Too often in the workplace, we put ourselves under pressure to get everything right and always be as professional, productive and successful as we can be. When did we get taught that perfection was the right way? A pursuit of perfection can be exhausting and even distracting. And what’s so great about being perfect anyway?!
The reality is often very different, especially in the world of learning and development.
One of the most productive and effective ways to learn is to experiment, try new things, and do things differently. And within this process, there will always be mistakes, errors or even embarrassing moments. But that’s okay! There is beauty in learning from our mistakes and moving forward with new knowledge and insights.
Digital learning is a safe space for mistakes
We wholeheartedly believe that elearning provides a safe space for your employees to make mistakes, providing opportunities for growth and learning. The elearning landscape is constantly changing and by having the opportunity to try new things we give ourselves even more chances to create outstanding and innovative learning experiences.
Here are our top 5 reasons why mistakes could actually be a blessing in disguise and how we should embrace them as part of the overall learning experience.
1. A low-risk scenario encourages growth
An elearning scenario is ideal to provide the learner with a safe place to make the wrong choice or get something wrong without real risk. This is also true of the organisation of course, by giving people the chance to take risks and make mistakes in elearning, they can learn what to do (or what not to do) in the real world. This safe space provides the means to try new things, experiment and ‘see how things go’. It allows learners to improve on the go and learn from mistakes or mishaps whilst building up experience, evidence and insights.
2. Adopting an immediate feedback process is beneficial
By cultivating a feedback loop throughout your learning experiences you empower the learner and improve your learning experiences and content. It’s essential that you provide constructive feedback when learners fail so that they can learn from what happened and be aware enough to rectify their mistakes. In turn, we encourage you to promote a culture of feedback from your learners too. Have they found the learning experience fulfilling? Did it meet their expectations? Did it feel useful? By understanding how you could improve directly from the learners, you will ensure future learners have a better experience.
3. Embracing mistakes encourages an inclusive culture for all employees
By embracing the ‘it’s okay to make mistakes’ culture we are welcoming all types of learners and encouraging our employees to be themselves. Not all learners want to go through a learning experience in a prescriptive way – some may want to learn in their own style or sequence and make their own minds up. This self-directed pace is essential for personalised learning. Plus, this no-judgement culture will inevitably mean that people feel more open to being creative, sharing ideas and questioning things. Which can never be a bad thing!
4. Failings provide an opportunity to question and improve
Put simply, learning from bad (and good!) experiences is one of the best ways to carve out a memory and solidify knowledge. Mistakes are a great way to help us remember experiences and stories and reflect on them in the future. Mistakes also provide an opportunity for us to question ourselves and our colleagues and reflect and learn together. This collective learning experience can only lead to inevitable improvements and the ability to measure progress.
5. Reflection promotes insightful thinking
By encouraging reflective thinking throughout the learning experience you encourage your learners to dig deeper and gain new insights from their learning. Have they adopted unconscious bias? Are they just going through the motions? Have they taken the right time out of their schedule to focus on this development opportunity? Regular reflection promotes insightful thinking and allows learners to realise where they might have gone wrong and what they could do differently in the future.
Celebrate the wins too!
Whilst we embrace and celebrate the benefits and opportunities provided by failing, we also encourage you to celebrate the wins too! There are many learning opportunities when learners make mistakes or struggle or have some constructive feedback. However, it’s also essential that we celebrate success and positive learning experiences. Sometimes things go smoothly and that’s a great thing too!
If you’d like to learn more about experimenting with your approach to elearning, then get in touch with our friendly team today.