I once attended a lecture by a well-known motivational speaker who said less than 10% of people who attend his lectures ever applied what they paid upwards of $500 a seat to hear him say.
Virtually everyone in attendance disagreed.
In the room, there were several hundred executives from every organizational sector of the economy. At each table, people discussed and made claims refuting this statement, many boasting, “They would be different.” More than 10 years after the lecture, the speaker may have been overly generous.
Most people, like those in attendance that day, have good intentions; unfortunately, we can all be guilty of ignoring those things right in front of us, things many of us consider to be common sense. We are all smart people, we believe that we are good at what we do, and we to improve. However, in my experience, many of us, myself included, fail to use one of the most important tools available to us for ourselves and our organizations. The tool of “Lessons Learned.”
Discussing and reviewing what happens during organizational actions and recording what was learned is second nature in some organizations. In most organizations, it is not, unfortunately. After completing my Project Management Professional (PMP) certification in 2022, I thought back to my experience in both the “for-profit” and “charitable” sectors to provide examples of how this tool could be used by more organizations.
Consider when embarking on any new venture, project, or event; the most important step for any organization is to decide “What success will look like.” With your key people, define success and document what the goals are. Take the time to formalize this step. At the end of the process, or at the end of each iteration, good organizations will take the time to review and compare their success and actions; solicit and discuss improvements; prioritize the improvements; and then implement their “lessons learned for subsequent iterations.
Applying “lessons learned” can make a significant contribution to an organization’s success through performance reviews and performance conversations. Reviews should be connected and should be living documents to serve as a guide for the current and future development of people and organizations. Too many see reviews as a chore to be completed at the bequest of their Human Resources department and are simply shelved until the next work period, serving no one and the organization.
A good review is interactive between leaders and their people. Goals and targets will be mutually agreed upon as will the establishment of the path to achieve them. Previous reviews are the foundation of measuring if success was achieved and setting the next goals or used as a tool to correct any failings that occurred.
Organizational Meetings need to be connected and benefit from “Lessons Learned.” I have attended good, bad, and ugly meetings in both the business and charitable world. Meetings should be interesting, have a definite purpose, be on time, end on time, and should leave attendees with a sense of purpose and/or knowledge they didn’t have before the meeting. To achieve these goals, they need to be connected. Regular meetings should begin with a review of the previous meeting, what were the “takeaways,” the assignments, and did the assignments get completed. The content of the next meeting should build on the previous meeting and end with a review of the new “takeaways” and a review of who is doing what assignments for the following meeting. Additionally, regular meetings should allow for positive or negative feedback while allowing open conversation to enhance everyone’s opportunity to contribute to the organization’s journey to success.
“Lesson Learned,” activities should be done from internal as well as exterior perspectives. As a furniture store manager, I often encouraged my staff to “shop” our competition to learn how other businesses treated their customers. Additionally, we learned how to minimize their strengths and exploit their weaknesses. All organizations compete, even charitable organizations. We invited, “mystery shoppers,” to assess and critique our systems and processes to eliminate our organizational blind spots and minimize the gap between what we thought we did and what we did for our customers. Anyone and any organization can be overconfident and blind spots are lurking everywhere. Having people evaluate your people’s performance randomly followed by a detailed debrief can correct processes and reveal shortcomings; all of which will help make your organization stronger, regardless of whether your organization is a “for-profit,” or a “not-for-profit.”
Building on these lessons, all organizations should assess your website, and phone systems, see what your people are saying, see if your automatic phone routing system works; any system or process should be constantly tested and re-evaluated for faults and for lessons learned. What happens when a client or customer requests help, do they get the help they should?
No one expects the world to be static, we should be constantly learning how to adapt, improvise, and overcome.
Is your leadership team “connected” to those people your organization serves? I am surprised by how often this isn’t true. I have seen this in business organizations and in the non-profit world as well. People, especially senior leadership can become insulated from the reality faced by their front-line people and the effects can cripple any organization. Building an environment that welcomes “lessons learned,” and “unfiltered and open,” communication can prevent this; however, it requires effective leadership and a willingness of senior leaders to listen and trust their people. Quite often, leadership should be prepared and accepting of answers they may not want to hear.
How effective is your marketing and advertising? Having regular “lessons learned” advertising meetings will make your efforts much more successful. Millions of dollars are spent annually on advertising and marketing that isn’t effective. Defining success, tailoring a plan, implementing that plan, AND THEN MEASURING THE EFFECTIVNESS of that plan is part one. The second part is to apply the “Lessons Learned” process to listen to what worked, what didn’t work, and what could be done differently next. Organizations having these kinds of lessons-learned meetings are far less common than most people would assume.
Maximizing return on bad luck. Jim Collins is one of my favorite authors and has written extensively on using “bad luck” to your and your organization’s advantage. Setbacks and negative events are an unpleasant fact of life; good organizations share these events with their people. They learn how to effectively respond to misfortune believing the lessons are important for their people to prevent similar situations in the future and to demonstrate how adaptable their organizations are for their people and customers/clients.
Your leadership team does not have a monopoly on good ideas. Many entrepreneurs I have met mistakenly believe they are the only people who can drive innovation and fresh ideas. It is well worth repeating that building a team of people who have the freedom to speak their minds in “lessons learned” meetings will help push your organization further than you can alone.
Revisit your onboarding processes with each new hire. As with performance conversations/reviews, onboarding procedures should be a living process. As new people are integrated into your team, encourage them to offer suggestions on how to improve your training and make it even more effective.
Exit interviews and lessons learned. People leave organizations all the time for many reasons. Take advantage of their positive and negative comments for your organization. Most people will appreciate the opportunity to share their successes and frustrations. It is tool effective organizations use frequently.
Examine your organization’s record when recruiting. It is a cliché to say that people are an organization’s greatest resource; however, it is a true cliché. Everything is about people, in an age when many organizations use AI to scan resumes, I encourage small and medium-sized organizations to take the time to read resumes. As a senior manager or owner, take the time to sit in on interviews for people. Sometimes the best people do not have the best resumes, nor do they always have smooth interviews. Regardless of your approach, review your organization’s hiring successes and failures, again, it is surprising how few organizations do this.
I believe that organizations and people should be focused on moving forward, setting ambitious new goals, and finding ways to achieve them. A key component is to take a moment after each step on the journey to review and solicit feedback on the step just taken. Then, apply those lessons where appropriate to the following steps.
Good luck,
Paul.