The most successful campaigning organisations create a learning culture. Making learning part of your procedures can help prevent people repeating mistakes, and create an environment where they feel comfortable discussing aspects of the campaign that may not be working well. Identifying problems early on can help people to manage them more effectively.
What makes a good learning culture
- A learning culture can help you assess risk. Recording campaign intelligence and information makes it easier for you to understand your business environment and identify how you can achieve impact.
- A learning culture can help you recognise that just because a campaign plan worked last time, it will not necessarily work again. Things may well have changed.
- An organisation with a good learning culture can also open up outside feedback and criticism (both positive and negative). This can be done formally – by setting up mentoring programmes in or outside the team – or through more informal arrangements such as mutual support with colleagues in similar organisations.
You can help to improve any future campaigning by evaluating past approaches and ensuring you have the resources, skills and capacity to underpin your future campaigning activity.
