What we mean by a learning culture:

A culture where everyone understands what success depends on and is continually seeking to improve these key areas of performance. This individual commitment to learning is supported by a systematic approach to debriefing to better understand what works and what doesn’t. Along with a culture of experimentation to test new approaches.

Why it matters:

‘Even if we’re on the right road. If we stand still, we’ll get run over!’

As organisations with a social purpose, we have an obligation to be as good as we can be. If we can improve we should, and a learning culture is key to continual improvement.

‘If the rate of change within an organisation is slower than the rate of change in its external environment, it will become irrelevant.' Jack Welch - CEO and Chair of GE for 20 years.

We need to keep adapting: the pace of change in sport and society in general, means we constantly need to be alert to the need to adapt. This includes changes in what the people we serve are looking for, what competing sports and other similar sectors are offering, and what technology makes possible.

Despite best intentions, problems and issues will arise. A learning culture is critical to identifying issues quickly, and having a systematic approach to solving them.

Culture is like a garden. Left untended, it will grow weeds. We need to create a mechanism to regularly step back and listen to people about the culture they’re experiencing. Identifying issues and opportunities for improvement. We also need to make it easy for people to raise issues.

What does good look like? Key features of a learning culture

Read the following description, and make notes on where you most want to improve learning in your organisation.

1. Shared agreement on WITTW (what it takes to win), so learning efforts are focused on key areas of performance.
2. A systematic approach to frequent debriefs. Open and honest conversations around how we’re doing, what we’ve learned about what works, and what doesn’t. Using data where possible. Identifying opportunities for improvement. These discussions are action orientated, leading to possible solutions, and next step actions to test this approach.
3. Continuous informal learning. Learning is not limited to formal reviews, or training. People take responsibility for continuous improvement and development.
4. Feedback rich culture. People offer feedback to each other, and are open to it. Teams seek feedback from other teams to offer a fresh perspective.
5. A willingness to face reality as it is, not as we would wish it to be. People don’t hide away from bad news. Difficult problems are faced up to with a mindset of curiosity and determination to put it right. When things go wrong, people focus on learning not blame.
6. Learning is shared across teams. Including learning from successes and issues.
7. Openness to new ideas and experimentation. People are encouraged to explore new ideas and experiment with innovative approaches. Supported by effective problem solving techniques for understanding root causes and generating creative options. Also open to learning from other organisations, with similar goals or challenges.
8. External awareness and adaptation: Frequent reviews of how the external environment within which we operate is changing, reflecting on how we should respond.
9. A commitment to supporting development. People are supported in identifying skills and areas of knowledge they need to develop, and given time and resources to invest in this development. The organisation provides training, coaching and mentoring, and stretch opportunities to help people grow.
10. Senior leaders demonstrate a commitment to the importance of learning. Committing time to it, encouraging it from others. Asking questions to stimulate reflections on learning. Modelling an openness to learning from their own mistakes and commitment to their own ongoing development. E.g. Seeking frequent feedback on their impact.

Common traps to avoid:

Again, read through these traps, noting which you recognise a need to work on.

• Over relying on assumptions about what will work. Strategies should be viewed as a hypothesis of what might work that need to be tested.
• Not making time to debrief and identify opportunities for improvement.
• Becoming complacent on the back of success. It is much easier to create success, than it is to sustain it. Complacency is a key reason for this. Organisations that do sustain success are nervous of success, and continue to focus energy on continuous improvement. The New Zealand All Blacks team call this Confident Discontent.
• Being defensive and making excuses to explain away issues, rather than facing up to the need for change they indicate.
• Confirmation bias. The very common tendency to pay more attention to evidence that supports our existing assumptions.
• Top-down culture of innovation and learning. Relying only on senior leaders to solve problems and come up with innovations.
• Resistance to change. Tendency to want to stick with what is known and comfortable.

Possible actions to improve learning in your culture:

• Agree on and communicate the most important areas you want to lead improvement on.
• Get leaders to rate where they feel their team is at on the ‘Growth vs Fixed Mindset Continuum’.
• Make regular debriefs a feature of the culture. Starting with yourselves as a senior team to develop buy in to and skills in the process of debriefing. Using the resources below.
• Invest in developing your leaders' skills in supporting a learning culture, including skills in:
  
  Debriefing
  Feedback skills
  Creative problem solving
  Coaching and mentoring
  ‍
• [From accountability actions] Prioritise behaviours you need to work on in your culture: Bring your desired behaviours to life by asking people to score how consistently you live up to them in the culture, using the below scale. Encouraging discussion in small groups around why people gave the score they did.
  ‍
  Score the consistency of each on a scale of 1 – 4, where:
  
  4 = Consistently a strength
  3 = Generally good, but not always. Still fall short sometimes
  2 = Some great examples, but not the norm
  1 = Seldomly live it. Critical weakness
  ‍
• Map out the most important areas of knowledge and skill you want to invest in as an organisation, plotting them on the following model based on importance [useful to mission critical] and what our current level of skill is relative to what we need.

Use this exercise to prioritise your Learning and Development plan for the organisation.