Right Kind of Wrong: The Science of Failing Well
Amy Edmondson, the Harvard Business School scholar who developed the concept of psychological safety, lays out a framework for distinguishing among basic, complex, and intelligent failures. She argues that organizations and individuals get failure wrong by treating all of it as something to avoid, when much of it is the inevitable cost of trying new things in uncertain territory. Edmondson draws on decades of her own research alongside case studies from hospitals, NASA, software teams, and startups to show how leaders can build cultures that surface small failures early and learn from the bigger ones. She is precise about when failure should be celebrated, when it should be analyzed, and when it should prompt accountability. The book turns a slogan about failing fast into something more disciplined and useful.
What you might want to know about Right Kind of Wrong: The Science of Failing Well
The questions readers send us most often, answered without spoilers.
A taxonomy of failure that separates blameworthy mistakes from the intelligent failures that drive learning and innovation.
Yes. Grant provided a publisher blurb and has cited Amy Edmondson as one of the leading organizational researchers of her generation, recommending the book on his newsletter and across his social channels.
It builds on the same body of work, but where the earlier book focused on psychological safety, this one is specifically about how to think about and learn from different kinds of failure.
Right Kind of Wrong: The Science of Failing Well was written by Amy C. Edmondson, published in 2023 by Atria Books.
Right Kind of Wrong: The Science of Failing Well is 368 pages in standard print editions, though page counts vary slightly between hardcover, paperback, and large-print formats.
At an average reading pace of about 250 words per minute, Right Kind of Wrong: The Science of Failing Well takes most readers 6 to 8 hours to finish.
Right Kind of Wrong: The Science of Failing Well is available in hardcover, paperback, ebook, and audiobook formats from Amazon, Bookshop.org, ThriftBooks, and most major bookstores.