How to learn from mistakes

Few would argue with the thought that it is important to learn from mistakes, and some would go further by saying that our most important learning comes from mistakes and failure.  What constitutes ‘failure’ is an interesting question, perhaps best illustrated with a quote from inventor Thomas A Edison; “I’ve not failed, I’ve just found 10,000 ways that won’t work.”

If an organisation aspires to be creative and innovative, then it stands to reason that mistakes will happen. How leaders and managers then deal with employees who make these mistakes is key and encouraging learning from them, rather than punishing the ‘error’, helps set the right tone.

Many moons ago I can recall a CEO, keen to encourage creativity and innovation in his organisation, say to employees that “it’s ok to make a mistake, as long as you don’t make the same mistake twice”.  In effect, he was giving others permission to make mistakes, as long as learning and improvement came from them.

Now whilst this style of leadership might be music to the ears of Knowledge Managers, it also presents a challenge; for whilst it is relatively easy for an employee to ensure that he/she does not make the same mistake twice, how can a Knowledge Manager ensure that the same mistake is not made by someone else in the organisation?

One way to address this is to encourage all in an organisation to keep a Mistake Diary.  This approach is explained in an article in the Wall Street Journal http://blogs.wsj.com/atwork/2013/03/29/the-manager-who-kept-a-six-year-diary-of-her-mistakes/?mod=WSJ_Management_At_Work and tells the story of a manager who kept a 6 year diary of her mistakes.

Inevitably, Knowledge Managers will find it easier to get employees to share their success stories with others, rather than their mistakes/failures; after all, employees are only human.  However, the article is a reminder that it is sometimes best to focus knowledge management effort and resource on the things that are more difficult i.e. leveraging learning from mistakes/failures, than on the things that are relatively easy i.e. encouraging sharing of successes.

Photograph from Opensourceway’s Photostream on Flickr http://www.flickr.com/photos/opensourceway/

Can you visualize how to improve communication and collaboration in your organisation?

Our understanding of the brain and how it operates might be considered to be ‘work in progress’.  In some ways the more we know about the brain, the less we know; or put another way, the more there is to find out. 

I’m currently reading Daniel Kahneman’s book Thinking Fast and Slow (http://www.guardian.co.uk/books/2011/dec/13/thinking-fast-slow-daniel-kahneman); and having covered Part 1 – Two Systems (in the mind), can see many links and ideas with the work I do as a Knowledge Management Consultant and MBTI Practitioner. 

Whilst the act of reading text is one way in which our brains process knowledge and information, another is through visualization.  Knowledge Managers will be familiar with the importance of story telling and the use of images to facilitate the sharing and transfer of experience, but may be less familiar with why this is so. 

This theme is taken up by Tom Wujec in a video on TedTalks – How the brain creates meaning.  In the clip Tom talks about how the brain visualizes.  This understanding is important if we want to improve communication and collaboration in our organisations, and solve complex problems.

A ‘marketing lens’ applied to digital change in 2013

The end of a year and the start of a new one is a good opportunity to look back to see whether the predictions made (for the year ended) have come to fruition and to consider how the predictions made (for the year just started) are likely to impact our everyday work and organisational activities. 

One such set of predictions – positioned as 5 top digital trends for 2103 – has appeared in the January/February edition of themarketer, the magazine of The Chartered Institute of Marketing. 

In the article (http://www.themarketer.co.uk/digital/top-trends-for-2013/) a number of digital trends are identified that will be of interest to Information and Knowledge Management professionals.  Whilst these professionals will be familiar with the issues and challenges of information overload; big data; personal information and knowledge management; access and ownership etc. they might also be interested to see these and other digital trends through a ‘marketing lens’. 

One interesting example is that of Omnichannel Marketing, which has knowledge and information management parallels in terms of communities, collaboration, social network analysis, data scraping and story telling.

Win gold for your business – adopt an ‘aggregation of marginal gains’ strategy

I posted a blog a couple of months ago about how the world of sport can provide knowledge managers and their organisations with some great stories and case study material which can be used to support KM activities and internal communications – when the computer says no. 

One of the stories I mentioned was of an interview with Sir Chris Hoy, and recounted the “thousands of miles on the bike” and the “hundreds of hours in the gym” Hoy puts himself through in order to perfect his art.  However, the main focus of the story was to highlight the ways in which British Cycling select the rider for the one GB place available for the men’s individual sprint at the London Olympics.  As we now know, Jason Kenny was selected over Chris Hoy.  

An article in Management Today further builds on the story, the success of Team GB, and provides us with an insight into the approaches used by Dave Brailsford, British Cycling’s performance director.  As the article points out “under Brailsford’s stewardship, Team GB adopted his ‘aggregation of marginal gains’ strategy: meaning tiny improvements across ten vital areas that result in a massive advantage over the opposition”. 

