How to Create A Learning Organization

We all make mistakes and I make my share of big ones. Take the time a few months ago when we were really close to establishing a relationship with a major new client and I destroyed the deal. Sales for the first year were projected at about $1 million with great growth potential. As the president of the company, I have the political power to cover my mistakes if I so chose. And I have done this. Admitting to failure is typically not a fun activity. But a few months ago I started to discuss with my management team the value of becoming a learning organization. To demonstrate my seriousness, I had to be the focus of attention and allow my associates to analyze my errors so we could all learn.

One important source of value in a company is its intellectual capital. This is the collective experience, knowledge and wisdom of the personnel in the organization. Supporting an environment to share and access this information is one role for leadership. A simple method of increasing intellectual capital is to use what the U.S. Army calls the “After Action Report.” When the Army has completed a field exercise or mock battle, the commanders gather to assess the quality of the performance on the battlefield. They openly discuss what went wrong, what went right and the opportunities for improvement. The value of learning with the Army could well be the saving of lives in the real battle.

I have adopted this method of review for situations we encounter at Greco Apparel. While lives are not at risk as in the Army, our company’s financial health, future growth, compensation rewards and client’s satisfaction depend upon our ability to learn from mistakes and make necessary changes in our organizational behavior. If you’re like me, you don’t like paying the same price twice. Here are some methods and suggestions:

Understand and accept that it’s natural for people to be defensive - Successful strategic implementation needs to deal with that defense. Create a space where you allow thoughts, feelings and assumptions to be declared, discussed and analyzed to see where barriers exist. An excellent example of this is provided by author Edward DeBono, who writes about the “sixthinking hats.” Encourage individuals to participate in a group by playing these roles to help examine a situation. Where the answers to problems are not known, this method creates an environment where a consensus can emerge. Here are the hat colors and roles to be played in this brainstorming activity. Keep the discussions separate for each color and then move on:

• Black Hat- Devil’s advocate. It’s healthy to take a contrarian view to test assumptions even if all are initially in agreement.

• Blue Hat- Discuss possible outcomes.

• White Hat- Discuss the facts, just the facts, and not opinions.

• Red Hat- Reveal emotions. This will serve to ease tensions.

• Green Hat- What are the benefits or opportunities?

• Yellow Hat- Time to be creative. What’s a crazy way to approach this issue? Don’t be judgmental. Just let the ideas flow.

Double Loop Learning - from Harvard professor Dr. Chris Argyris comes a method to bring value from experience. Single Loop Learning is where an action results in a problem. If you change the action you may solve the problem at hand. But unless there is a change in the governing values, norms, policies or objectives which allowed the original situation, the problem will tend to repeat. Changing the environment that allowed the problem to occur is called Double Loop Learning.

This method takes more time and effort that just solving the problem at hand but the investment will pay off if you break the frustrating cycle of a recurring problem. Here’s an example: Recently, a client requested that we send two sample pants needed for a trade show. Timing was critical for the start of the show. The second pair was not ready in time so nothing was shipped. Our product development team thought these samples were being submitted for quality specifications and measurements. No manager took the time to explain that the purpose of the samples was for the trade show and therefore, measurements were not critical. From now on, we will advise our staff the reason for samples. Then our associates will be able to make critical decisions that in this case would have been to ship at least the one sample that was ready. This communication would push the level of responsibility down the line and improve our service to our clients.

Let’s go back to the opening discussion. Where did I go wrong with the prospective client? I didn’t allow our client service manager to participate in the decision-making process during the planning phase and negotiations with our prospective client. This is a new role at our company and I reverted to the old method of making critical decisions unilaterally. Because familiar behaviors are difficult to change, I didn’t allow our new manager to contribute value that would have closed the deal. Our subsequent staff meeting and “after action report” helped me focus on how I need to change my behavior. The meeting also created the future opportunity for my staff to feel more comfortable to enable their continual learning. I apologized to my staff for my intrusive behavior and have begun to increase my sensitivity when approaching new sales situations.

The opportunity for continual learning experiences seem to occur at least once a day. By increasing your awareness of the chance to add value and applying the discipline to make changes, you will be doing a great service to your clients, your associates and yourself.

Visit Greco Apparel at www.grecoapparel.com