How to ensure people feel they are learning, growing and developing: Strategy #3.4 – Champion experimentation and improvement.
We have previously published a series of people leadership strategies around the themes of people feeling supported, valued and safe; creating a ‘team environment’; supporting learning and growth; empowering staff and building autonomy; ensuring clarity of roles and expectations; and creating meaning and purpose.
Practical Ideas Guides
We are now going to explore the actionable steps that you can take to enable the suggested strategies and actions. This is one in a series of 31 posts providing specific descriptions of the actions in practice. (There is one practical idea guide for each people leadership strategy)
So, this post focuses on the theme of supporting learning and growth. In a previous post we have talked through 6 overarching strategies to support the learning and growth of your team:
3.1 Plan for and support development
3.2 Provide new challenges and responsibilities
3.3 Provide opportunities to learn from/teach others
3.4 Champion experimentation and improvement
3.5 Provide coaching and developmental feedback
In this post we take a deep dive into the specific strategy of:
3.3 Champion experimentation and improvement
Encouraging innovation and exploring new ideas creates incredible opportunities for learning, both individually and collectively, as well as driving a strong sense of achievement and purpose.
So, here are some of the actions that can be taken to put this leadership strategy into practice:
People who work closely with day-to-day operations often have valuable insights into problems, inefficiencies and opportunities for improvement. Giving a team member – or a small group – the opportunity to develop an idea into a proposal and present it to decision-makers can improve the work while also building skills in analysis, influencing, collaboration and presenting. Your role is to create the opportunity, provide appropriate support and coaching, and allow them to take genuine ownership of the work.
1. Identify a worthwhile opportunity
Use a team discussion to identify a problem or opportunity that would benefit from further investigation. Look for opportunities that are:
- Relevant to the team’s work and priorities
- Within, or reasonably close to, the team’s ability to influence
- Realistic in terms of cost, effort and timeframe
- Likely to produce a clear and measurable benefit
Avoid choosing the solution for them. Help the individual or team clarify the opportunity, then give them responsibility for investigating it and developing a recommendation.
2. Provide a clear brief and structure
Be clear about what you are asking them to produce, who the audience is and what decision or support they are seeking. If they are inexperienced in preparing proposals, provide a simple structure rather than expecting them to work it out from scratch.
For example, a brief proposal might cover:
- The problem or opportunity
- Why it matters and the benefits of addressing it
- The proposed solution or approach
- The likely cost, effort, risks and timeframe
- The recommendation or decision being sought
Keep the task proportionate. For many team-level improvements, a concise two- or three-page proposal will be more useful than a lengthy business case.
3. Coach without taking over
Make yourself available as they develop the proposal but resist the temptation to rewrite it or solve every problem for them. Use questions to strengthen their thinking, such as:
- “What evidence supports your proposal?”
- “What might the decision-makers be concerned about?”
- “What alternatives have you considered?”
- “What exactly are you asking them to agree to?”
Your role is to help them produce their best work while ensuring that the proposal remains theirs.
4. Help them prepare to present and respond to questions
If the proposal will be presented to senior leaders or other decision-makers, help the individual or team prepare for the conversation. Provide examples of effective presentations and encourage them to keep the presentation focused, concise and suited to the audience. Arrange at least one practice run where you can:
- Play the role of the decision-makers
- Ask likely questions or challenge assumptions
- Provide specific feedback on clarity and impact
- Help them prepare for difficult or unexpected questions
Support them to present the proposal themselves wherever possible. Your presence can provide reassurance but avoid becoming the spokesperson unless there is a clear reason to do so.
5. Debrief the experience and capture the learning
After the proposal has been presented, discuss what they learned from the experience, regardless of whether the proposal was approved*. Useful questions include:
- “What worked well?”
- “What would you do differently next time?”
- “What did you learn about influencing decision-makers?”
- “What capability or confidence have you developed?”
Also discuss any feedback received and the next steps for the proposal. This helps turn a one-off task into a meaningful development experience.
