A person makes mistakes and successes throughout his life, learning from it and memorizing them to avoid making them again. In the case of errors, you learn more than from the successes, however in the case of the latter, few pay due attention to it, analyzing the reason for their successes in order to repeat the action in order to achieve new results. positive.
Let's say that in the case of an average person should act in the way described above, but what happens when what is involved is an organization. Errors and successes made by both the organization and its members are often lost either by the change of individuals or by the lack of exchange of experiences. In the first case before a withdrawal by the individual from the sector or the company, the person who replaces it runs the risk of repeating the errors or not taking advantage of the successes. In the second case, the errors and successes of the personnel of a sector serve only this or at most the rest of the personnel in their sector, but the rest of the company's personnel do not usually take notice of it.
We are therefore faced with the case of the company or organization that never learns, since the experiences are not disseminated to the other sectors or areas, nor are they disseminated over time. Furthermore, they are also not subject to re-study and re-analysis by the same people or sectors that had the positive and negative experiences.
If someone makes a mistake, they learn from it so as not to make it again, but if someone else does not take note of it, they are subject to making the same mistake.
In everything seen before it becomes clear is the message of being intelligent learning from our mistakes and wise learning from the mistakes of others. An organization at least needs to be intelligent and if possible wise, for which an individual must not only learn from the mistakes of her company colleagues, but even from the mistakes of other organizations. But as it was also said, it is as important to pay attention to the errors as to the successes, since many only succeed by a combination of chance, but they have never given a real study in the factors that cause the successes, so that although These took place on one occasion, they may not be repeated in the future.
What to do?
Teach staff writing, and problem analysis. Well, then, before each event that is considered important (both major and minor), they must be written in an organizational database specially designed for it. There must be access to different levels of experiences (classified information), and there is a Commission for such qualification, since certain strategic or high-risk information can only be accessed by duly qualified personnel.
The wording should contain a development of the circumstances under which the event took place, the account of the event itself and the conclusions that this leaves as learning.
On the other hand, analysis teams should meet periodically to evaluate the latest experiences, as well as to review previous experiences. These commissions will also be in charge of proposing the application of measures aimed both at avoiding the repetition of errors and taking advantage of the successes generated.
Questions?
Does your area or sector and your company or organization have a Database of experiences?
Do you have information about the mistakes and successes of other organizations, are these competitors yours or not?
Are errors and successes regularly analyzed in your organization?
Are measures taken to avoid the repetition of errors and the repetition of successes?
Are new employees learning about past mistakes and successes?
Do the staff or managers of the different sectors take knowledge of the experiences lived in other sectors of your organization?
If you answer no to these questions, I am sorry to tell you that your company lacks organizational learning and memory, which is why you are subject to repeating your own or others' mistakes, and not learning properly from the successes of your company as from others..
Conclusions
It is not about attacking the one who made the mistake (whether it is an individual or a sector) but rather learning from it to avoid its repetition, if this is not understood people will hide the mistakes, and only write their successes. In the end they will all lose. An organization is like a ship, if water enters a sector it does not harm only that sector, it ends up sinking the ship as a whole. Something similar happens in an organization, mistakes end up putting the organization as a whole at risk.
In times of high global competition it is essential to take due note of the critical importance of organizational experience. In the Knowledge Age, only companies that have learning and memory will have the capacity to increase and take advantage of their Intellectual Capital effectively.
In traditional organizations, the inventory of tangible and intangible assets is the norm, but experiences are not inventoried, which clearly mark the competitive advantages of an organization.
These experiences will not have a specific monetary value, but without a doubt that the financial and economic results of the company end in the long term, being a clear sample of the organizational experience.
