Records and the difference between 20 years of experience and experiencing the same year 20 times

How do we learn from our experience?

The first thing we have to be able to do is recognise that we have had an experience - to bring it into consciousness as a function of a decision we made (or avoided making), and an outcome that occurred.

One of the pieces of advice that management legend Peter Drucker gave was to keep a diary of decisions (what we might call making a record of decisions).

What the decision was, why it was made the way it was, and what the expected outcome from the decision was (so that it could be distinguished from what actually happened).

Reviewing the diary helped managers understand what they did well, and where they had blind spots - while avoiding lots of the cognitive traps and biases that make learning from experience difficult.

Put simply, they use records in a process of continuous improvement of their ability to make decisions - and to find ways to help themselves work in areas where they now know they do not perform well.

Records are the difference between working 20 years and gaining 20 years of esperience, and working 20 years and gaining experience of the same year 20 times.