You wish to point and sneer? How will that help, precisely?

There have been recent news reports about leaks on-board the new British aircraft carrier, HMS Queen Elizabeth.  The ship is currently undergoing sea trials, during which all systems and crew will be tested before being declared fully operational.

The purpose of the trials is to check that the ship is fit for purpose, and to familiarise the crew with both it, and each other.  In knowledge management-speak, this is part of what is known as 'learning before'.

High-performing organisations invest time and resources in deliberate learning before (i.e. through KM planning), during (i.e. through Peer Assists) and after (i.e. through Retrospects and Knowledge Harvesting Interviews) key activities, to identify key knowledge that can be reapplied in the future, thereby saving time, money and improving performance, quality and safety.

Is the ship meant to be fully operational yet?  No.

Are the crew meant to be fully trained on it yet?  No.

Have time and resources been allocated to enable this 'learning before' to take place? Yes.

Are these so-called 'leaks' normal in ships at this stage of their life?  Yes.

Are they attended and reduced so that the risk is as low as reasonably possible? Yes.

Is highlighting a so-called leak like this helpful in any way?  No.

Does the media care?  Of course not.

In his book, 'Just Culture' (reviewed on this blog here), Sidney Dekker sets out the tensions between learning and accountability and reminds us that the clamour for 'heads to roll' after each and every mistake and oversight almost always has the opposite, unintended effect.  Instead of encouraging others NOT to make mistakes, such caterwauling merely warns others to cover up their errors, thereby ensuring learning does not take place and performance does not improve.

Pointing the finger when things appear to go wrong, finding someone to blame, using words like 'fault' - these are all evidence of a workplace culture that is anything but 'just'.  In such places, learning from experience is all but non-existent and performance way below where it could be.

For a chat about how to develop a workplace culture where learning from experience, before, during and after key activities, please contact me direct or via the Knoco website.

Ignorance can sometimes help innovation....

A great little story in the news today with a couple of insights for those of us interested in knowledge management (KM).

This Telegraph news article here tells how a 16-year old schoolboy on work experience helped address the problems encountered when a heart by-pass surgery patient's records are unavailable and there is no way of knowing what work has been done before.

Observing his father (a cardiologist) dealing with a patient in this situation, he asked whether there was some way of writing a code inside the patient, so that future surgeons would have the information they needed straight away, enabling further surgery to take place without undue delay.

This innocent question sparked an idea, which resulted in his father developing a system

Two observations:

• The schoolboy was not part of the surgical team and had no direct or relevant experience that might have been helpful in this situation.  However, this 'ignorance' was to his advantage, as it meant he approached the problem with a fresh outlook.  In many day-to-day activities at work, there are times when a new perspective can help a team tackle a problem or improve performance and KM activities like a Peer Assist can help bring different perspectives to a team and new insights to a problem.
• Thankfully, the surgical team did not suffer from the 'not invented here' syndrome, whereby people resist external initiatives or suggestions simply because they came from an outsider.  This is sadly the default workplace condition and all too often leads to 'groupthink', preventing or inhibiting innovation.  Teams that have developed a learning culture are more likely to be receptive to new ideas.

For a chat about bringing new perspectives to your team, innovation or knowledge management in general, please contact me direct or via the Knoco website.

The Iraq Inquiry - what lessons?

Today’s publication of ‘The Chilcot Report’ will provide stacks of material for those of us interested in learning from the past in order to improve future performance.  A few points:

·        Firstly, I declare an interest, having deployed on Operation TELIC in February 2003 on what proved to be one of the most fascinating (if challenging) deployments of my military career. I was a Captain in an Army liaison team, embedded within the Coalition Air HQ in Saudi Arabia.  This morning I dug out the notebook I used to scribble ‘nuggets’ that I then intended to use in a novel (written, yet to be published!). Some that stand out for me below (some of which show the paucity of planning and equipment, as well as some context):

o   Sunday 16 February – Arrival in Saudi Arabia on a reinforcement C-17 aircraft that had been refused entry 4 times by the Saudi authorities, reluctant to be seen to be supporting the imminent war effort; so the RAF changed the call-sign of the aircraft to one of a routine roulement flight and got us in ‘under the wire’;

