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6 Ways To Build A Culture Of Learning

This article is more than 9 years old.

To stay relevant in today’s business world requires a fierce desire to learn, to improve, and to adapt. To do so, it’s important—vital—to question everything (just be tactful if it’s your boss that you’re questioning).

Organizations are only as good as the people who work there, the people who make the brand what it is . To get—and stay—ahead of the competition, it is critical to put yesterday’s “wins” aside and focus on winning today. Here are six ways to build a learning culture in your company:

 

Assign a “sea daddy.” When I first showed up to SEAL Team Four as the proverbial new guy, I was assigned a “sea daddy,” which is just the Navy’s term for mentor. A sea daddy (or mommy, nowadays) is responsible for teaching a new hire the ins and outs of the business, what is right, what is wrong, and what to never, ever do under any circumstances. New hires sometimes lack one of two things: life experience, or the business context to make effective decisions, and this is the role a sea daddy—or mentor—serves; to guide that new hire so he or she can one day enable others to do the same.

Make mistakes. It’s important—crucial—to institute a culture of learning, and to do so, leaders must embrace failure as a means for improvement, rather than an absolute state that can’t be changed . Knowing is growing (sorry for the cheesy cliché), and if people aren’t willing to share their lessons learned then mistakes will continue to be made at the most inopportune times. And then it’s too late.

Review as a team. This is valuable not only for new hires but for everyone. An after action report (AAR), or post-mortem, explores a project from beginning to end while examining all processes and decisions in between. Specifically, the intent is to look at what was expected to occur compared with what actually happened. The learning lesson lies in the difference between expectation and reality.

Don’t let error fester. When a mistake is made, be sure to address it right then and there. No need to chastise anybody in public but make it known that there is a right way and a wrong way to do things. Otherwise you just run the risk of (costly) repetition.

War-game everything.  A great way to refine a presentation or strategy is to solicit help from people with completely different perspectives and have them poke holes in it. There are three different “battles” to consider when war-gaming:

  1. The business. This is the typical win/lose strategy and uses market share, profit, or other financials as a metric for winning.
  2. The customer. Winning the battle here entails delivering the greatest value to the customer.
  3. The brand. This is more along the lines of sustaining a current brand or re-branding to stay competitive.

When all is said and done and the war games are over, be sure to share any insights or lessons learned with the wider audience.

Avoid character flaws. One of my favorite sayings is, “You can dress a pig in a prom dress but at the end of the day, it’s still a pig.” Skill can be taught, character cannot. In the SEAL Teams, if a team member was not up to par on a particular skill or knowledge base but demonstrated sound moral fiber, then he would just receive extra training. However, if that same person violated trust or his own personal integrity, then he was quickly snuffed out and sent packing. There’s no room in business—any business—for anything less than complete trust. Without trust, you’re dead in the water.

Perpetual learning allows you to understand not just the topic at hand, but also the interconnections of other issues that may have gone unnoticed otherwise. At the end of the day, p eople are the defining element of success—or failure—for an organization , and striving for constant and never ending improvement should be just another business function .

 

 

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