Leaders and organisations often look to the sporting world for inspiration, citing the dedication and hard work of a team toward a common goal in the face of adversity, and the inspirational leadership of players and coaches alike. Many elite sports have become big business, and their public exposure ensures we see all the good, and all the bad, with journalists and fans quick to share their opinions. Like all businesses, there are times when they get it wrong, and these times create a great opportunity for us to reflect on how we respond to problems within our organisations.

My apologies firstly for anyone who does not follow the AFL, and as a long-suffering Dockers fan, sometimes I question my own following of the sport! However, we are currently in the run to the finals, where eight worthy teams will face off to see who can capture the ultimate prize, so it’s an exciting time for any football fans.

If we look back over the years at which teams managed to get their hands on the cup, it is fair to say that each of them managed to hit their peak performance at the right time. Many would suggest that teams who do climb the peak must also need a little bit of luck along the way, particularly around injuries and the availability of players.

In the round 23 match between the Sydney Swans and the Adelaide Crows, the Swans had a little luck go their way. An Adelaide kick-on goal was declared a point by the umpire, but replayed footage showed that the ball had clearly crossed through the goals and should have seen the Crows hit the lead with a minute to go in the game.

In the days following the game, the AFL’s CEO Gillon McLachlan came out and admitted that the umpire had made the wrong call, and the umpire involved was then stood down from duties. What is most interesting is that the review technology available to umpires was not used in this critical time of the game, where the outcome affected not only the Finals chances of the two teams playing but also several other clubs vying for a finals spot.

On the same weekend, the GWS Giants were up against Essendon, and in the late stages of the game, with the Giants up by over 120 points, the review system was employed by umpires on the field. It would be fair to say that the review of that goal had far less importance or impact on the season’s outcomes.

So why would the review system be used on one occasion but not the other? Is it as simple as saying that the goal umpire got it wrong?

It’s both quick and easy to assign blame to an individual, but it does little to improve the chances that things will work correctly in the future. Instead, it creates a culture of fear and self-protection. The alternative is that we can work on learning from the event and identifying ways to increase success in the future.

James Reason spoke about the importance of a learning culture, and a fair culture within organisations, toward improved health and safety performance. I would suggest that these cultural elements are not only critical for health and safety but also for the overall performance of the organisation.

We learn best when we are open to different ways of thinking, and importantly, different ways of doing. It means we need to challenge outdated mental models and equip people to develop cognitive flexibility. It means we need to be able to move beyond “you got it wrong” toward “together we can make it better”.

For the AFL, a learning approach would mean tackling the situation a little differently. It would involve considering the different times when umpires have correctly called for a review against those times when they haven’t. It would look to the training provided to umpires and the level of consistency in their approach to call for reviews. It would focus on the goal of improved decision making and in doing so promoting fair and equitable outcomes for all teams. It would look to how game day officials could be better supported in the heat of the moment and provided with guidance. In essence, it would look toward how the system could better support humans in the moment when it’s needed, and it would involve the people required to make those calls in the process of improvement.

When we consider mistakes within an organisation, we are talking about more than a win or a spot in the finals. We are talking about the potential for serious harm to our people, our environments, and our communities. There is more at stake, and yet we can often succumb to the same ineffective strategies employed by the AFL, focusing on the actions of an individual, rather than working to improve the system as a whole. We are attracted to the quick fix that ticks a box in the moment and enables us to go back to business as usual.

Developing a learning culture in our organisations is not an easy or quick fix, but it does enable organisations to move toward sustained improvements in performance. We invite you to consider how you could implement some simple steps to improve the learning culture in your organisation, such as:

• Be on the lookout for quick fixes, and blame-based solutions when things go wrong in the organisation, and consider whether they will truly resolve the challenge.
• Look for learning from mistakes and success before there is an adverse outcome, and consider what will enable people to be successful more often, interrogate the system to understand when it works best, and how we can replicate that more often.
• Consider the organisation as a whole, rather than a collection of parts, and work on understanding the dynamics that contribute to both success and failure in the organisation.