“Tolerated failure imprints learning better than success.” One of Dave Snowden’s 7 Principles for Knowledge Management; relevant to the picture of jars of honey at the local Honey Show yesterday. We were treated to ‘open judging’ where the Show Judge clearly (and helpfully) explained why some entries didn’t get a prize.

A very public exposure of ‘bad practice’ if you like, but I absolutely learned a lot. Next year I’ll be back with Bee’s Wax Furniture Polish. I’m going for a prize!

Airbrushed Good Practice. The opposite of bad practice is of course good practice. I must confess I can be a bit sceptical about some good practice case studies I see.

Quite often they can be; context free, optimistic, very logical and linear, attributed to some ‘leadership characteristic’ and a little bit ‘airbrushed’. I’m far more interested in picking through the debris of real life, including the bad practice. It’s an opportunity to learn from the mistakes other people have generously made for you.

Phew! ‘there but for the grace of God go I’. I’ve experienced this feeling twice in the last month, during sessions on risk management training. I’ve got your attention now…

These were sessions delivered by the excellent Nigel Ireland from Barcud Shared Services.

Nigel could have shared examples of good practice, but he didn’t. Instead he handed out illustrative examples of ‘typical’ organisational risk registers (suitably edited to anonymise) and asked people to review them.

We had fun. There’s nothing like eviscerating someone else’s carefully crafted corporate documents. “Woah this is a shocker…”, “that’s not going to assure anyone…”, “where’s the data?”… etc etc.

It’s all fun until someone says… “blimey, I hope ours are OK?” The ‘there but for the grace of God go I’ moment

That literally happened on both occasions, and it’s where the deep and impactful learning starts. People start to understand and think about what this means for their own situation. Then they can do something positive to make improvements. It doesn’t get much better than that in a risk management training session does it.

Bad practice that exposes a small failure (someone else’s) that increases your own level of understanding and then hopefully prompts some improvement. Good practice case studies don’t stand a chance. Bravo Nigel.

‘Stop showing us good practice!’ This is phrase a school headteacher friend used with me on many occasions. Their school is in a ‘difficult and challenging’ area shall we say. Yet, the people pushing school improvement keep offering ‘inspirational’ examples from ‘award winning’ schools generally in ‘nice’ middle class areas. A completely different context.

The impact of ‘pushing’ this good practice wasn’t just neutral. It was actually negative, contributing to a feeling of demotivation and helplessness. “Show us something we can realistically aspire to” was something they used to say.

What do other teachers say? Given that they spend their lives immersed in learning, it’s well worth listening to what teachers have to say on the subject.

This blog post by Paul Heery is what my headteacher friend was crying out for. Please do have a look at: ‘The value of sharing bad practice’ from someone who’s been both a teacher and an inspector.

There are some points that Paul Heery makes that absolutely chime with me, and what I’ve learnt from Dave Snowden and others in relation to Knowledge Management.

• “It’s an often-stated fact that we learn more from our failures than our successes, so it’s not too far-fetched to suggest that we may learn just as much from watching the failures of others as we do from watching their successes,”
• “It’s this reflection and application to one’s own context that makes observation such a powerful tool for learning.”
• “While teaching is often an individual endeavour, learning about teaching is far more effective when it’s a shared activity.”
• “I’ve never seen a lesson so perfect that it couldn’t possibly be improved, and I’ve never seen a lesson so terrible that there was nothing that could be built upon.”

Back to risk management… You could probably apply any of the points I’ve highlighted to improving risk management. Probably also to improving governance approaches.

Where I want to finish is from a personal point of view, to spend more time rooting around in the world of bad practice. I’m aspiring to be more like the Honey Show Judge.

So, What’s the PONT?

1. Looking at bad practice is often a more effective way to learn than standing in front of the ‘radiant glow’ of good practice.
2. Training that allows you to eviscerate someone else’s bad practice is more than just good fun. It deepens understanding of your own context.
3. Having a ‘there but for the grace of God go I’ moment can be a powerful driver of improvement. If you have the humility to accept it.