Skill 3: Empower to solve
A common trap is measuring activity rather than outcomes, before we have a proven cause and effect relationship to performance. E.g. tracking the percentage of managers who complete annual reviews, rather than measuring the impact of those reviews on performance. Or tracking how many people have completed DEI training, as opposed to assessing how inclusive the culture is. A culture of test & learn helps build confidence that your strategy is based on empirical evidence. One you have this evidence, measuring and holding people accountable for quality activity can be very useful. A powerful illustration of the test & learn mindset is the response within Google when one of their team discovered that changing the colour of the text on AdWords, increased click rates by 14%. Rather than implement the new colour immediately, it prompted them to then test the full spectrum of colours. It turned out there was a different shade of blue that increased clicks by 20%.
We’ve reached the final focus for Skill 3:
Debriefs – the core discipline of a learning organization
The core discipline which helps drive learning in a team is debriefing. Structured pauses to share reflections on what happened, why it happened and unpick the learning around what helps or hinders performance. If you only act on one discipline from this paper, we suggest it is debriefing. No other habit will have as much of an impact on organizational learning. When we don’t debrief, or debrief poorly, individual insights go uncaptured and we miss the opportunity to correct ineffective behaviours. “The only sustainable competitive advantage is an organization's ability to learn faster than the competition” Peter Senge
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Adaptive Leadership : Building your capacity to thrive in a disruptive environment
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