In high pressure pitches and presentations, not everyone (in charge) learns from their mistakes

Can’t wait to read this book about teams that learn from their errors (or don’t).  Tim Harford reviews in th FT, Amy Edmonson’s book “The Right Kind of Wrong.” She says:

the teams that displayed the best teamwork were the ones making the most mistakes — because they admitted more to making errors. Dysfunctional teams admitted to very few, for the simple reason that nobody on those teams felt safe owning up.

“The timeworn euphemism for a screw-up is a “learning experience”, but Edmondson’s story points to a broad truth about that cliché: neither organizations nor people can learn from their mistakes if they deny that the mistakes ever happened.

In the world of pitching and presenting innovation, this is vital research.  Does your team have post-mortems after a big pitch is lost or a presentation falls flat?  Is that because the most senior (powerful) people in the company did all the talking?  And maybe have already moved on because “it’s a numbers game” and volume trumps quality? 

I’ve heard these excuses for years — have sometimes uttered them myself, to cover up some uncomfortable truths.  TIP:  Calling for a post-mortem after a bad experience is sure to place blame on an individual.  A better approach is to build in a process of post-mortems — win or lose, we talk about what went right and what could have been better.  Your employer may not be enthusiastic, or even participate, but having that mechanism in place is far better than doing the same thing over and over again and expecting a different result….