Why HR Leaders Should Rethink Failure and Learn to Embrace Risk

Amy Edmondson challenged leaders to rethink one of the most misunderstood drivers of performance: failure. For HR leaders navigating uncertainty, her message was clear — progress depends not on avoiding failure altogether, but on understanding which failures matter and how to respond to them.

“I’ve been studying learning and failure for 30 years. They go together,” said Edmondson, the Novartis Professor of Leadership and Management at the Harvard Business School, speaking at the Unleash America conference in Las Vegas on March 18.

But our intuition about failure leads us astray. “Most of us don’t have a good grasp of failure so that we can manage it wisely, or put it to good use,” Edmondson said.

That gap in understanding creates real organizational risk. Many companies still treat failure as something to hide or punish, even as they promote innovation and agility.

“Companies need to normalize failure, otherwise people are going to be beating themselves up unnecessarily,” she explained. While slogans like “fail often to succeed sooner” have become commonplace, Edmondson warned that this “Silicon Valley happy talk about failure” often rings hollow. “We all know that there is supposed to be enthusiasm about failure. But deep down we know that failure is bad. We learned that as children.”

Event: SHRM Talent 2026

This tension leaves employees caught between aspiration and fear. Without clarity on what constitutes a “good” versus “bad” failure, organizations risk suppressing the very experimentation they need.

“Unless we can align our emotions with our intellect and help our employees do the same, we will not unleash the talent we need to succeed,” Edmondson said.

The stakes are even higher in uncertain environments. “In uncertain times, failure is more likely than ever. And in these times, innovation is more necessary than ever,” she noted. Yet when leaders implicitly or explicitly make failure unacceptable, the result is silence. “This won’t make failure go away, but it will ensure that you as the leader don’t hear about it.”

Three Types of Failure

To move forward, Edmondson urged leaders to distinguish between different types of failure. Not all failures are created equal. Basic failures — such as a data entry error — occur in familiar territory and should be prevented through training and process discipline. Complex failures, often involving multiple contributing factors, require robust systems thinking and risk management.

But the most valuable category is what Edmondson calls “intelligent failure.” These occur in new territory, where outcomes are uncertain and learning is the goal. Intelligent failures are thoughtful experiments: grounded in preparation, limited in scope, and designed to generate insight. They are not careless mistakes but deliberate investments in knowledge.

This distinction challenges a deeply ingrained belief about work and success. “Working hard leads to success. Mail it in and you are more likely to fail,” Edmondson said, describing a common mental model. “But you can work hard and still fail,” she said.

While effort still matters, the relationship between effort and outcomes becomes less predictable in unfamiliar or innovative contexts. “In some contexts we understand well what is needed to produce success. In some contexts we don’t have a clue as to how to get what we want. That includes innovation. Failure goes up,” she said.

As uncertainty rises, so must experimentation. “What must go up is the sheer necessity of experimentation,” she emphasized. That requires reframing excellence itself. Rather than striving for flawless execution in all situations, high-performing organizations tailor their approach: preventing basic failures, anticipating complex ones, and encouraging intelligent failures.

“The only way to make progress is through trial and failure. Not trial and error. You don’t want mistakes, you want thoughtful experiments,” Edmondson said.

Resource: Performance Management

For HR leaders, embedding this mindset means building systems and cultures that support disciplined experimentation. Edmondson outlined five practices for innovative organizations: *Aim high with ambitious goals.

• Collaborate across disciplines.
• “Fail well” through small, smart experiments.
• Learn quickly and share lessons widely.
• Repeat the cycle continuously.

Underlying all of this is psychological safety, the foundation that allows employees to take risks without fear of punishment. “If your people can’t fail without fear, you don’t have a performance culture, you have a compliance culture,” Edmondson said.