When do organizations and people learn from their experiences?
“Peter Senj” deals with this issue in explaining the fifth cause of learning disability. He says: When the results of our actions become evident later than our learning horizon, it is no longer possible to learn anything through direct experience.
The most fundamental decisions in organizations as well as personal life are decisions whose results are determined after years (in a more precise and evaluable manner).
When hiring people, promoting employees to managerial positions, determining strategies, investments, etc. We cannot immediately have an accurate assessment of the effectiveness of our decisions. Therefore, there is the least possibility of learning through trial and error.
Also, when the decisions and programs have a large scope, we must break them into smaller parts and ask people to play a minor role in the form of hierarchies and different organizational units. In the continuation of the work, people in these departments and operational units will be overwhelmed and have a limited view of the Sheriff’s decisions and plans. Therefore, dividing the topic into smaller parts and in the form of smaller time and work units will limit the possibility of understanding the overall topic and learning.
The important issue is that many economic, social, organizational and They occur in the form of long-term time cycles, so analyzing and understanding the process of these cycles and predicting future events can lead to smarter decisions.
For example, when due to the saturation of the labor force in a certain field, fewer people turn to that field, the next cycle will indicate a shortage of personnel in that field, and smart organizations are training employees and planning the necessary for They are facing a period of recession.
This issue can be explained in the field of sinusoidal prices of some agricultural products. For example, in one year, we witness the mass production of a particular product such as potatoes, and as a result, the price and profitability decrease, and in the next year, we witness the limited production and the increase in prices and attractive profit opportunities.
“Sanj” emphasizes this issue and says:
It is very difficult to observe periods and cycles, and as a result, it is more difficult to experience learning from them, especially if the time of these cycles is more than two years. As Kaufman pointed out: Most people are very forgetful
Hossein Rezazadeh
This post is written by shadmanamini