Your personal development coach

Turn Problems into Learning Opportunities

Problems and “failures” inevitably occur in projects and learning initiatives. A common old way to deal with them is to ignore or hide them and hope they go away. Or, to feel inadequate and harsh in self-evaluation, to blame others, or to wait until they are crises and must be addressed. This has catastrophic effects on agility, innovation, problem-solving, and group trust

But problems, barriers, risks, failures, unplanned consequences are learning opportunities. They often lead to insights, experiments, and discoveries with both performance and learning benefits. So, change your team’s culture from a defensive to a learning culture regarding the problems that will inevitably occur.

Problems are learning resources – just as are books, meetings, case studies. They are experiential learning resources. So, mine them for the “gold” they contain.

  • Define the problem
    • What is happening and what are the short and long term effects and implications?
    • What triggered the problem? When did it first appear? (“Before we decide what to do, let’s be sure we understand the problem”)
    • What are the causes? WHY is the problem occurring? Ask why at least three times. (e.g., “The fire is not burning.”….”Why?”….because there is not enough kindling!”…”Why?”… “Because our supply ran out!”…. “Why?”… “Because Luke, the clerk who orders it, has been sick.”…”Why is that an issue?”…. “Because we have no other way to ensure restocking.”
  • Turn the problem analysis into implications for action/learning (in the above example, “Let’s learn about other ways to manage our restocking.”)

SMART intentional learning from problems requires lots of activity in your prefrontal cortex. That’s the conscious, executive part of your brain. It uses a lot of energy and demands that you and your colleagues focus. Difficult in today’s busy times, so

  • Help mobilize the prefrontal cortexes of your team into intentional thinking and action. Help them concentrate on the issues. Encourage everyone to look through biases, emotions and distractions for the most important insights (E.g., “We all have strong feelings and opinions about this problem. Let’s go around the group and listen to each other’s views and reasons.”)
  • See Concentrate, in Section 2,Mine for Gold
  • Help find deep themes and patterns. As a learning team, look below the surface and outside the boundaries of the current problem. Are there more subtle causes than the obvious ones? (“Let’s take some time to brainstorm all the possible reasons why this may be happening…”)