o   Monday 17 February – Work begins; all UK personnel reminded to get their respirators tested to ensure they are serviceable;

o   Thursday 20 February – Respirator testing is stopped due to the high failure rate; decision apparently made that it would be better to claim ignorance of the state of the respirator filters than have evidence that they were failing and be unable to replace them (not enough spares, apparently);

o   Thursday 6 March – 2 kinds of difficult people out here: those that simply do not understand that war entails discomfort, disturbance and friction and those that use such friction as an excuse to cover up their own failings;

o   Friday 14 March – Reports of 75 Iraqis crossing into Kuwait and trying to surrender to 1 PARA soldiers conducting training; Paras tell them to go back to Iraq;

o   Wednesday 26 March – Reports France has given Iraqi Intelligence Service access to satellite, allowing them to eavesdrop on mobile phone communications;

o   Saturday 30 March – US Army Families Network adverts gut-wrenchingly corny: “helping to spread freedom and democracy around the world”;

o   Sunday 31 March - 1 x Apache downed and every other aircraft in regiment hit by small arms fire during air assault on Medina Division south of Baghdad; reports regiment will not fly again;

o   Friday 4 April – 1 (UK) Div area, soft hats being worn; hearts and minds etc – example of how it’s done? Or is Northern Ireland experience irrelevant here?

o   Sunday 6 April – Difference of opinion between US and UK targeteers re infrastructure and/or Iraqi airforce; US wishes to destroy all aircraft, bunkers etc. UK ask why bother? Not used yet; use now even less likely; faint suspicion around that US motivation might be a wish to sell Iraq new aircraft possibly?

o   Thursday 10 April – UK forces find Iraqi forces arms cache, including 19 French MILAN anti-tank missiles with production date of 1999 (i.e. after the UN weapons inspectors were booted out by Iraq in 1998).  Puts the French opposition to the war into some sort of context, I suggest.

o   Friday 11 April – Time-sensitive targeting of ‘Chemical Ali’ attempt; bombs hit late and miss and a dud; National Component Command furious; SFHQ livid; systemic problem – 12 windows have to go green before bombs drop;

o   Monday 14 April – We have been asked for our lessons; some criticism of lessons process; too quick; not leading to anything.

·        Most of the lessons in the report have been ‘identified’ NOT ‘learned’ – as most people with a passing interest in knowledge management (KM) will know, a lesson is not learned until you have changed something (or made a deliberate, auditable decision not to do so).  Many of Chilcot’s ‘lessons’ are more properly described as ‘observations’ or ‘insights’ and, if they are to become lessons, need to be re-crafted with explicit recommendations added; hopefully this necessary work will now take place;

·        Many of the criticisms of the British Army planning and conduct of operations in Iraq can be found to have their origins in its culture, that of the ‘can-do attitude’ – which leads to senior commanders taking on more work than can be realistically done with the resources offered.  Indeed, Chilcot says:

“Ground truth is vital. Over-optimistic assessments lead to bad decisions. Senior decision-makers – Ministers, Chiefs of Staff, senior officials – must have a flow of accurate and frank reporting. A “can do” attitude is laudably ingrained in the UK Armed Forces – a determination to get on with the job, however difficult the circumstances – but this can prevent ground truth from reaching senior ears. At times, in Iraq, the bearers of bad tidings were not heard. On several occasions, decision-makers visiting Iraq (including the Prime Minister, the Foreign Secretary and the Chief of the General Staff) found the situation on the ground to be much worse than had been reported to them. Effective audit mechanisms need to be used to counter optimism bias, whether through changes in the culture of reporting, use of multiple channels of information – internal and external – or use of visits.”[1]

This issue is discussed at some length in the article linked from this blog post here, which looks at how the British Army tries to learn lessons from operations and training and how its efforts are hampered by its culture.  It should be obvious that it is not only the military where these problems are found and that many other organisations also have issues with discussing accidents, mistakes and errors openly.

Having read more of the report, I shall write again on this in due course.

For a conversation about knowledge management and learning cultures in general, or identifying and learning lessons in particular, please contact me direct or via the Knoco website.

