“Lessons learned” creates the wrong mindset
I have been thinking about the term ‘lessons learned’ today. In a way it’s an oxymoron. The word ‘lessons’ suggests something that is known which can be taught. With the term ‘lessons’ in your head you start thinking about how you can get people to understand these lessons and, as we were recently reminded, the knowledge transfer process is not as simple as tipping the contents from one head to another. Learning, on the other hand, suggests a complex, social, back and forth—an interaction. The two words are at odds and no wonder there is a level of discomfort among knowledge management practitioners with the phrase.
Interestingly some of the successful lesson learned programmes have put their emphasis on learning—not lessons—and wrapped their implementation in a community of practice approach. I’m thinking here about BHP Billiton’s operational excellence division which has a clear focus on best practice transfer but has implemented its objectives within a community of practice context. US Department of Energy is another example where the learning context is provided, at least in part, by their community of practice which they call the Society for Effective Lessons Learned.
Shawn, author of Putting Stories to Work, is one of the world's leading business storytelling consultants. He helps executive teams find and tell the story of their strategy. When he is not working on strategy communication, Shawn is helping leaders find and tell business stories to engage, to influence and to inspire. Shawn works with Global 1000 companies including Shell, IBM, SAP, Bayer, Microsoft & Danone. Connect with Shawn on:
Comments
Comments are closed.
I’m not sure that “lesson” is a bad term to use.
http://www.m-w.com/cgi-bin/dictionary?book=Dictionary&va=lesson&x=16&y=17
c.f. defn 3: “something learned by study or experience”
When doing a lessons learned session with a project team – the “learned” bit looks at the process and experiences that the team went through. The “lessons” bit attempts to make sense of those experiences into a form that other practitioners will recognise.
I absolutely agree on the importance of community and context in disseminating the results of these sessions. By themselves the lessons are meaningless. But they form an invaluable attractor for discussions among professionals.
Hi Matt, the term ‘lesson’ from a dictionary defintion perspective is fine and your example is a good one. What I was trying to convey was the observation that some people who are trying to implement these types of systems fall into the trap of trying to teach people lessons rather than create conditions that enable people to learn. I think ‘lessons’ is a trigger word that starts people thinking in a particular way. Much like the term ‘barriers’ I mentioned in a previous post(https://www.anecdote.com.au/archives/2005/07/barriers_and_at.html). It is an accurate term but triggers unhelpful behaviour.
I cringe when I hear ‘Best Practices’
Rejoider: “Lessons learned” creates the wrong mindset
It’s great that Anecdote are questioning tired jargon. ‘Best practices’ and ‘lessons learned’ are no longer exclusive and certain terms . They might need…
Shawn – Interesting thoughts, and I see your point.
My perspective on “lessons learned” is that the interactive process of learning that you accurately described (which predominantly happens after something goes wrong) gets codified into lessons which are then more easily transferred to others. So it wasn’t a lesson that was learned, but by interactively examining something (learning), a lesson came into being.
You are right that the two words do not go well together, but this is how I have rectified them in my mind.
Additionally: I’m with KnowAngel…I much prefer the term “Best Known Practice(s)” than “Best Practices.” If nothing else, it’s usually more accurate.
Enjoyed your thoughts.
Thanks Tom for your comments. I must admit I’m usually more cautious when talking about best practices because, like yourself, I find the term inaccurate and, particularly in a complex environment, unhelpful. When I worked at the IBM Cynefin Centre we talked about best practice in the known domain (I’m referring here to the Cynefin framework – http://www.research.ibm.com/journal/sj/423/kurtz.html), good practice in the knowable domain and avoid worst practices in the complex domain.
As a Lessons Learned Project Engineer I think about this every day. Thus, while I am designing a hypertext taxonomy and workflow app for a FORMAL lessons learned repository I am blogging and promoting the use of blogs as an INFORMAL means of knowledge transfer and collaborative learning.
I recently ran across some thoughtful thinking on the best practices terminology and consider useful practices to be a better wording. Check out: http://www.ayeconference.com/wiki/scribble.cgi?read=UsefulPractices
Thanks for your comment Mike. I came across an interesting perspective in this topic the other day which I wholeheartely subscribe to. The guys at the MIT Media Lab talk about constructing meaning in two ways: 1) socially constructing artifacts (documents, software, etc); and 2) constructing meaning when you are provided with information. I think that we can use repositories in both ways: as an environment to socially construct artifacts; and the less effective way to learn by downloading information from a database. I’m not sure whether formal and informal is the best way to think about organisational learning except to say that what is now considered informal should become part of the formal, ie recognised and supported by the organisation.
I spend a great deal of time not just thinking about how to the philosophy behind organisational learning and knowledge management but the practical integration of that knowledge into our operations. You see, I work for the Australian Centre for Army Lessons (CAL) and the absence of the second ‘L’ is quite deliberate. As Shawn and I have discussed, this organisation does not make the Army learn its lessons because that is a function of the institutional development systems and the social networks that reside within Army. Our important role is to inform and work with the people making decisions and working within those processes.
I am pleased to say that the organisation is now hungry for what CAL provides and is desperate to figure out how to effectively ‘learn’ the lessons gained from experience. What’s more, there are mechanisms that the masses can see will benefit from the strategies we’re putting in place within Army to not just capture people’s insights but analyse them and use those insights to develop. Its an exciting time to be in my line of work and it is rewarding to see the influence we are having and expect to have in the future.