CONCEPT
Intelligent Failure
Edmondson's category for failures that generate knowledge proportionate to their cost — the engine of organizational learning and the specific capability the AI transition most demands.
Edmondson distinguishes three categories of failure: preventable failures arising from deviation from known processes; complex failures at the intersection of multiple factors; and intelligent failures — those occurring in genuine experimentation, in territory where the outcome is unknowable, with experiments thoughtfully designed relative to current knowledge and information gained proportionate to cost. Intelligent failures are the engine of organizational learning. Without them, organizations are limited to exploiting existing knowledge rather than exploring new knowledge. In stable environments this limitation is manageable. In environments undergoing rapid transformation — where existing knowledge is being obsolesced — the failure to explore becomes the most dangerous failure of all.
In The You On AI Field Guide
The AI transition is precisely such an environment. Capabilities expand faster than organizations can plan, and the only way to discover what works is to try things that might not. The organization that does not experiment is not playing it safe. It is guaranteeing its own obsolescence. You On AI is, among other things, a document