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[1] http://www.iraqinquiry.org.uk/media/246581/the-report-of-the-iraq-inquiry_section-98.pdf  Volume 8, Section 9.8 ‘Conclusions: The Post-Conflict Period’, Paragraph 197, Page 504.

Let's compete with those outside, sure but not with our team-mates, colleagues etc...

I recently conducted a KM assessment at a multinational chemicals firm, interviewing over 20 people with varying levels of experience, seniority and from across all functional teams.  The aim is to understand what KM capabilities are in place, how well they are doing and what’s missing.  One of the things we look at, when assessing a client’s KM governance, is the culture of the place.

What is it like to work there?  What do people think about KM?  What do senior managers think about it?  How are mistakes and errors viewed?  Is there a ‘blame culture’ or a ‘learning culture’?  Also, is there any internal competition between individuals, teams or departments?  How willing are people to share knowledge and information with one another?  To what extent does the maxim, ‘knowledge is power’ hold sway?

Regular readers of this blog will recall my review of Margaret Heffernan’s excellent book, ‘Wilful Blindness’ in which she examined many examples of organisations where leaders either don’t want to hear the truth or the led don’t want to tell it.  This phenomenon, common to many (most?!) organisations, is caused by a view that passing on bad or embarrassing news leads to unpopularity, demotion, or even getting fired.
In the excellent ‘Ted talk’ linked below, Margaret discusses how successful teams (and wider organisations) are those where there is a desire to help one another with knowledge and information.  She doesn’t mention the term ‘knowledge management’ but the positive examples she offers (i.e. chicken farming, engineering, responses to environmental regulations) would, if assessed using our methodology, get high ‘KM governance’ scores.
Four more quick points:

·        It’s not about technology – Margaret Heffernan recognises that technology is just an enabler and achieves absolutely nothing without the right people, processes and governance in place;

·        Knowing one another – She argues that people have to know one another in order to establish trust as well as knowing who has what skills, knowledge and experience.  I would argue that, whilst true, shortening this time is possible, not least by senior managers who lead by personal example rather than directive;

·        “Companies don’t have ideas, only people do” – Again, this is true but one of the key ‘lightbulb’ moments for senior managers on a KM journey comes when they realise that the ideas generated within their organisations should be at least be ‘possessed’ by the company. However, most knowledge remains locked in the heads of people who refuse to share it because the status quo has made it clear there is no incentive (or supporting culture) for them to do so.  So what?  Organisations should:

o   Reward teams for sharing their knowledge instead of hoarding it;

o   Create knowledge assets for the critical knowledge areas;

o   Build Communities of Practice around knowledge areas where there is strength in depth;

o   Retain experts’ knowledge rather than letting it walk out of the door when they do;

·        “Conflict is frequent because candour is safe” – yes, yes, yes.  Being honest is often hard, especially when discussing things we wish had turned out differently.  But in environments where honesty is rewarded over success, or dishonesty punished before failure, people can challenge old ideas, as well as new ones – in such places, real innovation is possible.

If you’d like to chat about these ideas, tools or more with some knowledge management consultants, please get in touch, either direct or via the Knoco website.

The NHS is starting to learn - keep it up!

This blog has previously looked (here, here, here, here and here!) at the various ways in which the British National Health Service (NHS) has grappled with knowledge management in general and, specifically, has sought to learn from both managerial and clinical mistakes.
Today brings some new developments to the story that began with the ‘Mid Staffs’ scandal a few years ago.
The Health Secretary, Jeremy Hunt, will today be announcing a series of measures aimed at encouraging both openness and honesty about mistakes, as well as demonstrable learning from them.
Details will no doubt emerge later today but this article on the Huffington Post website summarises the expected announcements, with the key points, and my comments thereon, being:

·        Legal protection for anyone coming forward with information relating to hospital mistakes – this is a welcome move that may yet embed the elusive ‘just culture’ approach to handling error and balancing the need for accountability and learning;

·        Independent review and confirmation of the causes of all deaths in UK hospitals from 2018 – whilst this sounds a good idea, more details are needed as there remains the risk that good governance is simply being outsourced and that another adversarial interface has been created;

·        A so-called ‘Learning from Mistakes League’ that will measure the level of openness across NHS organisations – again, more details are needed but this sounds good as it is making it clear that learning and openness are expected; however, this needs to be managed carefully as inter-organisational learning will not happen if such a league is used as some form of internal competition – nothing kills the sharing of good practice dead more effectively than rewarding people for what they know, rather than what they share.

