Please Stop Capturing Crisis Lessons
20 May 2020
People are reporting workplace positives emerging out of the COVID-19 crisis. These are not unequivocal but there are many examples of where good things have happened faster than normal, colleagues have felt more liberated to do the right thing, and teams have learned at extraordinary pace.In an attempt to make sure that these gains are not lost, a concerted effort to capture the innovations is beginning. “What have you learned?” sessions are commonplace, and generally being co-ordinated by central teams. Lists of innovations are emerging and being distilled into initiatives for consideration at senior levels.
It’s all well intended stuff but the more we are seeing it in action, the more we find ourselves questioning the approach. Questions like…
- Does this approach to capturing and converting learning into action reflect what’s worked during the crisis or does it take us back in the direction of long and disempowering feedback loops that slow, stifle and stall innovation?
- What if instead of asking, “What are the innovations?” we should be asking, “What has enabled us to innovate so rapidly?”
- And what if, framed this way, the most pressing role for the centre is not to capture and spread the innovations themselves but to connect directly to the work of innovation and to help make doing that work easier?
So we are seeing a divergence in strategies. On one hand, we can choose to focus on synthesising abstract lessons learned and converting them into initiatives... but does that feel like a new normal or a slide back to how things were previously done?
On the other hand, we can adopt an action-oriented focus on maintaining the pace of innovation in practice. That feels different, challenging but exciting too.
The difference in focus feels profound and we suspect the difference in impact could be huge.
Find out more...
To explore these questions and what we are seeing and learning in practice, we are holding a webinar on "Recovery and Reinvention In Practice".
We'd love to see you there, to hear your experiences and to share some of the approaches we are using to help our clients maintain the pace of innovation.
Thanks for reading!
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Comments
Harry Longman
Cracking blog Andy. Reminds of whoever said "10% improvement is hard work. 50% improvement is child's play." We're learning to play again - don't put the games back on the adult bookshelf.
Reply to this commentAndy Brogan
Love that Harry! Thanks.
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