Episode Description:

Could you be failing better? In this episode of Coaching Revealed, we share an exclusive keynote address from Amy Edmondson, the Novartis Professor of Leadership and Management at Harvard Business School. This keynote was originally presented at the Institute of Coaching’s 2024 Coaching in Leadership and Healthcare Conference. 

In a hyper-competitive business landscape, the possibility of failure creates a dilemma for business leaders. Balancing cutting edge innovation while striving for perfection leaves seemingly zero room for error. Edmondson describes how intelligent failures are an opportunity, and trial and error is something for us all to attempt to embrace. 

In this episode of Coaching Revealed, Amy Edmondson covers:

• The three types of failure
• The shortcomings of  workplace cultures that reject failure
• The criteria for how to make intelligent failures 
• The leadership practices for psychological safety and failure 

Episode Summary: 

In this episode of Coaching Revealed, we revisit Amy Edmondson’s keynote address at the Institute of Coaching’s 2024 Coaching in Leadership and Healthcare Conference. Edmondson, the Novartis Professor of Leadership and Management at Harvard Business School, describes how intelligent failures can be used to unlock growth. 

In a hyper-competitive business landscape, the possibility of failure creates a dilemma for business leaders. Balancing cutting edge innovation while striving for perfection leaves seemingly zero room for error. Amy shares how intelligent failures are an opportunity, and trial and error is something for us all to attempt to embrace. 

Through her work and writing, Amy lists the three kinds of failures, basic, complex and intelligent. While some of these are avoidable, an attempt to avoid all types of failure can stifle innovation and create a workplace culture that hides the truth. Amy shares examples of what can happen when a workplace exhibits a ‘failure is off limits’ mentality. 

In creating healthy workplace environments for failure, Amy shares the criteria conducive for intelligent failure: new territory, credible opportunities, hypothesis driven, and right size. Creating a culture that accepts, or even celebrates failure comes down to leadership. In closing out her talk, Amy shares how leaders can create environments that are conducive to failure. Helping us all understand that growth and failure are much more intertwined than we may think.