Effective lesson learning requires a framework within which lessons are identified, analysed, managed and then implemented.  Such a framework requires 4 enablers:

·        People with defined roles and accountabilities;

·        Processes by which lessons are identified, captured, shared and embedded in daily practices;

·        Technology through which lessons are captured, shared and managed to completion;

·        Governance by which managers clarify their expectations for lessons to be learned, reward good lesson learning performance and support such activities through the allocation of time, money and people.

The presence and effectiveness of these enablers is best measured through some form of audit or assessment, like the one we offer at Knoco.
Let’s await further details with interest and perhaps also think about how well our own organisations identify, manage and implement lessons from experience, good and bad alike.
For a conversation about lessons learned, please contact me direct or via the Knoco website.

A 'beloved' NHS wasting taxpayer's money, brilliant John Pilger, the bloody Khmer Rouge, tragic Cambodia and knowledge loss

The risk posed by an ageing workforce is a huge issue for many industries. As experienced staff retire, so critical knowledge will leave with them, which can leave the organisation highly exposed unless that knowledge can be retained and transferred to more junior, less experienced staff.
Where people leave to join competitors the impact is doubled, since you now not only lack key knowledge but your competitors have gained what you lack.
A Knowledge Retention and Transfer (KRT) Strategy is an effective KM approach to reducing this risk.

Few organisations employ KRT strategies. Perversely, most appear content to see knowledge walk out the door and accept that paying top dollar to regain what was once theirs is just what they have to do.

This article highlights a key symptom of this issue. A British National Health Service (NHS) Trust has let an employee with essential skills and knowledge leave and then had to hire them back because it lacked any sort of transition or handover plan to potential successors. Such a stark absence of effective KM should concern those of us that care about the management of knowledge as a key asset. Those of us that are British tax-payers should be irritated, to say the least.

In his astonishing 1979 documentary, ‘Year Zero: The Silent Death of Cambodia’, the journalist John Pilger described how the Khmer Rouge killed most doctors, intellectuals and anyone with a degree, to facilitate their efforts to create an agrarian communist state. Deliberately depriving the country of its knowledge reduced challenge to its barbaric rulers, strengthening their grip on power.

In this chilling clip, Pilger narrates: “This was the national library - almost as a symbol, the KR converted it into a pig-sty and burned its books and archives. From Year Zero all past knowledge was illegal.”

Shocking, yes and brutal too, no doubt.

But is what the Khmer Rouge sought to achieve through deliberate policy really any different from what thousands of organisations do every year, albeit through neglect?

For help in working out your organisation’s critical knowledge areas, and then starting to protect them, please contact me direct or via the Knoco website.

'Ello, 'ello, what's all this then? Rewarded for knowing, or for sharing also?

Today the UK’s College of Policing published a report following a review into leadership, with recommendations to improve performance across the police service.  Details are available on their website here.
Regular readers of the blog will recall our examination (here) of the Hillsborough Inquiry and the issues it raised about honesty, defensiveness and poor police leadership.  So it is great to see serious efforts to address some of these issues.

In the report, there are some ideas that will appeal to those keen to learn from other’s experiences and manage their knowledge more effectively.
One encouraging point, on how the review was conducted, is revealed thus, “The review recognised the importance of capturing the lessons of leadership development from the widest range of sectors outside policing.”  So far, so good – using lessons is almost always a good idea, and to seek them from ‘outsiders’ introduces new perspectives and guards against ‘group-think’, one of the dangers highlighted in Margaret Heffernan’s excellent book, ‘Wilful Blindness’, which I reviewed here.
Welcoming fresh inputs is further encouraged through the recommendation for “a structure where officers and staff can exit and re-enter the service, bringing with them their new skills and experience.”
The value of skills, experience and knowledge is recognised in further recommendations, such as:

·        “Existing police leaders should influence and drive the required culture of change by demonstrating their own commitment to personal development….;

·        Develop career opportunities which allow recognition and reward for advanced practitioners.

