What's wrong with Lessons Learned? Part 4.

Over the past two weeks, we’ve looked at three of the inherent weaknesses of “Lessons Learned” and the way the label is perceived:  Passiveness, Negativity and Ambiguity.We will move onto a more positive note soon, but before we do, I want to introduce one further weakness:  Bad Teachers.

At this point I want to make it clear that I have seen the Diaz/Timberlake/Segel film of the same name, and that they are 92 minutes of my life that I would like to have back! However, the image was too good not to use.

What do I mean by bad teaching?

In the educational sense of the word, a lesson is deliberately crafted and designed in order to teach.  I can say from experience of being married to a teacher, that every hour of teaching she delivers requires another hour to cover preparation, marking and feedback to the learners.

Lessons are carefully formulated to take account of learning styles, levels of capability and connections with other parts of the syllabus. They evaluate understanding, they build on prior knowledge, they include references to further exploration and they have measurable outcomes.

Our bullet point lessons look a bit lame now, don’t they?

“Ah, but we’re not in the business of education”, I hear you say. Well, perhaps we should make education more of our business!

There’s a George Bernard Shaw quote which teachers hate - my wife included.  You’ve probably heard it.

Those who can, do.  Those who can’t, teach.

But there’s a corollary to this, which I’d like to add:

Those who can do, often can’t teach.

And that’s often our problem.

A project team successfully learns something from a project review meeting.  A lot of their learning is internalized, and the “lesson” they write down on that flipchart makes sense to them.

But it doesn’t make sense to the next team who will be using it. Just because I’ve learned something doesn’t make it a lesson for everyone else when I write it down.

Imagine my wife visiting an Egyptology exhibition and giving the brochure to her class on Monday morning whilst announcing “Hey class 4, this is what I learned about the Egyptians over the weekend – why don’t you take a look!”It’s not what she learned that matters, it’s what she teaches.

So how do you prepare a lesson which becomes a good teacher?

• Think about the customer for the knowledge.  Who will be reading this?  What questions would they have?

• Consider the context.  In what situations would this lesson be relevant?  Is it specific or general recommendation?  A good practice? Something to bear in mind?  Something to avoid?

• Provide the back-story. Help the reader to understand the circumstances which gave rise to your experience to help them make sense of what you learned and make a judgement on its applicability in their context.

• Illustrate the lesson with artifacts, images, documents, quotes, videos, references and links to provide a richness to the learning experience.

• Don't separate the lesson from it's source. Ensure that the person behind the story behind the lesson is clearly referenced.  Include a photo and full contact details.

• Show where it fits with other lessons.  Signpost other relevant lessons and content by drawing together related content into a "knowledge asset".

• Keep it fresh. Revisit the content periodically to ensure that it is still current, relevant, and illustrated with the best examples.

That way, we can be those who can do, can learn and can teach.

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What did Einstein know about Knowledge Management?

Quite a lot, it appears! Here are my top ten favourite "Einstein on KM" quotes, which I have roughly curated into a journey from information to knowledge, through to learning and simplicity, experimentation, failure, curiosity and imagination...

• Information is not knowledge.
• The only source of knowledge is experience.
• Make everything as simple as possible, but not simpler.
• If you can't explain it simply, you don't understand it well enough.
• We can't solve problems by using the same kind of thinking we used when we created them.
• The only thing that interferes with my learning is my education.
• Learn from yesterday, live for today, hope for tomorrow. The important thing is not to stop questioning.
• Knowledge of what is does not open the door directly to what should be.
• Anyone who has never made a mistake has never tried anything new.
• The true sign of intelligence is not knowledge but imagination.

And for any of us who have ever been asked to create an accountant-proof business case for KM, there is always the classic:

• Not everything that counts can be counted, and not everything that can be counted, counts.

Far better than my quick top ten list is this  infographic (click to enlarge) created by IQMatrix on visual.ly, which does a brilliant job of mind-mapping most of the above quotes, and a number of others.

But one unexpected Einstein quote escaped the infographic - which has nothing to do with knowledge management,  demonstrates his humanity and humour and makes me smile...

Any man who can drive safely while kissing a pretty girl is simply not giving the kiss the attention it deserves.

Genius.

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What's wrong with Lessons Learned? Part 3.

In the last few posts we've been exploring what's wrong with the way we position "lessons learned".  In part one, we looked at the passive problem of people's tendency to focus on the lessons rather than the activity of learning.  In part two, we looked at the negative associations of the term 'lessons', and the impact that this can have. In part three, I want to look at the problem of ambiguity.

