Leading So People Will Follow

How We Learn from Experience

Over the years, I’ve noticed that those who are best at learning from experience have positive self-talk about their ability to do so. They also generally have developed a simple process for reflecting on what’s happened and identifying those things that could be changed to get a better outcome going forward.

I saw Kathy Dore do this again and again during the years when she was a client. I noticed that when something didn’t work the way she’d hoped—a program, a sales effort, a business process—she’d sit down with her team and have an honest postmortem. She’d ask, “Why didn’t this work?” or “What held us back from even greater success?” Then she’d help guide the conversation so that people could discover the elements ...