·        Offering staff and officers reward and recognition for advanced skills and knowledge. We recommend that the Home Office should consider what amendments to pay and conditions are required to allow professional expertise to be appropriately recognised and rewarded.”

Again, that’s all well and good but, without explicit encouragement and enforcement of knowledge-sharing and collaboration, there is a danger that these proposals will result merely in rewarding people for what they know, without further recognition for what they share.
Incentivising the accrual of knowledge without any balancing expectation that it be shared produces employees that are reluctant to help others, or will only do so when they can spare the time (i.e. rarely).
This is common across many organisations, where the unintended consequences of rewarding knowledge are disincentives to share, reluctance to be honest and open (especially about shortcomings) and expensive losses when those with the know-how depart, leaving the remainder struggling to fill that gap.
Far better for the recommendations to read thus (my edits in bold):

·        “Existing police leaders should influence and drive the required culture of change by demonstrating their own commitment to personal development, openness and collaboration.”

·        “Develop career opportunities which allow recognition and reward for advanced practitioners that gain new knowledge and actively seek to share it as they do so.”

·        “Offering staff and officers reward and recognition for advanced skills and knowledge. We recommend that the Home Office should consider what amendments to pay and conditions are required to allow the accumulation and sharing of professional expertise to be appropriately recognised and rewarded.”

Such recommendations, just by their wording, would send the signal that hard-won knowledge must be valued, shared and used by all.  Once implemented, they would be an important part in wider efforts to create and nurture a true learning culture.
Further material on leadership, culture, knowledge-transfer and retention is available at the Knoco website.

Hmm, now that IS interesting. Let’s keep that to ourselves.

I have written elsewhere about my admiration for the relative openness of the US military in its approach to lessons learned from operations and training.[1]  Where the British instinct has always been to keep things under wraps, the American bias is traditionally towards greater transparency.

Sadly, this article in the Marine Corps Times, reveals that things are changing.  Whereas I would love to report that the British Army has decided to publish more, unfortunately the US Marine Corps Centre for Lessons Learned (MCCLL) is going the other way.

Whilst the detailed contents of its lessons have always been classified, MCCLL used to publish an unclassified summary every month, which enabled some degree of civilian scrutiny, education, accountability and debate.  Academics, journalists, defence contractors or knowledge management (KM) consultants could keep up to debate on how the US Marine Corps was, or was not learning lessons.

Knowing how much to share and how much to keep hidden is a judgement call facing all organisations.  Making everything secret is self-defeating and prevents one’s own employees from benefiting from learning from other’s experiences.  However, sharing everything ‘warts and all’ is not without its adverse consequences either, not least for an organisation’s short-term reputation.

As regular readers of this blog will know, I err on the side of greater openness, which means more honesty, more self-criticism, more transparency and a willingness to entertain ideas and innovations from ‘outside the box’.  Whilst some lessons should be considered sensitive, and access to them limited, these should be the exception, not the norm.

Unfortunately, MCCLL decided that re-writing lessons to ‘de-classified’ status took too long.  Let’s hope that they change their mind soon.

To chat about lessons learned - military, commercial or indeed from anywhere - contact me direct or please visit the Knoco website.

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[1] “Furthermore, the traditional British predilection for over-classifying official documentation impedes both the internal sharing of knowledge hard-won on operations and its critical analysis by outsiders who, however unwelcome, may nevertheless provide valuable insights.  To make the point, you can buy the US Army/Marine Corps Counterinsurgency Field Manual from Amazon whereas tracking down its British equivalent requires agility, cunning and tenacity.  It’s not the enemy’s efforts that are most frustrated by such constraints.” ‘Learning Lessons – the British Army’s Experience’, Rupert Lescott, Page 11, downloaded from http://www.slideshare.net/barmychap/20140409-learning-lessonsthebritisharmyexperience on 3 June 2015

 

The expeditionary operation is dead. Long live the expeditionary operation!

