Building a culture of learning at work
How leaders can create the psychological safety for people to constantly rethink what’s possible
Source | www.strategy-business.com | Adam Grant
A few years ago, leaders at the Gates Foundation reached out to see if I could help them improve their culture. They already had a strong culture of performance: They hired world-class scientists and maintained excellence of execution. Their goal was to improve their learning culture, in which people have the humility to know what they don’t know and the curiosity to rethink the way they’ve always done things.
When I first arrived, people were whispering about the annual strategy reviews. It’s the time when program teams across the foundation meet with the cochairs — Bill and Melinda Gates — and the CEO to give progress reports on execution and collect feedback. Leaders were concerned that the pressure to present airtight analyses was discouraging people from taking risks. They often stuck to tried‑and‑true strategies that would make incremental progress rather than daring to undertake bold experiments that might make a bigger dent in some of the world’s most vexing problems.
The foundation of a learning culture is psychological safety — being able to take risks without fear of reprisal. Evidence shows that when teams have psychological safety, they’re more willing to acknowledge their own mistakes and figure out how to prevent them moving forward. They’re also more comfortable raising problems and exploring innovative solutions.
