The New Yorker‘s Battle Lessons examines organizational learning within the Army. Some elements are specific to the Army’s culture:
For efficiency of conversation, Army officers are tough to beat. Trained to convey critical information under stress, they enunciate like radio announcers, in complete, unhesitating sentences. Moreover, they tend to be good listeners, with a refreshing ability — and willingness — to get to the nub of a difficult issue. Ask an Army officer a painful question and he or she will answer it, provided it doesn?t involve secrets, with a kind of Boy Scout candor all but unknown in, say, the corporate or political realm.
Some are more universal:
I asked Saul what lessons the Army has learned in Iraq, and he said, ?Not much, because lessons learned, in past tense, means you?ve modified behavior. Until you demonstrate changed behavior, you haven?t learned a lesson.?
Until you demonstrate changed behavior, you haven?t learned a lesson. The same can be said of communication in general: if you haven’t changed the audience’s behavior, have you communicated anything?
Aside: The Rule of 150 (popularized in Gladwell’s Tipping Point) keeps popping up. An Army company comprises approximately 150 soldiers:
Commanding a company is often described as the best job in the Army; a company is big enough to be powerful and small enough to be intimate.
In the past, the Army interviewed soldiers for lessons learned, compiled those lessons into small booklets, and then distributed those booklets to soldiers in the field. After the botched invasion of Grenada, the Army instituted its Center for Army Lessons Learned — but that was still highly centralized. In 2000, a few company commanders took the initiative to start Companycommand.com, a message board for company commanders. A year later they started Platoonleader.org for lieutenants.
Organizational-learning experts within the Army decried the lack of official interpretation (by them), but the message boards meant that the officers could quickly and easily share information. With the boards, no one had to wait for the official answer — and after two years, West Point adopted the sites and put them on its own servers.