can be beneficial, but only when accompanied by an environment that ensures people feel safe enough to admit and report mistakes. An example is Paul O’Neill’s leadership at Alcoa in 1987. Despite setting the seemingly unattainable goal of zero workplace injuries, O’Neill wrote to every worker, providing his personal phone number and encouraging them to call him if they identified any safety violations. This approach improved Alcoa’s financial performance significantly by cultivating a meticulous focus on detail and quality.
Another well-known example is Toyota’s use of the Andon Cord on their production lines. This cord allows any worker to raise an alarm if they observe a problem. Although it doesn’t immediately halt production, it triggers an urgent discussion to address the issue. The Andon Cord symbolizes Toyota’s commitment to listening to production-line workers and emphasizing their input.
Establishing psychological safety around reporting mistakes is crucial, but it’s not the sole ingredient for an intelligent response to failure.
Another crucial aspect is the availability of data to differentiate between helpful and harmful actions. In the history of medicine, such data has often been lacking. Many individuals recover from illnesses despite receiving inadequate care, while others die despite receiving the best treatment. Since each case is distinct, the only reliable way to determine whether a treatment is effective is through large, controlled experiments. This simple idea, although feasible even in ancient civilizations, didn’t gain prominence until after World War II. The absence of analytical tools to learn from mistakes plagued doctors for centuries. As highlighted by Druin Burch in Taking the Medicine, scholars and physicians stumbled in the dark for many years without grasping this concept.
An example from a thousand years ago involves Chinese scholars conducting a controlled trial of ginseng, where two runners each ran a mile. The runner who didn’t consume ginseng developed severe shortness of breath, while the one who took ginseng breathed normally. With 200 runners, they might have obtained meaningful insights, but this experiment with only a pair was ineffective.
Around the 10th century, the Baghdad-based scholar Abu Bakr al-Razi attempted a clinical trial, only to convince himself that bloodletting could cure meningitis. One possible explanation for his mistake is that he didn’t randomly assign patients to the treatment and control groups but selected those he believed would benefit the most.
The concept of properly randomized controlled trials wasn’t formalized until 1923, and the first such trials didn’t occur until the 1940s. Consequently, doctors made countless errors over centuries without having the necessary analytical tools to learn from those mistakes. Almost 2,000 years ago, the classical physician Galen claimed to have a treatment that cured everyone except those whom it failed to help — an absurd notion. Yet, how many decisions in business and politics today remain justified on similarly shaky foundations? A culture of learning from failure requires an environment where people can freely voice their concerns and an analytical framework to distinguish between effective and ineffective approaches.
These principles also apply to individuals. We must remain open to the possibility of our own errors, actively seek feedback for improvement, and measure progress and performance when possible. Admitting mistakes and committing to improvement should not be feared.
While this advice may sound simple, it’s often difficult to embrace.
Tim Harford’s new book for children, “The Truth Detective” (Wren & Rook), is now available
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