You often hear that failure provides an opportunity for learning. Indeed, it is intuitively appealing to assume that people will use their failure experiences as means toward finding success.

The missed promotion. The botched presentation. The project that went sideways despite our best efforts. We’ve all been there, stuck in what I call failure’s funk: that heavy mix of shame, fear, and ...

Sure, risking failure is important. Not stupid failure – the kind that comes from testing the depth of water with both feet. Rather the well-considered variety: the ‘intelligent failures’ essential to ...

Imagine you are watching a movie, a delightfully engaging and entertaining film. Now imagine that the person sitting next to you is an acclaimed director, an expert at making movies. Will you see the ...

Corrected: A previous version of this essay included a misspelling of Amy C. Edmondson’s name. The best teachers create classrooms where students understand that making mistakes and even experiencing ...

Leaders think they drive accountability. Their teams disagree. The gap reveals how explanation replaces investigation—and why failures keep repeating. Your team ...

Sooner or later, everyone fails at something. But does everyone learn from their failures? In fact, the evidence suggests that most people struggle to grow from mistakes and defeats. When researchers ...

Right now, someone somewhere, in a meeting room or on Zoom, is uttering these success-killing words: “We tried it before, and it didn’t work.” Or, in a similar squash-down, “Oh, others have tried that ...