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Yet, one simple "rule of business" remains constant. Your organization's ability to execute is the ultimate determinant of your success. And, when it comes to effective execution your potential roadblocks are many.
At Ford Business Consulting, our specialty is helping organizations overcome obstacles to superior execution by tuning the human system to support the business strategy.read more...
At Ford Business Consulting, our specialty is helping organizations overcome obstacles to superior execution by tuning the human system to support the business strategy.read more...
Lead the way with mistakes
Are you as comfortable with questions as you are with answers? Do you relish opportunities to learn by making a mistaking or disproving your own assumptions? If you answered 'yes' to both of those questions, you’re fairly unusual among business people in Western cultures. And if you said 'no,' that may work to your detriment.
The June issue of Harvard Business Review tackles the topic of learning from mistakes in a new way. “The Wisdom of Deliberate Mistakes” (by Schoemaker and Gunther) lays out an approach to identifying and testing key business assumptions that is very counterintuitive for most people. And that means that most corporate cultures contain messages against this behavior.
In most organizations, the culture (our friendly 800 pound Gorilla) tells us that
(1) it’s safer to have answers than questions and
(2) it’s better to have predictable results than to test your business assumptions by violating them.
Schoemaker and Gunther propose a strategy for breakthrough thinking that will shake your Gorilla up if it has these messages. Take a look at their article and see if your Gorilla might learn a bit from this approach. Let me know what you think.
By Linda Ford, PhD
The June issue of Harvard Business Review tackles the topic of learning from mistakes in a new way. “The Wisdom of Deliberate Mistakes” (by Schoemaker and Gunther) lays out an approach to identifying and testing key business assumptions that is very counterintuitive for most people. And that means that most corporate cultures contain messages against this behavior.
In most organizations, the culture (our friendly 800 pound Gorilla) tells us that
(1) it’s safer to have answers than questions and
(2) it’s better to have predictable results than to test your business assumptions by violating them.
Schoemaker and Gunther propose a strategy for breakthrough thinking that will shake your Gorilla up if it has these messages. Take a look at their article and see if your Gorilla might learn a bit from this approach. Let me know what you think.
By Linda Ford, PhD
Labels: corporate culture, leadership, learning