praxis: Anjali Sastry's blog

Lessons learned and memos to oneself

Last week, I had the privilege of running a pair of workshops on facilitation, mostly for first-year MBAs, with my wonderful MIT Sloan colleague Maura Herson and much-loved consultant Lou Bergholtz.  I found myself appreciating what everyone shared about their experience with facilitation--we've all seen it done well and done badly, and together the groups generated a pretty good list of ideas about how to facilitate effectively (more on these specifics here). We designed every workshop exercise to focus on just a few things in each round. And as I reflected on the value of picking just a couple of things to address, I realized how easy it can be for us to forget the most valuable ideas and insights that show up for fleeting moments in the stream of our experience--we might notice, for instance, how Lou handled a particular moment in the group discussion, and say to ourselves, Oh, I should try doing that next time.... but the moment passes, and often the idea or insight is lost forever.

So, how do you remember to actually put into practice the new ideas that arise from doing it (or seeing it done) well or badly the previous time? An influential thinker on this topic, Marilyn Darling, argues: "It's a leadership act to say, What did we learn from last time? If a leader or members of a team do not ask that question, they're unlikely to apply past learning to creating future success." (source.) So, here's a leadership point to ponder: Do you ask such questions in your teams?

Now, this approach can also help you develop personally. I think that we can each cultivate personal habits for our own learning that embed this sort of development into our own behaviors. In last week's workshop, we asked our students to do just this, in a short assignment we called "memo to myself."  Because we knew that we would see these same students again in August, we made copies of each student's memo, allowing us see what they were noting as lessons learned or points to ponder--and also enabling us to make sure that we all remember to make the most of the (by then, likely long-forgotten!) insights just in time for their next experience as facilitator.

In 15.990, we explored this notion in some detail in the last class session before the break, when we looked at the After Action Review as a ongoing process of culling just 2 or 3 things to do from every round of experience. I gathered some materials for a resource page, in case you want to see more. But here's the basic point: after you've executed a step, gather your team together, and ask yourselves a set of questions that can help you figure out what to retain or change for your next step.

Improvements are most feasible when your are engaged in something that is repeated, so that each time you do it, you can figure out what worked and what didn't:

For example, if you're focusing on sales that didn't succeed, rather than just listing what didn't work or your rationalization for why you didn't get the contract, look forward. Before the next call to a prospective client, ask: What worked last time? What didn't work? What got you closer to the sale? What got you further away?

From Getting Better at Getting Better—How the After Action Review Really Works: An Interview with Marilyn Darling Leverage Points Issue 61.

One version of this from firefighters bears the appropriately rugged name of "the chainsaw AAR" (source), in which a team gathers at the end of the shift and each member gives a single quick answer to each question:

-What is one thing that went well on this shift?
-What is one thing that went bad on this shift?
-What is one thing you would do different next time?
-What is one thing you learned today?

For this to be useful, you need to capture the answers, of course, and then make sure that you use them as the basis for your action in the next shift, project, sales call, or faciliation experience. There are multiple forms of discipline entailed here: asking the questions, keeping the answers very focused, writing them down or otherwise capturing them, and then using them the next time you start the action.

Is all this effort worth it?
Well, my intrepid students are doing it, both in their teams and individually in personal notes that they post to blogs by the end of every Sunday. We'll let you know what we make of it all in mid May!