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Video · Deciding what to build

Smart Failure for a Fast-Changing World

Eddie Obeng on what happens when the pace of change outruns the pace of learning, and why smart failure deserves better treatment than it gets.

By Eddie Obeng (TED) · 12:37

Eddie Obeng on the TED stage in an orange shirt, arms spread wide, holding a sheet of paper.Watch on YouTube ↗ (opens in a new tab)

Eddie Obeng argues that the world changed while most of us weren't looking, and that we keep giving rational answers to a world that no longer exists. Acceleration, density and scale mean the pace of change has overtaken the pace of learning. In that world there are two kinds of failure: sloppy failure, where you ignore what is already known, and smart failure, where you try something nobody has done before. The second deserves reward, not punishment.

This talk is from 2012, and it has aged better than most things said about technology since. AI has only made his central point sharper: change keeps outrunning what an organisation can learn.

The useful part is the language. Sloppy failure and smart failure are different things, and most organisations punish both the same way. Then they wonder why every AI pilot is designed to look successful rather than to teach anyone anything.

If you want people to run honest experiments, you need to be able to say which kind of failure you just had. Obeng gives you the words. It pairs well with Stop Planning, Start Probing.

Highlights

  • We respond rationally to a world we understand but which no longer exists.
  • When the pace of change overtakes the pace of learning, old assumptions stop working.
  • Sloppy failure ignores what is known. Smart failure tries something new. Treat them differently.

From the transcript

You're doing something new, no one's ever done before, you get it completely wrong—how should you be treated? Well, free pizza! You should be treated better than the people who succeed. It's called smart failure.

TopicsExperimentsChange

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