Learn from What Follows

Popping pills taught me about learning.

“Take one pill twice a day,” said my doctor, handing me a bottle containing colourful capsules. “We’ll do another blood test next week.”

“Another blood test - why!? My arm is so sore, Doc!”, I cried.

“Whilst I’m confident in my diagnosis, I can never be certain - the human body is complex. Therefore, every action I take has two purposes: to improve your health, and to improve my diagnosis of you. If your body responds differently to how I expect, my diagnosis is incomplete.”

Something in my head clicked.

Organisations seem complex. This means any diagnosis of a problem is likely to be more wrong than right.

Yet, when we take action - change a process, introduce a technology, or restructure a team - we often overlook the opportunity to learn and improve our diagnosis. We forget to check to what degree our action had the expected consequences.

As Mike Rother suggests, “Learning happens when there is a difference between what we thought, expected, or predicted and what really happens.”

So, every change will bring more or less improvement than expected, and that difference is learning. It’s this learning that ensures our next change is more effective than the last.

Explained Feynman:

“Newton guessed the law of gravitation, calculated all the kinds of consequences for the solar system and so on, compared them to experiment, and it took several hundred years before the slight error of the motion of mercury was developed.

During all that time the theory had been failed to be proved wrong, and could be taken to be temporarily right, but it can never be proved right - because tomorrow's experiment may succeed in proving what you thought was right wrong.

So, we’re never right. We can only be sure we're wrong. However, it's rather remarkable that we can have an idea which could last so long.”

The takeaway? Power up your next action by learning from your last. As Ackoff suggests, “The only ones who are incapable of learning are those who never make a mistake, or are unaware of the mistakes they make.” And, never look directly at the needle when you’re having your blood taken.

This article was inspired by Feynman’s lectures and Ackoff’s Management in Small Doses.