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Niccolo Perra is Co-Founder at international fintech unicorn Pleo, a smart business spend management system.
In today’s world, businesses face not only challenges, but opportunities, and one of the greatest ones lies in their ability to create a culture of learning.
As business leaders, we often put the majority of our focus on meeting company goals and end up viewing mistakes as a hindrance to success. However, it is crucial that we prioritize building a supportive culture that fosters growth and development for our employees. In doing so, we can drive innovation, increase retention rates, and ultimately, achieve better results.
Now, more than ever, teams are under pressure to solve complex problems and adapt to an ever-changing landscape. Rather than simply working longer hours or relying on traditional methods of reward, we must empower our teams to take risks and see failure as an opportunity for growth.
Innovation comes from a safe space to fail
Creating a culture that embraces mistakes is vital for innovation. When employees feel safe to take risks, they are more likely to think creatively and propose new ideas.
On the other hand, a culture that focuses on blame and punishment will likely discourage employees from taking risks or sharing their ideas. Fear of failure is a major barrier to decision-making, with 85% of innovation practitioners saying that fear often or always holds back innovation, yet only a quarter of organizations understand this fear.
What can help more than encouraging it is living it. By seeing their leaders dealing well with failure and owning up to their mistakes, employees have the ultimate sign that they work in a safe space to make them. Yet only 39% of employees said their manager often or always displayed openness, while only 24% said they often or always showed vulnerability. This sends the wrong message to your team and leaders must come to terms with the fact that they are human beings—and so are the people around them.
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Retaining your problem-solvers is more important than ever
Research from LinkedIn suggests that employees who are given opportunities to learn on the job are less likely to experience burnout and more likely to feel productive, happy and confident. Further, our own research suggests most businesses globally are waking up to this, with “employee training” the second highest priority area for investment this year.
Traditional business metrics are important, but businesses should look to introduce EQ ones based on emotional intelligence metrics that have an impact on individuals and their actions, and ask themselves whether individuals believe they are learning, feel happy, would recommend your company as a place to work, etc. This type of leadership has wider ramifications for inclusivity and sends a strong message to your people that bringing their whole selves to work is welcomed.
Learning can drive revenue growth
Finally, a learning culture can have a significant impact on a company’s revenue growth. In fact, according to research from MindTools For Business, a high-impact learning culture is 10 times more likely to have a sustainable impact on growth, transformation, productivity, and profitability.
Learning cultures often ensure businesses are listening to their customers more, and learning how they can continue to innovate and improve their CX. But where else it delivers is in how it drives efficiencies in how this work happens. Whether that comes down to how they split their time between the office and home, or the technology they use to claw their day back from manual tasks. Personalized ways of working can maximize worker productivity and ensure you’re getting the most out of them—and they’re getting the most out of their day. After all, the workplace hasn’t stood still in a long time, so nor should your adaptation to it.
In conclusion, building a learning culture and embracing mistakes should be top priorities for any business. By doing so, we can encourage innovation, retain top talent, and drive revenue growth. We shouldn’t hold back in creating an environment where employees feel supported to take risks, make mistakes, and ultimately, learn and grow.
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