The third component of adaptive capability is the ability to learn from experience.

Quests are by their nature too ambitious, too complicated and too problematical to have all the required wisdom at the outset. Learning must happen on the way.

Learning here does not refer to the witch-hunts and blame apportionment that, typically, follow corporate embarrassment & discomfiture. Adaptive capability requires an ethos of learning. Embracing malfunctions, fiascos, letdowns, screw-ups and disappointments for what they can teach us rather than the seizing opportunities to snipe at ‘colleagues’ and bemoan bureaucracy processes & resource constraints.

In this phase of our involvement we enable you to identify, direct and support learning teams… sensitised groups of stakeholders in specific areas of the organisation. This enhances the organisation’s ability to benefit from it’s experiences, not hide them.

Many organisations unwittingly impede learning through fear. Any hint of real, implied or even an imagined sense of threat mean that, without good facilitation, being honest can be a menacing prospect. Fear evokes defensiveness, which in turn corrodes adaptive capability. Well set up, directed and facilitated learning teams overcomes the fear of disclosure required for true learning.

Over time, our approach, of identifying and mentoring your own facilitators will develop a self-sufficient capability to generate learning feedback. This is critical for the organisation to continually adapt itself.