The label "lessons learned" trips off the tongue easily, but that doesn't mean that everybody hears it in the same way. Learning appears in more than one place on an learning loop, so there is plenty of room here for confusion. It can be an output, an input, or an agent of change. Here is one, very simple question you can ask to check whats going on in your lessons learned process.

Who is learning?

Here are potential three recipients of the learning - let's imagine we give a badge of recognition in each case:

Image

It could be person or team who had the experience, who completed the activity and then reflected upon it.

In this case, learning is an output.

Image

It could be a function or department who learn from a team's experience and make a change to a process, policy, standard or working practice -  thereby reducing the risk or improving the prospects for everyone who follows. In this case, learning is an agent of change to the structural capital of the organisation. It becomes an embedded inheritance for all who follow.

Image

It could be another team about to commence a new activity who are learning from the experience of a previous team. In this case, learning is an input. This input could proactively pushed to another team, or pulled by the new team, through a peer assist, for example.

It's important to recognise that all of of these are valid and desirable outcomes , or there's a danger that we allow learning from lessons to be a slightly self-indulgent team huddle.  Worse still, we focus on building the library of lessons rather than actioning the change that the learning should produce, see my earlier shaggy dog story about selling a BMW.

MAKE award winners ConocoPhillips and Syngenta both recognise the need to lubricate all parts of the learning and sharing cycle with appropriate senior recognition.

ConocoPhillips have their 4G awards:  Give (sharing knowledge), Grab (applying someone else's knowledge), Gather (consolidating knowledge), Guts (sharing learning from failure).

Agri-business Syngenta loved this, and created their own TREE awards along very similar lines:  Transfer, Re-use, Embed and [share a difficult] Experience.

In each case, senior leaders are involved in judging and celebrating the best examples of these essential behaviours, and the teams or individuals concerned receive a physical recognition award.  It's very clear who is learning, who is sharing, what is improving and where the value is - all of which is the best antidote for ambiguity.

Syngenta TREE award

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What's wrong with Lessons Learned? Part 2.

What's the connection between Madonna, King Solomon and Louis Vuitton? Tricky one eh?

In "Live to tell", Madonna famously stated:

"A man can tell a thousand lies I've learned my lesson well..."

King Solomon waxed lyrical about lessons from laziness in the book of Proverbs (24:30-34)

"I went past the field of a sluggard, past the vineyard of someone who has no sense; thorns had come up everywhere, the ground was covered with weeds, and the stone wall was in ruins. I applied my heart to what I observed and learned a lesson from what I saw: A little sleep, a little slumber, a little folding of the hands to rest—and poverty will come on you like a thief and scarcity like an armed man."

Louis Vuitton clearly have a position on this too:

Luis Vitton

It's not just that they all connect with the concept of "lessons learned".  It's that in each case the association is negative.  In fact, nearly all references to lessons learned outside of KM, Organisational Learning or Project Management have negative connotations.

When my wife will knowingly shakes her head at me and tuts "...lessons learned darling, lessons learned...", I know I'm well and truly busted.

What went wrong with the concept of lessons?  In school, lessons are positive, educational and beneficial.  The minute we step out of the school gates they become negative, undesirable and punitive.

• The phrase "I've learned my lesson" usually follows sorrow and suffering.
• The phrase "I'm going to teach you a lesson" is usually followed by sorrow and suffering.

So with these precious market insights in mind, what name shall we give to our Organisational Learning processes to make them relevant, constructive and appealing? Imagine the following phone call...

me: Hello is that the KM Sales & Marketing department? Any ideas on branding this learning cycle stuff?

them: We've had this brilliant idea. Let's call it "Lessons Learned"!

me: Well, I guess it's better than "Post Mortem" that the Project guys are already using.

Sigh.  Sometimes we don't exactly make it easy for ourselves.

Not to say that we want to discourage learning from negative experiences.  Of course we don't - it's a precious, precious investment.  But if that's all we do, then learning itself becomes a negative experience by association.

1.  Let’s ensure that we apply the same learning approaches when things go well, as when they go badly.  This can difficult to embed without some discipline and leadership commitment, because when a project goes well, the team assume that the success was all down to their own natural professionalism and struggle to articulate recommendations for others.  (When a project goes badly, then the team will be quick to blame external factors - See Argyris, Teaching Smart People how to Learn for details.)

2.  Let's be prepared to dispense with the "lessons" word altogether if it carries so much baggage.

My favourite alternative is "Learning from Experience". Experience is much more neutral than "lessons".  It can be positive experience, negative experience, our experience or someone else's experience (more on that in part 3.)

