Support intelligent risks and learning from experiments and mistakes
Systems change doesn’t happen in the realm of ideas; it happens through a combination of new ways of thinking and acting. It involves identifying potentially high-leverage interventions, trying real-world experiments, and learning from both successes and failures.
Taking these kinds of chances, though, can only happen in a climate of psychological safety. According to executive coach Laura Delizonna, “We become more open-minded, resilient, motivated, and persistent when we feel safe. Humor increases, as does solution-finding and divergent thinking—the cognitive process underlying creativity” (“High-Performing Teams Need Psychological Safety. Here’s How to Create It”). As a leader, you are responsible for contributing to an atmosphere in which people can risk making mistakes.
People feel safe to try new things in settings where colleagues substitute blame with curiosity and seek win-win solutions to conflict. And when you introduce and support experimenting before investing a lot of money and time in new initiatives, you lower the stakes—and increase the possibilities for learning.
When teams experiment and iterate together, they not only produce better outcomes; they also build their skills for collaborating and ultimately for advancing systems change.
Send us your recommendations for practices and tools.
Prototyping
Prototypes are tangible representations of proposed solutions that you can try out in the real world and then refine as needed. The goal is to “road test” your concept before you invest time and resources in polishing it. And prototyping makes your group’s thinking visible to stakeholders so they can respond with their own ideas and critiques.
Prototyping
Design Thinking: Get Started with Prototyping
Design Thinking
The design firm IDEO defines Design Thinking as a “process for creative problem solving … It utilizes elements from the designer’s toolkit like empathy and experimentation to arrive at innovative solutions.” It also prioritizes action over thought. Although Design Thinking is often used to develop consumer products, you can apply it to any problem in which people matter.
Design Thinking
Case Clinic
The Case Clinic is a tool developed by the Presencing Institute to “guide a team or a group of peers through a process in which a case giver presents a case [concerning a leadership challenge], and a group of 3-4 peers or team members help as consultants based on the principles of the U-Process and process consultation.” Outcomes include ideas for responding to the challenge and development of trust among group members.
Case Clinic
After Action Review
Developed by the US Army, the After Action Review (AAR) is a group method for reflecting on a completed project—whether that project was deemed successful or not. It is designed to identify strengths, weaknesses, and areas of improvement. Projects can be one-time events or long-term activities. Every member of the project team participates in the debrief process. By broadly sharing the results of an AAR, the team ensures that others can learn from their experience.
After Action Review