The article is worth a read and poses an interesting question – “what can business learn from this type of managed transformation?”  

http://www.managementtoday.co.uk/news/1144251/fifth-olympic-medal-table-it/

 

The best content, from the best universities, for free!

Image a world in which high quality education was available to all.  The following video by Daphne Koller illustrates how this is possible and explains the learning thus far.  In the video Daphne makes countless interesting points, the highlights of which include:

• Self forming study groups
• How every student has to engage with the course content
• The concept of peer grading
• The importance of active learning 

..and get ready for a powerful (real life and death) story in the opening few minutes.

The knowledge sharing and transfer relay – don’t drop the torch!

I’m looking forward to seeing the Olympic Torch Relay tomorrow as it makes its way through Newbury, Berkshire http://www.london2012.com/torch-relay/route/.  The event is all the more significant as last week I was teaching Knowledge Management to MBA students at Athens University http://www.imba.aueb.gr/ and, whilst in Athens, had the opportunity to visit the Pan-Athenian (white marble) stadium; home to the modern revival of the Olympic Games in 1896 http://www.olympic.org/athens-1896-summer-olympics. 

There have been many changes to the Olympic Games over the past 100 years or so (from the way it is run, to sponsorship, to the events themselves, to the improved performance of athletes), and this period has also seen significant changes in the way in which businesses and organisations operate.  One aspect common to the Olympic Games and businesses/organisations over the past 100 years has been the need to innovate and to share and transfer knowledge for continuous improvement.  

Those old enough to remember Dick Fosbury http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dick_Fosbury will recall the innovative method he applied to clearing the high jump with his ‘Fosbury Flop’ – a technique which quickly gained adoption by others.  I guess that anyone watching the high jump at the Olympics this year who was born within the last 40 years might assume that ‘the flop’ has always been the way the high jump has been jumped – and know little, if anything, about previous methods e.g. the scissors, the Eastern cut-off, the Western roll, or the straddle. 

However, it is important to recall, learn from, and build on the past (experience and learning) to inform the future; and this is where I return to my theme of the Olympic Torch Relay.  The important word here is ‘relay’.  Many Knowledge Managers will use the analogy of a relay race to tell a story about the importance of sharing and transferring knowledge.  They might describe this (and their approach) in terms of ‘handover notes’ or ‘baton passing’ – the latter an approach invented by Victor Newman, former Chief Learning Officer, European Pfizer Research University http://www.gurteen.com/gurteen/gurteen.nsf/id/victor-newman.  And their story might also include the example of a relay team (we won’t mention which one) that dropped the baton – and use this as an example of knowledge getting stuck, misplaced or lost.  

Knowledge Managers will also be thinking how they can use the ‘Fosbury Flop’ story to highlight the need for innovation in their organisations and to understand how better/improved approaches to resolving problems (in this case how to jump higher) become adopted and then embedded as ‘the normal way we do things around here’.  

So, as I watch the Olympic Torch Relay tomorrow, whilst one part of me will be enjoying the occasion and a sense of community spirit, another part will be reminded of the various methods businesses/organisations use to ensure that they learn from the past, are innovative, and actively share and transfer knowledge for continuous improvement. 

I’ll also be hoping that no-one drops the (torch) baton, or that the rain puts out the flame!        

 

You can’t have innovation without knowledge

The strategic role of knowledge, innovation and the need to invest in the knowledge economy, are themes touched on in a short, but interesting interview by CNN with John Quelch, Dean of China-Europe International Business School. 

Listen out for his comments about the changes he sees required to the Boards of organisations located in New York and London; the need to focus on talent management; and the importance of creativity – an area where knowledge managers can support their organisations and employees. 

For further information about knowledge workers and the knowledge economy you might want to read my recent blog post – http://ianwooler.wordpress.com/2012/06/01/from-knowledge-workers-to-measuring-the-knowledge-economy/

What’s the job code for thinking?

Many of the attendees I’ve spoken to at workshops or training events I’ve run, and the majority of clients I’ve worked with implementing and embedding Knowledge Management, have at some stage in the conversation mentioned how busy they and their organisations are.  Some even add “I’m so busy I don’t have time to think”. 

I guess we can all relate to this statement and at some stage in our working lives (or maybe even weekly for some?) can recall at time when:

• There are so many things to do on our to do list but not enough time to do them in
• We’ve got far too many emails and urgent messages clogging up our in-boxes
• The level of complexity of our number one task makes it appear to be too difficult to even know where to start (so we don’t or we dither)
• Our organisation places more emphasis on ‘doing’ and ‘action’ than on ‘learning before doing’ and ‘reflection’.

And yet thinking, as Edward de Bono reminds us: “is the ultimate human resource – yet we can never be satisfied with our most important skill, and no matter how good we become, we should always want to be better”. 