When you give people genuine opportunities to identify improvements, develop recommendations and influence decisions, you not only benefit from their knowledge and ideas you also build their confidence, capability and sense of ownership.
* If the proposal is not successful, focus on understanding why and what can be learned. Encourage reflection on the feedback received, the strengths of the proposal, and opportunities for improvement. This helps build resilience, strengthens future proposals, and reinforces that taking initiative and influencing decisions are valuable development experiences regardless of the outcome.
Cross-functional projects can provide valuable development opportunities while also helping the organisation address problems that cannot be solved by one team alone. Working with people from different functions exposes team members to different perspectives, priorities and ways of working, while building their skills in collaboration, influencing and navigating complexity.
Your role is to help create the conditions for the project to succeed, provide support without taking over, and help people learn from the experience.
1. Choose a meaningful and manageable challenge
Look for a genuine issue or opportunity that requires input from more than one function. Ideally, the project should:
- Address a problem that matters to the organisation
- Require collaboration across team or functional boundaries
- Be challenging enough to provide a worthwhile development opportunity
- Have a realistic scope, timeframe and level of complexity
Match the opportunity to the person’s experience and capability. Participating in a cross-functional project may be the right next step for some people, while others may be ready to lead one.
2. Establish support and authority for the project
Before asking people to take on the project, make sure the relevant leaders are genuinely supportive. Cross-functional projects can quickly become frustrating if participants are expected to deliver an outcome but lack the authority, time or access they need. Work with the relevant leaders to clarify:
- The purpose, scope and intended outcomes
- Who is sponsoring the project and making key decisions
- What authority the project team has
- The time, resources and budget available
- How progress will be reported and issues escalated
Keep the governance proportionate to the size and complexity of the project. The aim is to provide clarity and support, not create unnecessary bureaucracy.
3. Help the project team set itself up for success
Do not assume that bringing capable people together will automatically create an effective team. Encourage the group to spend some time at the beginning agreeing how they will work together.
This might include clarifying:
- The project’s purpose and goals
- Individual roles and responsibilities
- How decisions will be made
- How the group will communicate and manage disagreements
- The different expertise, perspectives and working preferences within the group
- Agreed behaviours for participating (eg we all turn up to meetings, we communicate when we are struggling to deliver on things we agree to / are responsible for)
A small investment in these conversations early on can prevent misunderstandings and difficulties later.
4. Provide support without becoming the project leader
Cross-functional work can be challenging. People may encounter competing priorities, resistance, unclear authority or differences in how functions approach the issue. Make yourself available to coach them through these challenges rather than immediately stepping in to resolve them.
Useful coaching questions include:
- “What do you think is getting in the way?”
- “Whose support or perspective do you need?”
- “How might the issue look from the other function’s point of view?”
- “What could you try before escalating this?”
Acknowledge progress and small wins along the way. Where appropriate, coordinate with other functional leaders so that participants receive consistent support and recognition.
5. Review the outcomes and capture the learning
At the end of the project, conduct a brief review with the people involved. Consider both what the project achieved and what participants learned from working across functions.
Useful questions include:
- “What worked well and what made it work?”
- “What was most challenging about working across functions?”
- “What would you do differently next time?”
- “What relationships or capabilities have you developed?”
Recognise the contribution of those involved and celebrate meaningful achievements. This reinforces the value of cross-functional collaboration and helps ensure that the learning carries into future work.
When you give people opportunities to work across functional boundaries on meaningful challenges, you build broader organisational understanding, stronger relationships and greater capability to solve complex problems collaboratively.
The people doing the work every day are often best placed to identify inefficient processes, recurring frustrations and opportunities to improve the way the team operates. Creating regular opportunities for the team to step back and improve how work gets done can increase engagement, strengthen problem-solving skills and lead to meaningful improvements in performance. Your role is to create the space for improvement, encourage broad participation and help the team turn good ideas into practical action.
1. Create dedicated time to work on the business
Continuous improvement rarely happens when people are focused solely on day-to-day demands. Schedule time during planning days, team meetings or dedicated improvement workshops for people to reflect on how work, within our control or influence, could be done more effectively. Encourage discussion by asking questions such as:
- “What process creates the most frustration?”
