It is accepted
wisdom that we don’t necessarily learn from our successes but we do and
certainly should learn from our mistakes and failures.
A well-known
mantra goes like this:
· “If
we always do what we always did then we will always get what we always got”
It is a matter of
corporate memory and how it should be used positively as a springboard for the
future. The point is that as a business
grows and changes it has inbuilt experience and memories that can materially
affect the way that we operate; things that are in the DNA of the business.
For example let us
postulate a situation where an energy company has a bad experience leading to
injuries and worse on an oilrig. Management
learns from the problem and puts in systems to ensure that it doesn’t happen
again.
Fast forward ten
years: the same problem arises on another platform with the same results. What
then has gone wrong and why has it not been picked up?
Corporate memories
can be short. The original people
involved have gone, new people have come in, the culture has changed, no one
remembers what happened ten years ago and so on.
Perhaps then there
is a case for formalising in some way the corporate memory bank. In fact I have heard it said that every
company of any size and perhaps age should have a CMO, a Chief Memory Officer.
Rather over the
top as a solution I would suggest but there is undoubtedly a case for
formailising what are known and regarded as important events in the business.
I heard recently
of a clothing manufacturer who kept a formidable spreadsheet of information about
the staff and found it very valuable.
The information included date of birth and tenure of employment and when
he did a re-ordering of the information he discovered that more than 20% of the
workforce were over 60 years old and tenure ranged from 15 to 30 years.
The obvious
implication was that as people decided to retire a vast stock of experience
would be dissipated and the Managing Director decided that this was untenable.
Accordingly he devised
a scheme whereby his experienced staff could formally retire as and when they wished
but he suggested that they could come in part-time to help train new
employees. This had two advantages;
retirement was phased rather than absolute and the experience was being passed
down and not lost.
This is all good
stuff and makes a lot of sense in whatever way it is accomplished. There is a caveat however.
Remember, “We have always done it that way”? If we constantly harp on about tips and
tricks that have been inherent in the business over the years then we can
stultify as a consequence, not allowing new ideas or techniques to be brought
in.
Consider the
different approaches between Sony and Apple.
Sony was extremely successful in designing and marketing the Walkman in
its various guises right up to the portable DVD player all with very little real
innovation. It was evolution rather than
revolution.
Apple on the other
hand were not burdened by the past and decided that they could design a product
that would take the Walkman out. It would hold a vast amount of music, it would
be smaller, easy to operate and generally more acceptable to the consumer. It was called the iPod and that technology
has now been incorporated into the iPhone and iPad. You can’t buy a Walkman now and who would
want to anyway?
Strong emphasis on
the corporate memory can be valuable but it must not become the be all and end
al. It is far better to appoint a Chief
Innovation Officer than a Memory equivalent simply because innovation is a
leading not a lagging route for the future.
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