Everyone makes mistakes. How do we learn from them? Lessons from the classroom, the Air Force, and the world’s deadliest infectious disease. (Part four of a four-part series.)

 

• SOURCES:
  • Will Coleman, founder and C.E.O. of Alto.
  • Amy Edmondson, professor of leadership management at Harvard Business School.
  • Babak Javid, physician-scientist and associate director of the University of California, San Francisco Center for Tuberculosis.
  • Gary Klein, cognitive psychologist and pioneer in the field of naturalistic decision making.
  • Theresa MacPhail, medical anthropologist and associate professor of science & technology studies at the Stevens Institute of Technology.
  • Roy Shalem, lecturer at Tel Aviv University.
  • Samuel West, curator and founder of The Museum of Failure.

 

• RESOURCES:
  • "A Golf Club Urinal, Colgate Lasagna and the Bitter Fight Over the Museum of Failure," by Zusha Elinson (Wall Street Journal, 2025).
  • Right Kind of Wrong: The Science of Failing Well, by Amy Edmondson (2023).
  • “You Think Failure Is Hard? So Is Learning From It,” by Lauren Eskreis-Winkler and Ayelet Fishbach (Perspectives on Psychological Science, 2022).
  • “The Market for R&D Failures,” by Manuel Trajtenberg and Roy Shalem (SSRN, 2010).
  • “Performing a Project Premortem,” by Gary Klein (Harvard Business Review, 2007).

 

• EXTRAS:
  • "The Deadliest Disease in Human History," by People I (Mostly) Admire (2025).
  • “How to Succeed at Failing,” series by Freakonomics Radio (2023).
  • “Moncef Slaoui: ‘It’s Unfortunate That It Takes a Crisis for This to Happen,'” by People I (Mostly) Admire (2020).

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