I’ve seen a lot of professionals forget what they’ve learned through training programs. And I’m not talking here about detail and minutia – but about the KEY objectives and takeaways. If they’ve forgotten those, they’ve wasted a lot of time and money. And, those two things are in short supply these days.

Many people turn to Experiential Learning to deliver the “sticky” (Heath Brothers, I’m looking at you), because making things sticky isn’t just important. It is essential. Nigel Rayment wrote a recent Huffington Post piece regarding Experiential Learning that got me thinking:

Given his take, the question becomes: Are your experiential learning programs really learning programs?

Consider Rayment’s criteria:

• Specific learning outcomes: The outcome of the exercise must be specific and have depth
• Participants should understand their starting point: no guesswork here…as Covey taught us all, “Begin with the end in mind”
• Structured learning cycle: experience, discuss, learn, apply, review
• Interact with the participants: this is a facilitative approach
• Debriefing is a key: immediate and intentional discussion
• Structured re-assessment: sustain the impact of the learning, rinse/repeat

If you can’t answer ‘yes’ to all six, there is a danger that your experiential learning programs aren’t achieving the desired results. If that is the case, you’d either have to revise the experiential learning program to meet the criteria, or consider the real possibility that experiential learning isn’t the right answer for this instance. (Option 3 could then potentially be that it is time to vacation…?)

I started using this criterion in my consulting practice,hesitatingly at first, because I feared the worst: that my experiential learning approach might have been engaging, innovative, and TOTALLY without value. Let me report: it has been a great test. Where I thought such a structured approach would inhibit the enjoyment factor and creativity of the designs, it has been just the opposite. Instead, the structure has been liberating, and given me permission to add additional creative wattage. And clients have noticed. The connections to mission, “real” work, daily impact have been tangible for them. First, in the session, and in the weeks to come, I’ve heard positive feedback regarding the effectiveness of the sessions.

I was surprised when the cup of coffee I bought the other morning was handed to me in a styrofoam cup. A few months back, former New York City Mayor Michael Bloomberg introduced legislation that would ban all styrofoam containers from the city’s restaurants. The measure still sits in debate, hence my Saturday morning cup of joe’s ability to stay steaming hot on my subway ride up Manhattan’s west side. Mid-train ride I got to thinking about the styrofoam lobby (yes, that exists) and their fight against the ban, which is understandable considering that the country’s most populous city could initiate a domino effect of anti-styrofoam campaigns. Could there be another way? Where is innovation happening?

I’m no scientist, but I have to believe that with the right brains in the right rooms, those styrofoam guys could come up with a new type of packaging that is better for the environment yet still keeps things toasty inside. So why haven’t they?

The most successful companies are the ones who don’t wait until their star starts to set before they begin to think about new ways of doing business. Still, too many wait to innovate until they’re in a crisis situation, and crawling out of that hole is difficult if not impossible.

But what is less obvious about these successful, cutting-edge companies is that all that creativity doesn’t just live in the R&D department, but throughout the organization. The right organizational culture makes it possible for innovation to occur.

As my colleague Ashley recently wrote, innovation requires promotion of risk-taking and acceptance of failure throughout your company. Research also shows that people are more creative when they have a supportive work community, autonomy, projects they perceive as challenging, time and space to focus on those challenges, a mindset friendly to ambiguity and enough wiggle room to try something new – whether that’s creating a new breakthrough product or simply revamping the way the department organizes documents.

gC worked with a client to design a leadership summit last month for one of most important revenue-driving divisions within a global powerhouse company – a division of nearly 1000 people. At the summit, the division leader proudly told the story of a junior employee who had an idea for improving a crucial process. She took the idea to her manager, who elevated it quickly to the top. Her idea is now changing the way the division does business, increasing efficiency and productivity. Imagine if their company’s culture wasn’t flexible enough to incorporate new ideas or even allow space for them to percolate, empowering of its junior (and senior) employees, or willing to try a new way of working while knowing full well it might fail?

As a leader, being open to the ambiguity required for your organization’s culture to stay innovative isn’t easy. But then think, when’s the last time you drank out of styrofoam cup?

First published in Fast Company, March 6, 2014.

We are excited to share Chris’s inaugural Fast Company post. Here’s a quick snippet:

“Culture is a relentless driver of employee behavior. Left to its own devices, it can potentially limit an organization. But if leaders work to define it, assess it, and understand it, culture can be used as a tangible business lever to directly achieve goals and improve performance.”

He goes on to share the four key components needed to translate culture into something people can relate to, and invest in:

1. A SOLID MODEL
2. TOOLS FOR UNDERSTANDING
3. PROCESSES TO IMPLEMENT
4. TURNING DATA INTO ACTION

For more, read the full piece and feel free to join the discussion on “culture translation” by commenting here. We’d love to hear your thoughts and ideas.

At gothamCulture we talk about culture all the time. Like, all the time. This stems from our belief that at the center of an engaged workforce and an organizations’ performance, whether you define that as a healthy bottom line or degree of social impact, lies its culture. Culture reveals itself in many ways, from the plaque on your office door to the policies that guide how you work, but none more important than how you engage with your colleagues.

As we start a new year, my guess is that a lot of us have professional ambitions on our list of resolutions for 2014, probably just under “lose weight/join gym”. This is great – no one believes in finding professional fulfillment more than we do here at gC. But if you’re feeling antsy and annoyed in a job and are ready to throw in the towel, consider this (incredibly uncomfortable) lesson I learned last month.

I spent a November weekend in an unusual training many social psychologists subject themselves to during their education: a Group Relations conference. Using the word “conference” doesn’t quite call up the right image, because the purpose of this conference wasn’t to ideate around the newest innovations or complete continuing education credits while enjoying a new conference tote and swag. The purpose is simply just to be in groups. Just be….in groups. Over the course of three days we sat in big groups and small groups, self-organized groups and assigned groups. Without an agenda, keynote speaker, facilitator or assignment, the central focus became the words we used and how we chose to relate to each other. (If you feel uncomfortable just reading this, imagine how I and 74 of my new friends felt after three straight days.)

At one point over the weekend, we self-organized into groups and were then encouraged to interact with other the groups that had formed. Conflict theory teaches us that when you fail to see another person in full context, you tend to make up stories to explain any unpleasant behavior. Throw in a little negative emotion and your working relationship goes from water cooler chit chat to sending covert emails to your friends riddled with four letter descriptors. At the conference, you would have thought the walls separating our groups were actually borders separating countries. Because we could only guess at what was happening in the other rooms, our defenses went up fast and my teammates and I were quickly swept up in how convinced we were that everyone else was rejecting us. Every intergroup interaction was entered into with skepticism and doubt about the other’s motives. But when all groups came together toward the end of the weekend, I was surprised to find that my group was not, in fact, the social outcast. In fact, nearly every group thought it had been rejected, too. It was a tremendous “a ha” moment for me when I realized just how rich those stories we wrote about what went on on the other side of the wall were.

Which brings me back to culture, how we choose to engage with others and your list of resolutions. If you are struggling with your boss, so much so that you’re ready to throw up your hands and saunter out the door, consider what’s actually going on behind her wall. It might not be what you think. If you’re a leader whose team or organization is always a little toxic and people just don’t seem to jive, consider the amount of transparency that is (or isn’t) there between you. It’s amazing what just 10 minutes of honest and vulnerable communication can do to clear up years of misconceptions. Consider a resolution to learn more instead of to up and leave. Your own health, and that of your company, will be better off for it. No gym required.