When it comes to failure, there's a right kind of wrong.

At some point or another, we're bound to fail. But how we fail can be the difference between future success or setbacks.

On my latest episode (#163) of I Wish They Knew, Amy Edmondson returned to the show with a brilliant wish for leaders and learners of all types:

Fail smarter.

Edmondson, whose pioneering work on psychological safety has impacted organizational dynamics across the globe, wants us to experience "intelligent failures," which have three specific attributes:

• They occur in new territory (pursuit of a goal)
• They have a suspicion of success (reason to believe it will work)
• They are appropriately small (limited risk)

Nobel-winning scientists, elite athletes, and technology innovators fail more frequently—not less —than most people. Without their failures, their extraordinary successes would have been impossible. The difference between these game changers and everyone else is that they fail smarter. They eschew preventable failures (sweeping actions that are too risky and reckless) and pursue a strategic approach to learning (thoughtful and thorough).

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The same could be said for making feedback fearless: If we're not willing to confront the possibility of failure, we'll never encounter the prospect of success.

Getting smarter about failure

How can leaders create a culture that embraces intelligent failure?

1. Act quickly: Start learning from failure before inertia, politics or groupthink sets in.
2. Think broadly: Assemble a group of people with diverse views and backgrounds to address what happened and why.
3. Communicate honestly: Recognize and call out uncertainty, which gives others permission to question and challenge without consequence.
4. Share frequently: Keep lines of communication open, especially across teams, and emphasize the power of collective success.

Some failures are caused by mistakes (overcooking the fish for dinner), some are caused by skill or training shortcomings (losing a basketball game), while others are the result of smart experiments. Those are the failures that are worth pursuing—and might just lead to breakthrough success.