The British contribution to the NATO International Security Assistance Force (ISAF) in Afghanistan has ended.

 

I served in Afghanistan in the hot and bloody summer of 2008 and left the place convinced that what we were doing was (a) right and (b) working.

I then worked for 3 years in the British Army’s Lessons Exploitation Centre (LXC), helping the Army try to learn from the Afghanistan operation.  Indeed, it was at the LXC that I learnt about Knowledge Management (KM) and Organisational Learning (OL).  Much of what the Army has done in these difficult areas is to its credit and it is rightly considered something of a world-leader in its efforts to learn and share the knowledge that its learning generates.

I have written at length about these efforts elsewhere and a detailed account how the Army tries to learn is available here.

However, my 3 years at the LXC led me to question why such considerable efforts led to so little achievement.  Why did so many varied and costly inputs produce so few valuable outputs?

My conclusion was that the British Army lacks a learning culture and should try to develop one.

The British Army lacks a learning culture because it does not permit dissent, constructive or otherwise.

The British Army lacks a learning culture because senior officers sing their own praises and those of their soldiers but shy away from self-criticism, thereby most definitely ‘leading by example’ and demonstrating that such frankness and honesty is not the way to get ahead.

The British Army lacks a learning culture because of the ‘can do’ attitude that leads all combat arm officers worth their salt to agree to missions for which they have not been sufficiently well prepared, trained or equipped.

The British Army lacks a learning culture because the current difficult operation quickly loses its appeal and the next one will finally be the chance to do things right.

The British Army lacks a learning culture because every venture has to be successful – we always win…we can’t be seen to make mistakes…we can’t lose face.

In his searing account of the Iraq and Afghanistan campaigns, 'Losing Small Wars', Frank Ledwidge quoted one high-flying officer’s analysis of the outcome of the British Army’s efforts in Basra thus, “We were defeated, pure and simple.”  And yet the public narrative at the time was one of ‘work well done’, ‘worthwhile sacrifices’ and soldiers, sailors and airmen and women of whom ‘we can all be rightly proud’.

To do otherwise, to question (let alone criticize) such efforts is seen as ‘doing a disservice’ to the fallen, or being ‘disloyal’ to one’s former colleagues, or basically contorted in any way possible to deflect from the very real possibility that it was one massive mistake.

And so it is today. With the final troops now leaving Camp Bastion, the message being pushed is that we did a good job, that we can be proud and that we have displayed the utmost professionalism etc etc.  For example, listen to this interview from BBC Radio 4’s ‘The World at One’, between Martha Kearney and Major General Richard Nugee, the current Deputy Commander of ISAF’s Kabul HQ.

Utter rubbish.

Brooking no criticism, permitting no honest enquiry into performance and enabling no consideration of courses of action beyond the safe and self-protecting is no way to learn.

As I have done before, I have to conclude once more with these words, from (formerly) Major Giles Harris DSO, quoted in Toby Harnden’s book, ‘Dead Men Risen’,  

“The British are very good at whipping ourselves into a sense of achievement….we almost have to, to make it bearable.  You can’t do something like this and analyse it all the way through and think: “Actually we got that wrong.”  You just can’t.  It takes so much emotional investment.  I’m not saying we lie to ourselves but there’s an element of telling yourself that it’s all right and it’s going well, just to keep going.”[1]

Such honesty.  We need more of it.

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[1] Toby Harnden, ‘Dead Men Risen’, Page 558.

Physician, heal thyself!

