You have likely heard the phrase, “You can win, or you can learn.” Many times, we also talk about the fact that we will learn more from our failures than our successes. The premise is that when you fail to win you have an opportunity to learn from the experience. I agree with the mindset that when you fail to win, or fail to achieve your goal, you should take the opportunity to conduct an after-action review or debriefing so you can ensure you learn from the experience.

Lately, however, I have been thinking about this philosophy and have come to realize that there is a gap, a missed learning opportunity. What if you also learned from your wins and successes? What if you did after action reviews or debriefings when you were successful to determine what you learned and what you could do better next time? Those debriefings may reveal that you won because you were lucky, or that you won despite some less desirable decisions that were made along the way. Remember that sometimes poor decisions result in good outcomes and sometimes good decisions result in poor outcomes.

In order to have an organizational culture of learning you need to make learning an everyday thing, not just a sometimes thing focused only on when you lose or fail. With the right culture you can learn from your wins and successes as well as from your failures and losses.

What’s Important Now? Win or lose, always be learning.

Take care.

Brian Willis

www.lifesmostpowerfulquestion.com. Maximizing human potential through Life's Most Powerful Question - What's Important Now?

www.daretobegreatleadership.com The online Dare to Be Great: Strategies for Creating a Culture of Leading workshop was created to help aspiring leaders and frontline leaders on their leadership journey. Subscribe to the weekly blog while you are there. 

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