- “Where do we spend time that adds little value?”
- “If we could change one aspect of how we work, what would it be?”
- “What feedback from customers or stakeholders suggests we could improve?”
The aim is to create an environment where people feel comfortable raising ideas without feeling they need to have the perfect solution.
2. Prioritise the opportunities that matter most
Not every idea can be pursued. Once potential improvements have been identified, work with the team to select a small number that are worth investigating further.
Agree on simple criteria up front such as:
- The benefit to customers or stakeholders
- The impact on team effectiveness
- The team’s ability to influence the process
- The effort, cost and time required to make the change
Focusing on a few worthwhile opportunities helps the team achieve tangible results rather than generating a long list of ideas that never progress.
3. Give individuals or small groups responsibility for developing options
Allocate each improvement priority to an individual or small group to investigate. Encourage them to understand the current process before proposing solutions by:
- Talking to the people involved
- Identifying the root causes of issues
- Looking for examples of good practice
- Developing two or three possible improvement options
Depending on the complexity of the issue, this work may be completed during the workshop or over the following weeks before reporting back to the team.
4. Evaluate ideas together and agree on the next step
Ask individuals or groups to present their findings and facilitate a discussion about the strengths, risks and practicality of each option.
Useful questions include:
- “Which option best addresses the problem?”
- “What assumptions are we making?”
- “What could prevent this from working?”
- “Could we trial this before fully implementing it?”
Where possible, encourage small-scale experiments that allow the team to test ideas, gather feedback and refine the solution before making larger changes.
5. Review the results and recognise contributions
After implementing a change, take time to review its impact with the team. Consider:
- What improvements have been achieved?
- What evidence do we have that the change has worked?
- What have we learned that could help future improvements?
- What should we continue, change or stop doing?
Recognise the effort people have invested, regardless of whether every idea succeeds. Celebrating initiative reinforces that improving the way the team works is part of everyone’s role.
When you regularly involve team members in improving work processes, you benefit from their frontline knowledge while building ownership, problem-solving capability and a culture of continuous improvement.
Many team meetings become dominated by status updates, with each person talking about their own work. While keeping people informed is important, meetings can become far more engaging and valuable when the team spends time solving real problems together. This not only leads to better solutions but also strengthens collaboration, shared ownership and learning across the team. Your role is to create a structured process that encourages everyone to contribute, keeps the discussion focused and helps the team reach practical outcomes.
1. Bring meaningful problems to the team
Choose issues that genuinely benefit from the team’s collective thinking rather than problems that have already been solved or are outside the team’s influence.
Good topics might include:
- Improving a team process or service
- Addressing recurring customer or stakeholder issues
- Removing barriers to efficiency
- Responding to a new challenge or change
Encourage team members to bring problems forward as well. This reinforces that identifying and solving issues is everyone’s responsibility.
2. Facilitate a structured discussion
Avoid jumping straight to solutions. Guide the team through a simple problem-solving process, such as:
- Clarify the problem
- Explore the causes and contributing factors
- Generate a range of possible solutions
- Evaluate the options
- Agree on actions, responsibilities and timeframes
Depending on the issue, simple tools such as brainstorming, root cause analysis, voting or force field analysis can help the discussion, but don’t let the process become more complicated than it needs to be.
3. Encourage broad participation
The quality of the discussion depends on hearing a range of perspectives. As facilitator, pay attention to who is contributing and who may be holding back.
Useful questions include:
- “Who sees this differently?”
- “What haven’t we considered yet?”
- “What would our customers or stakeholders say?”
- “Can someone build on that idea?”
Ensure that different viewpoints are explored respectfully and that no single person dominates the conversation.
4. Turn discussion into action
A productive conversation only creates value if something happens afterwards. Before finishing, make sure the team is clear about:
- The actions that have been agreed
- Who is responsible for each action
- When progress will be reviewed
- How success will be measured
Review progress at future meetings so people can see that their ideas lead to meaningful action.