On this morning’s Today programme on BBC Radio 4, the UK’s National Health Service (NHS) featured strongly, including an interview with its newly-appointed Chief Executive, Simon Stevens.
Earlier in the programme, Sarah Montague interviewed Professor Malcolm Green, a former physician at Royal Brompton who argued for replacing the current “culture of blame and shame”.  In outline, Professor Green said:
·        When things go wrong in the NHS, someone has to be blamed; someone has to be fired;
·        There is little learning from errors;
·        It is uncommon for processes to be improved;
·        The NHS needs to learn from airline and construction industries, which means:
o   Investigating
o   Supporting
o   Working in teams to make sure there is progressive and consistent improvements in processes
o   Incidents and mistakes should be understood and worked through how to stop them happening
The interview went no further, for lack of time.  However, had it done so, it would have been interesting to hear more about how the current culture inhibits learning in the NHS.
The discussion reminded me of Sidney Dekker’s book, “Just Culture” – a review of which is available on this blog here.
In that book, Dekker argues that a balance must be struck between safety and accountability.  When things go wrong, if all that happens is for people to be ‘blamed’ then true learning can never take place.  This is because we all make honest mistakes and always will – “to err is human”. However, if honest mistakes are treated as crimes and ‘justice’ sought, all that will happen is that mistakes will be covered up and we will never learn from them.
This is far from easy and requires strong, bold and compassionate leadership and for people in senior positions to be honest about their own failings as well as others'.
For a conversation about lessons, leadership and how to develop a learning culture, please get in touch directly or via the Knoco website.

Learning lessons - the British Army experience, for good or bad

We read last week that the MOD is trying to prevent publication of a book that it commissioned, ‘An Intimate War’ by Dr Mike Martin, allegedly because it contains criticisms of the way the British Army conducted operations in Afghanistan.  We have been here before, with Toby Harnden’s excellent book, ‘Dead Men Risen’, the entire first print run of which the MOD had to buy and destroy because it allegedly contained details that might have compromised operational security.

Twitter and other social media have today contained much commentary regarding the Army’s failure to accept criticism which, in turn, impedes its ability to learn lessons.

I declare an interest here because, for 3 years, I worked as a lessons analyst for the British Army’s Lessons Exploitation Centre (LXC) in Warminster, Wiltshire.

The British Army has put much effort, time and resources into improving its learning capabilities but it has much more to do, as does any organisation that seeks to learn.  My article at this link here sets out how the Army developed learning capabilities but also argues, strongly, that cultural factors remain that, unless addressed, will continue to inhibit its opportunity to improve performance.  It imparts no classified information but covers the following:

• The expansion of the British Army’s KM and OL analytical capacity from 2009 onwards;
• The development of Mission Exploitation Symposia to socialise hard-won knowledge;
• The use of lessons as part of risk management;
• The endorsement of the ‘lessons learned’ approach by the Army Inspectorate;
• Small signs of progress that learning is actually taking place;

 

The article then makes suggestions on how the Army can develop a learning culture:

• Learning about learning – through study of leading KM and OL theorists and practitioners;
• Development of a lessons cadre – making KM and OL a career-stream of choice;
• Moving LXC up the chain of command, reporting to the very top;
• Revisions of performance appraisals to encourage and embed the behaviour that supports learning;
• A move towards open dialogue, not mere adversarial discussion;
• Good, old-fashioned leadership by example through self-criticism and humility;
• A move from reflexive defensiveness, currently hidden behind ‘security’ concerns;
• Recognition that rank and cap-badge inhibit knowledge-transfer and learning;
• Embracing genuine mission command – and learning by doing;
• Moving towards a just culture, encouraging honesty and intelligent accountability;
• Learning from others – armies, charities, companies, the world

 

The article then concludes by quoting Major Giles Harris DSO, who commanded the Prince of Wales’s Company of the Welsh Guards on their bloody tour of Afghanistan in 2009,

“The British are very good at whipping ourselves into a sense of achievement….we almost have to, to make it bearable.  You can’t do something like this and analyse it all the way through and think: “Actually we got that wrong.”  You just can’t.  It takes so much emotional investment.  I’m not saying we lie to ourselves but there’s an element of telling yourself that it’s all right and it’s going well, just to keep going.”[i]

Such honesty.  We need more of it.
For more information on lessons, learning cultures, knowledge management and organisational learning, please visit the Knoco website.

 

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[i] Toby Harnden, ‘Dead Men Risen’ p. 558.

Aligning KM with training and development

As readers of this blog and the Knoco website will know, lessons should only be considered ‘learned’ when we have either changed something as a result of an identified lesson or when we have deliberately decided not to do so.

Organisations that seek to change things through the lessons management process have many different ‘levers’ on which to pull, in order to improve performance, such as:

• Revising the priorities by which resources are allocated on future projects;
• Creating new roles or updating the job specs for existing ones;
• Modifying processes and the procedures used to ensure such processes are being followed;
• Introducing or amending staff training courses.