As employees, one way we can remind ourselves of the importance of thinking, and of the need to create thinking time in our busy work schedules, is to ensure that we always ‘learn before doing’ by asking ourselves: “has this been done before?”; “who are the experts?”; “do I have access to the knowledge I need to perform this task?”; “are there any case studies/lessons learnt I should be reading up on?”; “where is the good practice I can adopt?”   

As managers and leaders in our organisations we should also be asking our colleagues “what have you learnt?”; “what was the thought process that got you to this decision?”; how have you applied the knowledge of others in helping you achieve this task?” – more often than the usual ‘management’ questions like “what are you working on?”; “will you deliver on time?”;  “can you give me a progress up-date?” 

Encouraging ourselves and others to use our ultimate human resource – thinking, is a vital ingredient in creating and sustaining a learning organisation.  After all, you never know where the next great idea might come from – and it certainly won’t happen without time spent thinking (inside or outside the box).

Photograph from id-iom’s Photstream on Flickr http://www.flickr.com/photos/id-iom/

Does reinventing the wheel send your organisation into a spin?

The thought I’d like to take for a walk today concerns wheels, or to be more precise, the reinvention of them. 

You know the old saying “if I got a penny every time I heard..…, then I’d be rich”.  Well for me, this would apply to “we need to avoid reinventing the wheel”. This statement has been made to me on countless occasions; in workshops, knowledge management assignments, change management activities, and on training courses I’ve delivered. 

When asked to explain what they mean by the statement clients and delegates say things like:

• “we spend a lot of time duplicating effort and wasting resources”
• “we sometimes create new ways of doing things, only to find that a process/procedure already exists”
• “we’re not good at using what we already have and know”. 

Whilst these responses give a little more context to the statement, they do not clearly explain which particular ‘wheel’ or ‘wheels’ are being talked about.  The responses are also silent on the extent to which ‘a wheel’ has truly been reinvented, or an existing ‘wheel’ improved. 

So the next time you hear the statement “we need to avoid reinventing the wheel” try using the 5 Whys technique to drill down and establish the actual process, approach, system, or issue being discussed.  Once ‘the wheel’ has been identified/established, you can explore the extent to which reinvention or improvement has taken place, and then take the appropriate action. 

One way you can help your organisation to “avoid reinventing wheels” is to use, implement, and embed the Learning Before Doing stage of the Knowledge Management/Learning Cycle in everyday work activities.  Encouraging colleagues to ask “who knows about this?”; “has this been done before?”; “are there examples/case studies/good practice for this?”; and “who are the experts?” before jumping into the doing phase of an activity or project, can help avoid reinvention. 

However, management efforts to avoid ‘wheel’ reinvention should not be at the cost of a reduction in employee effort and energy deployed in improving or enhancing existing ‘wheels’.  Wheels do need to be updated, improved and made more effective and efficient.  For evidence all you need to do is to think about how they have changed over time, and the different and new uses they have been put to. Roll on the next wheel!

From ‘Amplified Events’ to ‘Building Bridges for Moles’ – the Online Information Conference 2011

Last week I attended and presented at the Online Information 2011 Conference at Olympia.  The Conference included many good speakers including great keynotes from Craig Newmark (effective social media and founder of craiglist and craigconnects) and Rachel Botsman (collaborative consumption).  Earlier this year I made a blog post with a link to Rachel Botsman’s presentation at Tedtalks - collaborative-consumption - definitely worth a look. 

You can find out more about the keynotes from Steve Dale’s (Conference Chairman) blog Reflections – Online Information Conference 2011 and from the Online 2011 website http://www.online-information.co.uk/.  Of the many interesting sessions I attended at the Conference I would like to draw you attention to two: Amplified Events (UK Web Focus) and Electrifying the Finnish Cultural Heritage (Digitalkoot). 

Amplified Events: Kirsty Pitkin (who has the intriguing job title, Event Amplifier) talked about the use of networked technologies to enhance conference and events.  Building on the learning of early adopters “event amplification infrastructure is becoming increasingly used by professionals who are seeking ways to develop their professional skills beyond traditional attendance at conferences”.  In the session we played Twitter Bingo – a game based on guessing key words Kirsty would use in her presentation.  The game was good fun and a useful reminder of the application of an easy to use ‘amplification’ technology to connect those attending and those unable to attend a conference or event.  For more information check out their blog http://eventamplifier.wordpress.com/ and the link to Storify where you will see the record of Tweets at the event – including mine!   

Electrifying the Finnish Cultural Heritage: Ville Miettinen (who introduced himself “as a hacker at heart”) talked about the use of technology and the principles of crowd sourcing (microtasking) to index the National Library of Finland’s archives so that they are searchable on the internet.  The project, called Digitalkoot (http://www.digitalkoot.fi/en/splash), uses an online game that encourages users to ‘build a bridge for moles’ to fix mistakes in the Library’s index of old Finnish newspapers.  As a picture paints a thousand words – this is best explained by watching the video below.