Learning remains our Achilles' heel

Achilles' heel: A point of weakness which can lead to downfall.

In his famous book from 2007, Taleb uses another metaphor to describe seemingly unlikely events that shatter previously held conventional wisdom about how the world works, and which ‘illustrate a severe limitation to our learning from observations or experience and the fragility of our knowledge’. Quite so.

The learning of lessons and the application of such in pursuit of getting things done, truly represents the organisation’s Achilles’ heel. The reality is that learning can be forgotten, ignored or omitted. Failure to learn lessons is a very personal condition - some people simply do not appreciate feedback and they would not know how to stand corrected. Many individuals become obsessed with self, particularly as they gain additional authority - their own pre-eminence and sense of destiny becoming an obstacle to learning. Human frailties and the pattern of failed learning is a familiar one for those who followed the course of recent public enquiries.

For learning to apply, it has to be captured in some way – that is, structured such that it cannot be avoided or missed in the future. It can be challenged, of course, but that in itself has learning associated with it. We should not just be interested in how learning is identified and disseminated but also in what is preventing it from being unlearned. It is through this latter point that I have come to realise what an enormous disadvantage most of us are at. As individuals (and therefore also as organisations), we lack the approaches and mechanisms necessary to mimic the way in which advances in technology, engineering and medicine are handled; learning in these things is routinely translated into physical objects, captured formulaically or codified in some way. Detail is deliberately set such that it cannot easily be unlearned. That is the whole point; telling colleagues about something or even writing it down is simply not sufficient.

The human condition is one which routinely prevents understanding from being properly cemented. For some inexplicable reason, we repeatedly afford ourselves the luxury of ignoring or bypassing what has been learned before and by others. Some people appear to view unlearning as something to relish and treat it almost as an opportunity and a challenge, and even a source of pride. Until we can consistently create learning bridges which have to be crossed we will continue to undermine our individual position and that of the organisations with which we are associated. To repeat the earlier point, this does not prevent someone from questioning conventional wisdom, far from it – this is about neglecting that wisdom or simply dismissing it or claiming that it need not apply.?

Organisational success and longevity is significantly influenced by the ability and willingness to learn. As practitioners and providers of oversight we must therefore ensure that our understanding is reflective of these learning realities at both a personal and organisational level and that the challenges which these realities present are overcome, or at least that we can attempt to overcome them.

The fact that learning represents the Achilles’ heel for both organisations and individuals, and therefore a principal cause of exposure, may not be a conclusion that we have to live with for much longer - the advent of non-human learning capability promises to be our salvation, and with good reason. The next few years will underline that embracing technology is not simply about a willingness to invest in the latest software, but rather it is about continuously pushing to expand the scope for non-human decision-making and intervention. Bring on the machines.