5. Build your team’s facilitation capability
As the team becomes more confident, invite team members to facilitate problem-solving sessions themselves. Beforehand, discuss how they will structure the conversation and afterwards, coach them on what worked well and what they could improve. Rotating the facilitation role helps people develop skills in leading discussions, encouraging participation and guiding groups towards decisions. It also reinforces that leadership and problem solving are shared responsibilities, not just the manager’s role.
When you regularly engage the team in solving real problems together, meetings become more purposeful, people learn from each other’s experience, and the team develops greater confidence in tackling challenges collectively.
Many improvements come from people trying small changes, observing what happens and learning from the results. As a manager, you can help create a culture where thoughtful experimentation is part of everyday work, rather than waiting for the perfect solution before making a change. Your role is to encourage curiosity, create safe opportunities to test ideas and help people learn from what they discover.
1. Make experimentation part of everyday conversations
When people raise problems, frustrations or opportunities during one-on-one meetings or team discussions, resist the urge to immediately provide the answer. Instead, encourage them to think about what they could test.
Useful coaching questions include:
- “What ideas do you have to improve this?”
- “What’s a small change you could trial?”
- “How could you test that idea with minimal risk?”
- “What would success look like?”
Over time, these questions help people become more proactive in finding and testing their own solutions.
2. Set clear guardrails for experimentation
People are more likely to try new ideas when they understand the boundaries within which they can experiment. Discuss what makes an experiment appropriate, such as:
- Low risk to customers, safety and compliance
- Limited cost and use of resources
- A small, manageable scale
- The ability to reverse the change if needed
Clear guardrails give people confidence to act while ensuring that experimentation remains responsible.
3. Encourage small experiments rather than big changes
Support people to test one idea at a time rather than attempting major changes all at once. Small experiments are usually quicker, easier to evaluate and less disruptive if they do not produce the expected results. Encourage people to be clear about:
- What they are testing
- How long the trial will run
- How they will know whether it has been successful
- What they will do with the results
The goal is to learn quickly and use that learning to improve future decisions.
4. Make time to share what people are learning
Regularly ask the team to discuss the experiments they have tried and what they have discovered. For example, you might ask during a monthly team meeting:
- “What new ideas have we tested this month?”
- “What worked better than expected?”
- “What surprised us?”
- “What should we try next?”
Focus the discussion on learning rather than judging whether an experiment was a success or failure.
5. Recognise initiative and reinforce learning
Acknowledge people who thoughtfully test new ideas, even when the results are different from what they expected. Recognise curiosity, initiative and reflection not just successful outcomes. By consistently recognising experimentation and discussing what has been learned, you help create a team culture where improvement is driven by evidence, curiosity and continuous learning rather than by avoiding mistakes.
When you encourage people to safely test new ideas, you build confidence, adaptability and a team that is continually learning how to improve the way it works.
Mistakes are an inevitable part of work. While they should never be ignored, neither should they automatically lead to blame or embarrassment. Teams improve when people feel able to acknowledge mistakes, understand what contributed to them and use the experience to improve future performance. Your role is to create an environment where people strive for excellence rather than perfection, and where learning from mistakes becomes a normal part of how the team works.
1. Model openness by acknowledging your own mistakes
People are unlikely to discuss their own mistakes if they never see their manager do the same. Look for appropriate opportunities to reflect openly on your own work.
For example, you might say:
- “I could have handled that conversation better.”
- “I made an incorrect assumption there.”
- “Next time I’ll approach that differently.”
Focus less on the mistake itself and more on what you learned from it. This demonstrates that acknowledging mistakes is a sign of professionalism and continuous learning, not weakness.
2. Use coaching questions to encourage reflection
When discussing completed work in one-on-one meetings, encourage people to reflect on what they have learned rather than asking whether they “got it right.”
Useful coaching questions include:
- “What went well?”
- “What didn’t go as planned?”
- “What would you do differently next time?”
- “What have you learned from this experience?”
