The Next Big Idea Daily The Surprising Power of Big Mistakes
5 snips
Mar 12, 2026 
Amy Edmondson, Harvard Business School professor who studies teamwork and intelligent failure, and Joshua Steiner, former U.S. Treasury chief of staff who writes about owning big mistakes, discuss why people hide life-changing errors. They explore psychological schemas that lead to recurring mistakes. They outline frameworks for naming, unpacking, and learning from those moments. The conversation contrasts preventable mistakes with useful experimental failures.
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Authors' Personal Public Mistakes
- Michael Lynton recounts a rash decision that contributed to one of the worst corporate hacks in U.S. history.
- Josh Steiner kept a diary that embarrassed the White House and landed him on the New York Times front page.
Failure Is A Sibling Of Success
- Failure and success are siblings that come from planning, commitment, and hard work toward an ambitious goal.
- Mistakes are decisions taken without sufficient consideration or self-awareness and typically produce regret.
Three Act Structure Of Meaningful Mistakes
- Big mistakes unfold in three acts: life before the decision, the moment of decision, and how you handle regret afterward.
- Treating mistakes as moments misses antecedents and consequences across time.