If you get the chance to position and brand your efforts, you might consider about losing lessons and exhorting experience.

As Albert Einstein provocatively put it.

Experience is learning. Everything else is just information.

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Downton Abbey, what you know, and what you're known for.

Earlier this month I took my family to visit Highclere Castle in Berkshire.  It is beautiful Victorian Castle set in 1000 acres of parkland, and is home to the Earl and Countess of Carnarvon. It is best known though, for its role in the TV period drama Downton Abbey which has gripped not just the British viewing audience, but audiences around the world, and particularly in the US.  It’s become quite a phenomenon, nominated for four Golden Globes.

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As we took the tour of the inside of Highclere Castle, we were expecting to see merchandise and references to the TV series wherever we looked, given the worldwide acclaim for Downton Abbey. “This is the room where Mr Pamuk died…”  “This is the spot where Lord Grantham kissed Jane…” We couldn’t have been more wrong!   It would be quite possible to tour the entire castle and completely miss its starring role in the TV series!  Surely a missed opportunity by the owners, the Earl and Countess of Carnarvon?

What they did have on display in the huge basement was a large Egyptology exhibition which told the story of their great grandfather, Lord Carnarvon who, together with Howard Carter, discovered the tomb of Tutankhamun in 1922.  That momentous discovery in the Valley of the Kings is the real story of Highclere Castle, and we got the feeling that the current Earl and Countess of Carnarvon were a little indignant that the vast majority of visitors to Highclere Castle are only there because of a piece of engaging TV fiction!

It’s a perfect illustration of the difference between “what you know” and “what you are known for”.

Throughout our organisations, there are hundreds and thousands of people who have real stories to tell from their past knowledge, experiences and roles – yet they are only known for their current job title.  How do we enable this past experience and know-how, which often lies as buried as Tutankhamun’s tomb, to be rediscovered?

As knowledge professionals, this should be one of our priorities.

• One way is to enable the creation of internal profiles which encourage employees to describe the interests and past experiences as well as their current position – and to embed their use in the habits of the workforce. Many organisations do this very well, notably MAKE award winners BG Group and Schlumberger.

• Another approach, often complimentary, is to draw out the experience of others through a collective response to a business issue for example via a “jam” session.  I was speaking with Deloitte in the UK last week, and they described the success of their “Yamjam” sessions which often surface knowledge from surprising locations.

• The creation of open networks, and the provision of easy mechanisms for staff to join networks of their interest also makes it easy to mobilise knowledge and experience from wherever it lies.

• Finally, the use of knowledge cafes, world cafes and other free-flowing conversational processes will set the stage for connections and contributions which might otherwise never surface.

These approaches all enable knowledge and experience from the present (what you are known for) and the past (what you know)  to be shared and reused.

Not only would the fictitious butler Carson approve, but also the very real Earl and Countess of Carnarvon.

Knowledge Management's Fried Egg moments...

Number 20, Fenchurch Street, London has always been a controversial building.  It has become better known as the “Walkie Talkie”, and was rechristened this week as the “Walkie Scorchie”, because the combination of the curved design, mirrored windows and some bright sunlight created a focus of solar energy which was sufficient to melt parts of an expensive Jaguar XJ parked nearby, and in a non-scientific experiment, to fry an egg! Unwittingly, the architect had designed a building which worked as a scaled-down version of the solar furnace in Odeillo, France. I remember visiting this whilst on a childhood holiday, and was blown away by the lumps of melted rock on display.  I applied my sunscreen more carefully for the rest of my vacation.

Anyway, I say the architect unwittingly designed a building, but perhaps that’s being generous, because the same Architect (Rafeel Vinoly) designed the Vdara Hotel on the Las Vegas Strip, 3 years earlier.  The tall, sleek, curved Vdara Hotel, according to the  Las Vegas Review,

…is a thing of beauty.

But the south-facing tower is also a collector and bouncer of sun rays, which -- if you're at the hotel's swimming pool at the wrong time of day and season -- can singe your hair and melt your plastic drink cups and shopping bags.

Hotel pool employees call the phenomenon the "Vdara death ray."

A spokesman for MGM Resorts International, which owns Vdara, said he prefers the term "hot spot" or "solar convergence" to describe it. He went on to say that designers are already working with resort staff to come up with solutions.”

So the same architect has designed two tall, curved, mirrored buildings which have both manifested the same unwelcome side-effect.

Not only that, but the Disney Concert Hall (not designed by Rafael Vinoly) had similar issues back in 2003.