Respond with curiosity rather than judgement. Your aim is to help people think critically about their own performance rather than become defensive.
3. Build reflection into team discussions
As trust grows within the team, make collective reflection a regular part of meetings following significant pieces of work, projects or events. Ask questions such as:
- “What worked well?”
- “What didn’t work as well as we hoped?”
- “What surprised us?”
- “What should we do differently next time?”
Keep the discussion focused on improving systems, processes and team practices rather than assigning blame to individuals.
4. Respond to mistakes in ways that promote learning
How you respond when mistakes occur has a lasting impact on your team’s willingness to speak up in the future. Before deciding what action is needed, seek to understand what contributed to the mistake.
Consider questions such as:
- Was the expectation clear?
- Did the person have the necessary skills or resources?
- Were there weaknesses in the process or system?
- Was this an isolated error or a recurring pattern?
Where appropriate, distinguish between genuine learning mistakes, careless behaviour and deliberate misconduct, as each requires a different leadership response.
5. Recognise openness and reinforce learning
When people openly acknowledge a mistake and share what they have learned, recognise their honesty and willingness to improve. Over time, you might introduce simple ways for the team to share lessons learned, provided the team has developed sufficient trust. The emphasis should always be on the learning rather than the mistake itself. A light-hearted activity where people openly admit ‘stuff ups’ may work well in some teams, but only if people genuinely feel psychologically safe and participation is voluntary.
When you consistently respond to mistakes with curiosity, reflection and a focus on improvement, you create a team that learns faster, adapts more quickly and is more willing to speak up before small problems become larger ones.
Every significant piece of work provides an opportunity to learn. While it is natural to celebrate success and analyse setbacks, both experiences can generate valuable insights that improve future performance. Teams that learn consistently become more adaptable, resilient and capable over time. Your role is to help people look beyond the outcome and understand what contributed to it, so they can deliberately apply those lessons in the future.
1. Make reflection a regular part of the team’s work
Build time into team meetings or project reviews to reflect on significant pieces of work. Rather than only reviewing projects that encountered problems, also examine those that were particularly successful. This reinforces that learning is part of everyday work, not something that only happens when things go wrong.
2. Explore what contributed to the outcome
Whether the result was positive or disappointing, guide the discussion beyond simply describing what happened. Useful questions include:
- “What were we trying to achieve?”
- “What worked well?”
- “What didn’t work as well as we hoped?”
- “What factors contributed to the outcome?”
- “What surprised us?”
Encourage the team to explore both the actions they took and the conditions that influenced the result, rather than jumping to simple conclusions.
3. Focus on what should be repeated, changed or stopped
Reflection is only valuable if it influences future behaviour. Conclude discussions by identifying practical actions the team can take.
Ask questions such as:
- “What should we continue doing?”
- “What should we do differently next time?”
- “What should we stop doing?”
- “What ideas should we test in future?”
Agree on any actions that should be incorporated into future work so that the learning is not lost.
4. Bring the same learning mindset to one-on-one conversations
Use regular one-on-one meetings to help individuals reflect on their own experiences. After acknowledging achievements or discussing challenges, encourage deeper thinking with questions such as:
- “What are your biggest learnings from this?”
- “What would you deliberately repeat next time?”
- “What would you approach differently?”
- “How will you apply these learnings in your next piece of work?”
These conversations help people develop the habit of learning from experience rather than simply moving on to the next task.
5. Recognise learning as well as results
Celebrate good outcomes, but also recognise thoughtful reflection and the willingness to improve. When people identify useful lessons, apply them and share them with others, acknowledge those behaviours. Over time, this shifts the team’s focus from simply achieving results to continually improving how results are achieved.
When you consistently respond to both success and setbacks with curiosity and reflection, you help your team turn everyday experiences into opportunities for continuous learning and improved performance.
Having read this list, some questions you may want to ask yourself might be:
- Are there one or two ideas emerging for me that I might want to put into practice?
- What is the smallest thing I could do that might have a positive impact?
- How will I hold myself accountable for following through on my actions?
Good luck!