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Posts Tagged ‘learning’

Following up on the post about the priority of culture over strategy in organizational planning, I’m drawing from another of the acknowledged gurus, this time from the non-profit universe: Beth Kanter. I’m also a subscriber to Beth’s Blog, which is a constant treasure trove of good stories and ideas, often by guest bloggers.

In yesterday’s post, Beth was about to facilitate a discussion that she titled ”Creating a Culture that is not Afraid to Fail.” She wrote,

I’m defining failure as a social media strategy or program implementation that wasn’t perfect or didn’t work as well as you expected especially the first few times you did it.   This happens quite frequently with social media, especially in the early stages.

We set unrealistic outcomes, don’t have a methodology for learning or sloppy strategy implementation.  We get poor results.  We’re quick to proclaim that social media doesn’t work, feel some shame, and drop it.  We look at the wrong measures or unrealistic outcomes. We don’t value the learning and use that insight to improve the social media strategy the second or third or fourth time around.

Like riding a bicycle or a horse, you can’t call it failure the first, or second or third time you fall off. You only learn to ride either of them by getting back on and trying again. Some of this persistence must live in the organization’s culture. If its social foundation isn’t strong enough, the first failure of a social media initiative may lead to abandonment. In an organization where social learning is recognized as precious, failure is regarded as part of a learning process. New approaches – maybe new tools – will be tried. There will be patience for social changes to adapt to the technology and sharing of observations.

On Facebook and on Twitter, Beth posted this query: ”How do you create an organizational culture that is not afraid to fail? “

Read her blog post for the details, but in summary the responses suggested the following:

(1) Must come from the top: reward learning

(2)   Unpack the fear of failure through internal discussions

(3)  Make learning the norm

(4) Emphasize what works

(5) Start small, early, and reiterate

I’m a founding consultant with the collaborative firm GuildSmiths. I am a GuildSmith, member of a team of specialists who offer insightful guidance in the the uses of social media by organizations.

DIYeL (pronounced “dial”) is a project of the GuildSmiths. DIYeL means Do-It-Yourself eLearning, but we don’t build or install eLearning systems. Instead, we help you build, install and master your own systems, blending media that already exists with media you create — and putting almost all of it in the public commons. Sound counter-intuitive? Step and and chat with us. Sound great? Contact me; we’d love to help you build your own eLearning systems.