Lessons Learned - Creating the Right Atmosphere
- Dr. Moria Levy
- Nov 1, 2002
- 2 min read
Updated: Feb 17
Creating the right atmosphere for lessons learned requires building trust, psychological safety, and shared purpose. Through targeted training, visible management support, structured non-blaming methods, guided facilitation, and inclusive participation, organizations reduce fear, encourage openness, and enable honest reflection that turns experience into actionable learning and performance improvement.
Introducing investigation and lessons-learned processes into an organization is typically accompanied by numerous dilemmas. One of the most central dilemmas relates to people: how do we ensure that the lessons learned process is conducted in the right atmosphere to prevent employee concerns and a lack of cooperation on their part?
Below are several small tips that can be helpful in this regard:
Targeted Training: Teaching the objectives of lessons learned and emphasizing their practical goals in the field of action.
Management Spirit: Senior management discussion to clarify expectations from the investigation process.
Softening: Demonstrating investigations in completely different organizations, such as basketball.
Persuading Benefits: Demonstrating internal lessons learned in the organization that yielded practical benefits.
Using a Structured Method: Utilizing forms and templates for the investigation process, which include questions. These questions should not hint at "who did" but rather at "what was done."
Implementation: Accompanying initial investigations by a knowledge management person whose role is to ensure that, during the lessons learned process, the right atmosphere is maintained, and that actions are discussed, not people.
Participation: The executing party is a member of the lessons learned team. At an advanced stage and in appropriate operations, a situation of self-investigation.
And most importantly, exercise great sensitivity. We are dealing with people.
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