Organizations Don’t Learn. People Inside of Them Do.

We often think that organizations act, think, and decide. 

In a faceless composite of belief and value, we can come to believe organizational cultures, strategies, and values exist independently of the people who comprise them —  that the many structures and policies that influence the workplace have a mind of their own. 

As a result, we often wait for and expect the organization to learn from its mistakes and successes. 

But the reality is that organizations don’t learn. People do. And they bring those learnings to the collective mindset of the enterprise and act on them through their decisions and choices. 

When leaders purposely imprint a set of values and choices over time that are highly consistent, organizations begin to act like a learning body. As multiple people apply what they believe the organization expects of them, the enterprise appears to act with a conscious intention. 

But it doesn’t. 

This is why it is so important to institutionalize the working knowledge of its most experienced practitioners. The best organizations work hard to document the wisdom and learnings of their best leaders.

Through a variety of learning mechanisms, they design programs and experiences where leaders teach leaders, imprinting their values and insights onto the next generation. 

There are some things only internal leaders can impart to others. Making master teachers out of the senior leadership team is essential for sustaining a culture of success for generations to come. 

Through case studies, decision reviews, and value clarity exercises, senior leaders reveal the playbook of success to future leaders.  In the best versions of these programs, they pay particular attention to the history of the enterprise, highlighting critical junctures where new values were shaped and when important lessons were realized. 

In great organizations, everyone has an appreciation for the roadmap of events that helped to forge the contemporary version of the enterprise. 

Sustaining knowledge and wisdom relies on leaders repetitively sharing what they know throughout an organization. Without a dedicated effort to institutionalize the wisdom of existing leaders, when those people leave or retire, their knowledge goes with them. The enterprise is always less as a result. 

If you would benefit greatly from the working principles and learnings of prior leaders in your organization but can’t lay your hands on anything that outlines them, perhaps it is time to stop the leakage of this institutional knowledge and chart a different path for learning. 

Document what the most experienced people know, think, and value. Share it often with others. Now, watch the collected wisdom of the organization grow into the future.