These last two are very common examples of the kind of recommendations made in lessons as they can have a relatively high impact quite quickly, whereas budgets and recruitment issues often take a while to resolve.  Consequently, it makes sense for organisational learning or KM teams to be co-located (or, at the very least, closely aligned) with those responsible for the development and delivery of policy and training.

Using the British Defence community as a model, this paper will examine the relationship between knowledge newly acquired through lessons and the policy and training mechanisms that can help implement and embed such knowledge.

Over the past 15 years or so, each of the UK’s armed services has acquired its own ‘warfare centre’, responsible for the development of concepts, doctrine and training policy and delivery thereof, examples of which include:

• Air Warfare Centre (AWC);
• Maritime Warfare Centre (MWC);
• Land Warfare Centre (LWC);
• Defence Concepts and Doctrine Centre (DCDC).

However, with this approach as with many others, the UK has lagged behind the US. In a far-sighted move and, recognising the potential benefits of aligning development, delivery and high-level command, the US Army developed the Training and Doctrine Command (TRADOC) in 1973, with the British Army’s version (Force Development and Training (FDT) – below which the LWC sits) being formed in 2009.

Having spent 3 years as a lessons analyst within the Land Warfare Centre (LWC), I shall use this as the model for discussion.  The LWC contains two primary organisations, namely:

The Directorate of Land Warfare (DLW) - responsible for the development and delivery of conceptual support to both deployed units and the ‘Army of the future’ – contains a number of teams, including:

• Counter-Insurgency Centre (COIN)
• Command and Control Development Centre (C2DC)
• Lessons Exploitation Centre (LXC)
• Scientific Advisory team (SCIAD)
• Warfare Development (WARDEV) - including Doctrine, Research, Simulation and Influence

The Collective Training Group (CTG) – responsible for the development and delivery of collective training to the Army, also includes:

• British Army Training teams (i.e. Canada, Kenya, and Borneo etc.)
• Land Warfare School (LWS)
• Operations Training & Advisory Group (OPTAG)

The Lessons Exploitation Centre receives information feeds from operations and training (including weekly reports, post-incident reports and, as part of Mission Exploitation, Post-Operational Reports and Post-Operational Interviews) and identifies lessons from the fused material which can either support those deployed on operations or inform force development (i.e. how the Army is organised) and training (i.e. how it prepares for operations).  Indeed, the lessons from operations and training are captured and managed under a single, unified process which helps achieve consistency.

Of the many lessons identified from the current operation in Afghanistan, it is worth noting that there are far more containing recommendations for training than any other functional area, reflecting the earlier point - that a relatively high impact can be achieved from changes in this area.  As the Army reduces its operational commitments this year and the amount of training increases to meet the challenges of contingency planning, we can expect this number of lessons both ‘from training’ and ‘for training’ to increase further.


One final observation relating to training lessons – whilst those charged with their management had many more than other departments (e.g. equipment, personnel etc.), the rate at which such lessons were resolved (i.e. recommended changes implemented or lesson closed for other reasons) was far higher.  This was because they managed their lessons as an integral part of their daily work, instead of seeing them as a chore to get round to when time is available - good practice that others would do well to replicate. 


In the world of commerce, some organisations have developed ‘corporate universities’ or developmental teams that either conduct training direct or undertake the strategic and conceptual work needed to inform such training delivery but these are relatively few. 


Examples of corporate universities that cover both Training and Knowledge Management are seen at Caterpillar, Disney, McDonalds and Toyota.  In some cases, such as the Mars University, the company recognises that only 10% of learning comes through training courses and that a blended learning solution must combine formal training, coaching, and knowledge management.

Such organisations can act as KM or learning hubs, well-placed as they are to ensure that those responsible for upholding, maintaining and updating policy (through training delivery) have strong links with those that facilitate (or enforce) KM and learning throughout the company.  Naturally, such links by themselves are not enough to enable true learning to occur and a supportive learning culture is needed.  We shall look at the concept of a learning culture in due course.