Learning in the thick of the action

On the face of it, the After Action Review is the simplest of practices. A leader gathers their team after a significant action, compares what was intended with what was actually achieved, then asks what they will sustain and improve going forward. What could be simpler?

In a Harvard Business Review article, Learning In The Thick Of It, we describe the AAR practices of a nimble, winning organization, the US Army's Opposing Force (OPFOR) - - then review the experiences of a range of companies as they attempted to build "lessons learned." The companies that succeeded did not simply use AARs as a tool for gathering lessons. Rather, they understood the AAR as an element of a cycle that ties leading, learning and execution together. Out of this integration emerges the ability to succeed in a fast-changing competitive environment.

You can purchase copies of this article or view the executive summary on the publisher’s site. Alternatively, if you're willing to describe how you're thinking of using AARs, you may request an educational copy from the authors. We also provide a number of related publications on this site for further reading.

Learning to do this in your organization

The discipline of an AAR strengthens and integrates learning, leading and execution—all in the course of doing normal work. That makes investing in AARs a very powerful way to organically reshape the culture of your organization toward ever greater accountability, coherence and resilience.

But getting teams there - using AARs on an ongoing, sustainable basis - requires some expertise and an investment of time and energy. When the real purpose and practice of AARs is not understood, it leads to over-investment in the wrong things and under-investment in the right ones. Worse, it can lead to teams justifiably feeling that AARs are just checking a box and a waste of their time. If your aim is to embed a sustained capacity to excel across your operations, you need to understand the art and the science behind the tools, such as how the AAR meeting is part of a cycle. That’s where Signet’s years of research and practice come in. Please feel free to contact us for further information about the article or how we can assist your organization in using the Action Review Cycle.

“That sounds great, but we’re NOT the Army…”

True enough. Few organizations have a culture that goes back 200 years, are able to provide the level of time and resources the Army normally devotes to training, or have lives on the line in the same way that the Army does.

On the other hand, many organizations have advantages that the Army does not.

Signet surveyed and held dialogues with early adopters in a wide range of organizations to understand their experiences in adopting AARs: Their assumptions, disappointments, barriers to learning, and early successes. We looked carefully at on-ramp questions. For instance: Do you need a climate of trust and openness before you can make AARs succeed - or do AAR cycles create an atmosphere of candor themselves? How do leaders and their teams make the time to hold AARs? How do you get to a deeper level of learning? How do we assure that a Lesson Learned is actually learned? How do we disseminate lessons learned from one team to the rest of the organization? Can AARs shift the culture of an entire organization?

Our years of study, translation and practice with the AAR regimen have given us a deep understanding of how the AAR evolved over decades of daily use at its source, what it takes to make it work in civilian organizations, and what kinds of results, choices and challenges to expect along the way.

The impact of the AAR cycle is both pragmatic and cumulative. AARs build and validate insights based on results, which, in turn, translates into agility - the ability to excel in any conditions.

Signet's expertise speeds up the transition to a learning culture

An organization’s culture is not transformed overnight. Introducing AARs in a way that the practices take root is a bit of an art that we have refined over years of practice in a wide range of conditions. We work with leaders of operational, project, functional and executive teams—through design consultation, workshops, leader coaching and direct facilitation. Together, we:

• Identify the places that will return results - and metrics for tracking performance
• Decide when and how often to conduct AARs, BARs and rehearsals
• Foster openness, trust and personal accountability for learning
• Set the stage for learning to occur from the outset
• Link past lessons forward to impact today’s results

Senior leaders play a crucial role in shaping the climate – by their willingness to acknowledge mistakes, take action on lessons, and fast-tracking subordinates who do the same. We support senior leaders in building the expectation in word and deed that “We are an organization that holds itself accountable for learning.”

For senior teams, we may provide an Alignment Session - to move from vision to execution on the most compelling opportunities to create immediate and long-term competitive advantage. These sessions result in a set of resourced priorities with metrics on where to use the AAR cycle to improve results.

Is your organization prepared to win in the thick of changing conditions? We provide a (free) one-page on-line Agility Assessment as a conversation-starter about agility. It will allow you to quickly and privately benchmark your organization against a world-class standard, then compare perceptions.

Ways to get started

A site visit is an efficient way to explore the fit between Signet’s approach to using AARs to build competitive advantage and the specific challenges, objectives and vision of your organization - all while getting started. Over the course of a two day visit, Signet will present you with our research findings on After Action Reviews and how linking leadership, learning and execution builds a ppoweful competitive advantage. We meet with stakeholders in order to understand their specific needs, answer their questions and any concerns, offer advice on how to apply the AAR cycle, and share the experiences of other organizations as they have traveled down the AAR adoption path. A site visit also serves to educate us as to your culture and key players so that we all hit the ground running if you choose to invest in a complete program . Let us know if you would like to explore what a site visit might do for your organization.

On the other hand, if you are ready to go, we can provide a complete on-ramp to an AAR culture.