You have to ask yourself, surely lessons learned from the Vdara Hotel should have been applied by the same firm as they designed the Walkie Talkie?  Surely the Death Ray experience would have burned itself into the memory of the firm concerned?

And would it be unreasonable to expect the Architectural profession to be aware of the Disney Concert Hall case, and consequently have prevented the flawed Vdara design sizzling tourists like ants under a magnifying glass?

Is it easier to learn from the failures and flaws of others, of from our own internal failures?  Well, it depends on whether the power of "Not Invented here", disguised as "It'll never happen here", is greater than the professional defensive reasoning and displacement of failure Chris Argyris described in his brilliant HBR paper, “Teaching Smart People How to Learn.” If you haven’t read it, and you work in the field of knowledge management, organizational learning, improvement or in any medium-large consultancy, then please do.  It’s 22 years old but it could have been written yesterday.

Here’s a taster to wet your appetite:

 "Any company that aspires to succeed in the tougher business environment of [today] must first resolve a basic dilemma: success in the marketplace increasingly depends on learning, yet most people don’t know how to learn. What’s more, those members of the organization that many assume to be the best at learning are, in fact, not very good at it. I am talking about the well-educated, high-powered, high-commitment professionals who occupy key leadership positions in the modern corporation.

Most companies not only have tremendous difficulty addressing this learning dilemma; they aren’t even aware that it exists. The reason: they misunderstand what learning is and how to bring it about."

Argyris goes on to distinguish between the single loop learning approach of problem-solving and error correction, and the double-loop learning which addresses how organisations identify, discuss and enact change, and the dynamics, performance measurement systems and behavioural filters which can prevent even the most brilliant (often the most brilliant!) professional from seeing their role in something less than brilliant.

The case of the non-learning professional is not reserved for architects, of course - it's just that their oversights can be so tangible.  The financial sector, energy sector and public sector have all had their own versions of the "walkie scorchie".  It's just that you can't fry eggs on them.

As knowledge and learning professionals, we need to make sure that we're visible, helpful  and active for these fried egg moments.

They are the moments when mistakes are too visible to be missed, and when even defensive reasoning is no defence.   We can help our organisations not just to learn from the specifics of one design error (we can certainly start there, and get our foot in the door), but we also need to have the courage and the influence (and partnership with OD and other functions) to look beneath to the structural and organisational factors which will ultimately determine how many times the organisation gets its fingers burnt.

Oh, and on a related matter, and if you're thinking of buying one of these - be careful which wall you put it on!

When knowledge sharing is the only option

Sometimes you can't make it on your own.  One of my favourite U2 tracks.  Now I can't stop humming it!

Sometimes it takes an impossible challenge to get people to share and collaborate, as this fun video from Coca Cola shows.  Coke put a double-size vending machine into a site in the Philippines, which yielded two bottles for the price of one.  The only snag was that you had to find a friend to help you reach the coin slot.  So you win together by collaborating, or you both walk away with nothing.

[youtube=http://youtu.be/Bj3QLLTFDX8]

Nicely done, Coca Cola!

Way back in the 90's in my BP days,  CEO, Lord Browne had decentralised the business and created a "federation of assets" with a clear focus on performance.  This was a step forward, but not quite as big a step as it might have been, because with that focus on performance came a strong sense of independence - even to the point of competition. Here's a way to visualise this using Csikszentmihalyi's flow model.

Browne did a lot to support peer structures and networking which was well documented, but his initial response to was to increase the levels of challenge further, whilst keeping the resources constant. This raised the levels of performance required such that working harder was no longer a solution.  Business unit leaders would do anything to hit their performance targets - even collaborate!  And collaborate was exactly what they did: sharing knowledge, resources, people, contracts, and effectively enlarging the area of "flow".

This happened because collaboration became the only option, and competition was going to be as fruitful as two people fighting at the foot of a giant coke machine!

All of which leads me to wonder whether an age of austerity isn't a good thing for knowledge management after all?

Rolling Stones gathering knowledge.

After 43 years of the Glastonbury Music  Festival, and after much negotiation, the Rolling Stones have finally played the famous pyramid stage.  It happened on Saturday, started with Jumping Jack Flash and ended with (can't get no) Satisfaction. What caught my attention though, was the headline that Sir Mick Jagger had spend many hours "intently watching DVDs of previous headline performances."

I was impressed that despite his experience as a performer,  he still saw the need to learn and improve, even after 50 years in the industry and some of the most lucrative and successful live tours of any band in history.

