People say that the best learning comes from experience. I think that’s true. But I also believe that not everyone learns from every experience. It is possible to have an amazing event in your work or in your life and immediately move on to the next thing and not learn much from it.
How can this be?
The answer is that you may be too busy to think about what has happened. Every experience does not come with a “lesson” attached. The secret ingredient to learning from experience is to pause and reflect. In order to have an experience and make it part of your thinking, you have to ask some questions about it to analyze what happened. If you do, you will most likely discover the lesson of your experience. But you have to do the work.
What questions work? What should you ask? I have found that there are five, and the effect is magical.
#1 – What happened? Before the incident slips from your memory, ask yourself what happened. Capture the details. What was the sequence of events? Who did what? Who said that? Get a clear idea of what really happened.
#2 – Why did it happen that way? If something good happened, what made it so good? You can learn from that. If it was a mistake or a disaster, why did it happen?
#3 – What were the consequences? How bad was it? Think about cause and effect. Thinking about the impact of an action will tell you why you might want to take a different approach next time.
#4 – What would you do differently in the future? This is the “so what” question. If you ever find yourself in this situation again, what lessons did you learn? What should you change to ensure a better result?
#5 – What should you do next? You’ve thought it through, you know what you should have done, but now what? What are your next steps to set yourself up for success?
A wonderful side benefit of learning from mistakes is that you can stop beating yourself up about it. Yeah, you didn’t do what you planned to do and the results were bad. But you did the work to learn from your mistake, and you’re committed to succeeding next time. This changes the way you think about the mistake and about yourself. With a new intention, you can let go of the bad experience. Reflecting on these questions is like training yourself and has a positive effect on your self-esteem.
Anyone can consider these questions and get the most out of learning from the experience.
However, if you are a manager, you can help a member of your team think. This type of training is one of the most powerful skills of an effective leader. At best, a manager would step in in the coaching role. When something bad happens, the boss asks the magic questions to stimulate the thoughts that lead to learning. This helps the employee find the lessons from within, which is a much more effective way to learn.
At worst, someone who’s had a bad experience might have the kind of boss who doesn’t tolerate mistakes. Reacting with anger, guilt, and humiliation, such a boss would create barriers to learning. With the missed opportunity, the same mistake could happen again.
Managers also learn from mistakes. They can facilitate their own learning by asking the magic questions. Or maybe the manager’s boss knows how to coach her, asking her questions to help her become a better leader. But whether she is lucky enough to have a boss who knows how to train, she must take responsibility for developing her own effective leadership skills. She be her own best trainer.