Day 24 · Act IV — Lead the Organisation
Innovation and Organisational Learning
Experimentation · Failure analysis · Learning cultures
~30 minutes
An organisation that cannot fail cannot learn.
The Core Idea
Innovation is less about genius and more about systems: small bets, fast feedback, and honest learning from what does not work.
Amy Edmondson distinguishes preventable failures, complex failures and intelligent failures. Leaders should reduce the first and encourage the third.
The Mental Model
Build–Measure–Learn
From Eric Ries's Lean Startup: build a minimum viable experiment, measure response, learn and iterate.
At work: Instead of a year-long platform build, a team tests demand with a one-week landing page.
The Case Study
Amazon Web Services
DocumentedAmazon launched AWS publicly in 2006, building on internal infrastructure capabilities.
Interpretation: treating internal capability as an experiment for external customers created a new industry.
Cinema & Story
The Social Network (2010)
Speed of iteration can outrun better-resourced rivals — but character still shapes legacy.
The Reading Room
Right Kind of Wrong
Amy C. Edmondson
A nuanced science of failing well.
Further reading: The Lean Startup — Eric Ries
The Journal · Portfolio output: Experiment design canvas
The Field Experiment · within 24 hours
Launch one small, time-boxed experiment and define the learning metric up front.
The Evening Review
Fail small, learn fast, scale wisely.