Monday, July 20, 2015

Do we really learn from our mistakes?

Please click over to this new article I have published on the athenahealth Leadership Forum.  I'm hoping you will post comments.  Thanks.

An excerpt:

It’s often said that we learn from our mistakes. Indeed, many a business course in leadership offers that premise as a given. I’ve glibly repeated this often in my classes, speeches, and advisory work.

“You don’t learn from your successes,” I point out, “but rather from your errors.”

But do we really learn from our mistakes as a matter of course?

My friend and colleague Michael Wheeler, in his wonderful book The Art of Negotiation, warns us that it is "all to easy to be overconfident about our ability to observe and learn."

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