It reminds me of the following quote from L Carte:

Only those who have learned a lot are in a position to admit how little they know.

How many professionals and leaders in your organisation retain that same commitment  to continue learning in order to be the best the can be?

Jagger, a former London School of Economics student, still exhibits intellectual curiosity, so I'll give him the last word:

"Everyone wants to have done more things in their lives. It is a slightly intellectually undemanding thing to do, being a rock singer, but, you know, you make the best of it."

Knowledge Management the Crood way!

My youngest daughter is going the see "The Croods"  today - it's the latest DreamWorks production, this time about a prehistoric family about to "leave the cave". I''m secretly jealous that I'm not going too, but I'd stick out like a sore thumb among her group of friends.

The trailers look so good that I'll definitely have to go one way or another - or leave it for the next long-haul flight. This one in particular is brilliant. It has a lot to say about knowledge, learning, innovation,  improvement and change management - not to mention the reaction of teen-aged girls!

See if you can spot the following - all in 51 seconds:

• Initial problem with someone feeling the pain,
• Repeated failure to listen, repeated pain,
• Failure of conventional wisdom and leadership,
• Recognition of the need for alternative perspective,
• Innovation and learning from analogues,
• Experimentation and adaptation,
• A trumpeted and hyped solution,
• Disproportionate excitement followed by immediate sense of loss!

[youtube=http://youtu.be/fWhGfmrQvBA]

Now, does any of that look familiar in your organisation?

Four Pillars of Successful Communities of Practice

Every so often, it’s good to revisit some of the fundamentals of knowledge management and reflect on their continuing importance to the field.   I've been working with several different groups on Communities of Practice and Networks this month, and have taken each group back to Etienne Wenger’s definition from Cultivating Communities of Practice:

“Communities of practice are groups of people who share a concern or a passion for something they do and learn how to do it better as they interact regularly.”

Looking more deeply at this definition, I think there are four “pillars” of successful communities.

1. A shared concern or passion.

Whilst the 90:9:1 role (or whatever variant of that ratio your community has equilibriated to) will always be relevant, the level of concern or passion will have a huge impact on the way in which people give discretionary time to the group.  I see this particularly in communities which relate to the higher levels of Maslow’s hierarchy of needs – e.g. Communities focused on safety, security, humanitarian issues. It’s also strong in communities which have a focus on hobbies and sports – Several organisations I know have a Photographers' community who exchange, critique and celebrate  each other’s work, using company systems, and on company time (because it's worth it to the company to show what a vibrant community can  be like).  Similarly with Cyclists' communities and other sport-related groups.

Take a look around you colleagues’ office or workspace or electronic desktop – you’ll see what their passions and concerns are.

Thomas Freidman’s equation PQ + CQ > IQ where PQ is Passion Quotient and CQ is Curiosity Quotient is true of communities – Passion and Curiosity will carry the group further than raw IQ – but a combination of all three will get the ball over the line every time!

2. A shared practice.

We often talk more about the “community” behaviours than we do clarifying the “practice”, and its boundaries.   It’s always time well spent.  I advocate that groups consider creating  and regularly updating a self-assessment or maturity model which describes their particular practice.  This helps them to agree upon the important topics, agree upon what good looks like and identify where they can share and learn from and with each other.

Without that common language, it’s easy for community members to talk past each other, or to miss opportunities to give and receive.

3. A commitment to learning.

Again, nobody questions the value of learning, bus what are the learning activities which your community will commit to?  What is the relationship between “lessons learned” and you community?  Is there any ownership of this process, and agreement to maintain a knowledge asset or product which represents the community’s most current thinking and understanding?

What about informal learning, formal transfer, learning together or learning from each other?  And learning from fresh insights outside the organisation?  How will that happen?

I’ve always liked this model from Wenger, White and Smith’s book, “Digital Habitats”, which sets out a landscape for these important dimensions and clusters relevant activities.  It’s a great model for communities to use as a menu of potential learning stimuli.

Wenger, White and Smith - Learning Activities from "Digital Habitats"

4. A commitment to interact regularly.

Of course!  And what does the ideal blend and frequency of interaction for your community look like?  What is the ideal mix of face-to-face, regional, peer-to-peer, virtual, discussion-based, spontaneous, scheduled, ad-hoc, funded, led, emergent, social, business... social business?

No shortage of choices and options, and it’s good to agree upon how you plan to interact and to regularly review how effective the blend is.

So how do your communities shape up to the four pillars? Perhaps it's a good opportunity to discuss and learn through some  passionate interaction!