Post Submitted , June 28, 2011

The morning after TED’s hugely successful debut on the Palais main stage at this year’s Cannes Ad Festival, we brought an extra taste of TED to a select group of clients and SMG executives. Held at the Majestic hotel poolside space, a stone’s throw from the Palais, on a warm sunny morning, TED European director Bruno Giussani conversed with author Kathryn Schulz, in a session called The Bright Side of Wrong.

Schulz, author of Being Wrong: Adventures in the Margins of Error, posited to the crowd that there’s value, even virtue, in being wrong some of the time, a contrarian argument if there ever was one. She delivered three base reasons for why being right all the time can be a bad thing:

1. Passionately insisting on rightness can be harmful to interpersonal relationships;

2. Fear of being wrong can make us incredibly careful and risk-averse;

3. It causes the mistakes we do make to be more costly in the end run.

Simply put, it’s hard for people to admit mistakes—that’s just a fundamental part of human nature, explained Schulz. But she pointed out that the longer it takes to get to admitting can cause the problem created by the mistake to fester. She said she believes crowdsourcing can be a good tool for self-policing mistakes, particularly in a digitally dominated world.

She also cautioned about the dangers of believing that data is the path to truth. Given that we as a business have access to more data than ever before, it still needs to be approached cautiously, since it’s not always interpretation-free. “Numbers can lie,” Schulz told Giussani. “You’ve got to be cautious about using it as a tool for righteousness.”

In researching her book, Schulz talked to a number of people, picking up numerous nuggets of wisdom along the way. The one that stood out was from famed mountain climber Ed Viesturs, a man whose day job offers little to no margin for error: A mistake is a mistake whether you pay for it or not.

Schulz also offered some valuable insight on how to better deal with others’ mistakes:

1. Step back and ask if you’re doing something wrong before you place blame squarely on others;

2. Listen first when others explain their mistakes—people like to be heard.

3. Use humor to de-escalate the situation.

It certainly was no mistake listening in on this conversation.