Teams often say they want innovation, but daily pressure can make people hide mistakes, avoid risk, or move past weak signals too quickly.
That pattern continues when short-term goals, blame, and unclear follow-through overpower the stated desire to learn, test, and improve.
Rachel Franco, Founder & Principal of Fail Smarter LLC, brings experience across marketing communications, content, organizational change, and innovation enablement, including work at Deloitte, Change Healthcare, Optum (UnitedHealth Group), and Grey Advertising.
Her perspective helps leaders understand intelligent failure, psychological safety, and the habits that keep lessons from being left on the table.
Intelligent Failure Gives Leaders A Better Language For Risk
Failure is too broad a word to guide behavior. Franco points to Amy Edmondson’s categories of basic, complex, and intelligent failure because leaders need to know what kind of situation they are facing before they respond.
A basic failure has a straightforward cause, while complex failure comes from multiple factors combining over time. Intelligent failure is different because it happens in the name of discovery, such as testing a hypothesis or exploring a possible new product or service.
Takeaway: Leaders who separate preventable errors from learning-driven experiments can respond with more precision and less fear.
Basic Failures Need Correction
A basic failure is usually direct and avoidable, such as using the wrong ingredient in a recipe.
Complex Failures Need Earlier Signals
Franco used Boeing as an example of complex failure, where multiple decisions and pressures combined over time.
Intelligent Failures Need Protection
An intelligent failure supports discovery, but it still requires smart risk rather than reckless action.
Psychological Safety Keeps Small Problems Visible
Franco connects learning from failure with psychological safety: the belief that people can speak up about ideas, concerns, mistakes, and failures. Without that safety, teams may stay quiet until a small issue becomes larger and harder to fix.
She also cautions that psychological safety is not a soft idea. In her view, it affects collaboration, innovation, and team effectiveness because people need permission to raise a hand before risk compounds.
Takeaway: A team cannot learn from what people feel unsafe to name.
Leaders Set The Tone First
Franco recommends that leaders model vulnerability by discussing times when they made mistakes or failed.
Responses Shape Future Honesty
How a leader responds to bad news, feedback, or a wild idea can either invite candor or shut it down.
Measurement Can Reveal Blind Spots
Franco says leaders can measure psychological safety, including through a Fearless Organization scan, instead of relying on assumptions.
Innovation Stalls When Ideas Have No Path Forward
One of Franco’s examples involved leaders who completed an innovation capability program, developed problem statements, ideated, prototyped, and presented ideas to higher leadership. The issue was not the training itself; it was what happened afterward.
When no one acted on the ideas or showed a filtering process, the message became discouraging. People could reasonably ask why they should bother creating a new idea, process, or approach if nothing happens next.
Takeaway: Innovation programs need a visible decision path, not just enthusiasm during the workshop.
Short-Term Goals Can Crowd Out Discovery
Franco notes that monthly, quarterly, or annual performance pressure can limit the freedom to pursue new work.
Risk Tolerance Varies Inside Companies
Even within one company, some functions may support intelligent failure while others remain more risk averse.
Incentives Affect Experimentation
If people are punished for smart risk taken in the name of discovery, leaders can quickly discourage future risk taking.
Intelligent Failure Matters In Complex Industrial Decisions
For industrial and manufacturing leaders, Rachel's ideas offer a practical way to think about hidden risk, experimentation, and decision-making. Leaders working in complex environments can apply these ideas by encouraging teams to share concerns early, learn from weak signals, and distinguish smart experimentation from preventable mistakes.
That same lesson fits the authority-building purpose of ChoinqueCast. Strong technical conversations should not end at publishing; they should clarify judgment, build trust with guests and referral partners, and give buyers a more useful way to think about risk.
Takeaway: The value is not failure itself; the value is a disciplined learning culture that improves decisions before risk grows.
Technical Buyers Look For Judgment
Buyers evaluating complex products need evidence that leaders understand risk, learning, and operational consequences.
Guest Expertise Can Become A Follow-Up Bridge
A practical idea from a guest conversation can support stronger relationship follow-up when it connects to a real buyer problem.
Authority Grows Through Useful Distinctions
Clear terms like intelligent failure help audiences move beyond slogans such as simply saying it is okay to fail.
Conclusion
Rachel Franco’s core lesson is that teams need better failure habits, not louder slogans. Intelligent failure gives leaders a way to protect discovery while still correcting avoidable problems.
For leaders facing hidden risk, stalled ideas, or cautious teams, the next practical step is simple: define the type of failure, make it safe to speak early, and respond in a way that keeps learning alive.
FAQs
What Is Intelligent Failure?
Intelligent failure is failure in the name of discovery. It happens when a team tests a hypothesis, explores a new idea, or learns through a smart experiment rather than taking reckless risk.
How Is Intelligent Failure Different From Basic Or Complex Failure?
A basic failure has a more direct cause, while complex failure involves several factors combining over time. Intelligent failure is tied to learning, experimentation, and discovery.
Why Does Psychological Safety Matter For Learning From Failure?
People need to feel safe raising concerns, mistakes, and ideas. Without that safety, small issues can stay hidden until they become larger problems.
What Can Leaders Do To Foster Psychological Safety?
Franco recommends modeling vulnerability, including talking about personal mistakes or failures. She also advises leaders to watch how they respond to bad news, feedback, and unusual ideas.
Who Does Fail Smarter Work With?
Franco described working with organizations that want to improve learning, innovation, and team culture. She mentioned leaders with team challenges and HR, people, culture, or L&D leaders who want to address culture more broadly.