I’m a big fan of Ian Thorpe’s blog – KM on a Dollar a Day – and I’m not shy about recommending that others take a look. Here’s another opportunity for the rest of us to pick up some good tips, regardless of the industry we work in.
Ian’s latest post, the second of two (although he’s promising more) is about the role of learning, a subject about which he feels strongly (as do I). He’s writing about how aid organizations can make learning part of their brand, and his comments are valuable for any corporate or organizational function.
In brief, Ian recommends that in starting a new task or assignment, it’s a good idea to look beyond the immediate task and try to find some related successes and best practices. Then you share them widely, throughout the larger corporation or organization. In a best case scenario, you’ll get good feedback that will help as you move your project forward.
The next step is what’s different about Ian’s approach: also take a look at similar situations where things didn’t work out the way the planners expected. Were there tasks or assignments that got started and didn’t go anywhere? Or that got started but had to be abandoned at some point along the way? Look at these as well, and think about the why. What were the threats or inhibitors that weren’t predicted? What barriers came up that proved to be “too big” to control?
Ian puts it this way: “… in any case study, even a highly successful one, there are both positive aspects and less positive ones – and for a full learning it is important to acknowledge and learn from both of them.”
I agree. Recognize and give some attention to both sides of the coin and think about how these apply to the activity you’re dealing with. The extent to which you share the negative aspects will depend on what you’re trying to accomplish, of course, but even if the not-so-successful are not shared, you’ll gain new learning that can impact your original goal. And looking at the complete picture certainly positions you for, as Ian advocates, reflecting on wider experience and continual improvement and building that reflection into project design and monitoring.
Well said, Ian. Thanks for sharing.
Doug Weidner at the LinkedIn Knowledge Management Education (KMedu) Hub Group comments:
Guy,
I agree that both positive and negative experiences are beneficial, if one can “stand the truth!” (line from a famous movie – title escapes me)
Some would argue that failures can be even more powerful, because they are more obvious and affect you.
An alternative school of thought (Appreciative Inquiry on organizational level, and “Now Discover Your Strengths” by Buckingham on personal level) argue that you can’t learn how to succeed by looking at failures or focusing on your weaknesses. Examples might include: you can’t learn how to have a happy marriage by studying divorce, or, you can’t learn how to be happy by studying how to cure the depressed.
Until these two schools find the final answer, I guess I’m with you – cover both bases.
I like to teach a couple of concepts:
1) Raise the critical issues that would enable you to accomplish your objective as well as the assumptions that can be most easily tested and/or are the potential deal killers
2) If not successful, what would it have taken to be successful.
And of course, a SWOT-type analysis, by whatever name, is always insightful.
Guy St. Clair comments: Thanks, Doug, for your very thoughtful response.
Yes, we do have to try to cover both bases (not always easy, since there’s so much built-in resistance when we remember a less-than-successful activity). I’m often accused (if that’s not too strong a word) of being “too” optimistic in my approach to many things, and certainly skepticism doesn’t come easy to folks like me.
But in our work in KM/knowledge services, I suppose we have to “play” both sides and hope that we can make a case for our clients that at least recognizing the lessons of a negative experience is part of understanding (and learning from) the whole picture.
So we just keep trying and, yes, the good ol’ SWOT analysis keeps coming in handy.
Thanks for sharing your thoughts with us.
Nicky Hayward-Wright commented at the LinkedIn Strategic Librarians Group:
This post highlights “learning before, during and after”; however what Ian does remind us is to take stock of the negatives (failures/mistakes/could of done better/concerns/didn’t happen), an area which many people skim over possibly because they think if it failed/didn’t work, it won’t work again.
Guy St. Clair comments: Well said, Nicky. Thanks for bringing this to our attention.
A response from Ralph Wagenet at the LinkedIn KM Education Hub Group:
When I plan, I want to have hope but not cockiness. Looking at the positive experiences cultivates hope; those events worked out well, so this one could too. Looking at the negative experiences helps me guard against cockiness.
Learning specifics from successes and failures is not always easy, however. Exactly what we did in any particular event that caused it to succeed or fail is often difficult to determine. So planning requires humility since we don’t know all that we need to succeed or all the things that might bring about a failure. I try to include numerous opportunities for mid-course corrections in my plans, allowing me to adjust my plans based on the successes and failures that have been encountered to date.
But there are times when no more mid-course corrections are possible and we have to commit ourselves to a path and move forward. Then I find it better to focus on the positive experiences, to remind myself that I’ve done what planning I can do, I’ve had previous successes in this area, and now it is time to move forward and commit to this new plan of action. This is hard to do, but unless we do it, there are many important things that we’ll never be able to accomplish.
Denise Bedford at LinkedIn’s KM Education Hub Group:
I am enjoying this dialog and I think you are all very much on target. Reading your thoughts on how to use what we can learn from what doesn’t work brings me back to Senge. Understanding what did or didn’t work always raises the question of context – what was the nature of the larger “system” in which it did or didn’t work. Sometimes understanding what didn’t work actually helps you to see what it is in the context that is the real or root cause of the “didn’t work.” What did work can be equally risky – why it worked or appeared to work may also have been very much dependent on the larger system context. This is one reason why people in development often hesitate to “reuse” knowledge – because they don’t always know in what context it did or didn’t work. To all of your points then – looking at both what did and didn’t work – gives you a glimpse into that context at a certain point in time.
I can look at the Bank’s attempt to setup networks in the late 1990s and clearly see why networks “didn’t work.” And, I can look at the Bank in 2011 and understand why social networks “did work.” Same institution, changing culture, different economic context, different set of players. I can also see how a major leap forward could be achieved if we could take some of the elements from 1996 and combine them with the elements of 2011. So in this case, what didn’t work in 1996 would work in 2012 because the larger system changed. Does this make any sense?
Guy St. Clair: It makes much sense, Denise, and I thank you for your cogent comment.
And what jumps out to me: “Same institution, changing culture, different economic context, different set of players….”
OK. You’re sending Mr. Guy back to the “blog-post screen,” because I’m having a few thoughts about the connection between culture (including “changing culture”) and change management. You’re on to something here, and I want us to go with it, so watch the SMR blog space (or the KMedu LinkedIn space – I promise to share!).
Thanks so much.
Denise Bedford at LinkedIn’s KM Education Hub Group writes:
Guy – I will watch. I think it is amazing how a group of people chatting and sharing ideas about an issue can lead to something much bigger than any one of us could have come up with. Eager to see how this evolves… Sometimes the answer to – is it this, or is it that is – Yes!