Learning Follows Focus
We’re often told we learn more from failure than from success. While there is truth to that, it is only part of the story. In safety, leaders are taught to focus on reducing risk and eliminating hazards. While those efforts are important, they can unintentionally draw attention away from understanding why work often goes right. When we focus primarily on what could go wrong, we miss valuable opportunities to learn from the conditions, decisions, and actions that contribute to successful outcomes every day.
I first learned this lesson as a child, while learning to ride a bike. My dad took me to an open playground with plenty of space to ride. In the middle of that space stood a single tetherball pole. As he watched me wobble across the pavement, he repeatedly told me, “Don’t hit the pole.” Despite the wide-open space around me, my attention became fixed on that one obstacle. The harder I tried to avoid it, the more drawn to it I felt, and before long, I rode straight into it.
That experience has stayed with me because it mirrors what happens in many organizations. What we focus on shapes our attention, conversations, and actions. When leaders focus primarily on hazards, mistakes, and failures, organizational energy naturally flows toward reacting to problems. But when leaders also pay attention to how work succeeds, they uncover opportunities to strengthen performance and build on what is already working well. The goal is not to ignore risk, but rather broaden our perspective and learn from both failure and success.
Danger of a Reactive Mindset
When organizations focus only on learning after something goes wrong, they become trapped in a reactive cycle. This mindset often leads to blame, directing attention toward fixing individuals rather than understanding and improving the system in which they work. Over time, employees may become hesitant to speak up, share concerns, or offer ideas. As trust erodes, collaboration declines and the organization moves further away from becoming a learning environment. I’ve seen the effects of this firsthand. In organizations where employees were disciplined or terminated for mistakes, the fear and mistrust created by those decisions lingered in the culture for years.
When leaders shift from asking who is responsible to asking how work is performed and what influences outcomes, they create the context needed for understanding, learning, and system improvement. Rather than assigning blame, these conversations help uncover how work is actually done, the conditions that shape performance, and opportunities to strengthen the system.
Moving From Blame to Curiosity
When leaders genuinely listen to those closest to the work, they move beyond blame and begin to understand how work is performed. They gain an understanding of the actions and conditions that help work succeed. In doing so, employees are seen not as problems to be fixed, but as experts who possess valuable knowledge about the realities of everyday work.
This change in mindset encourages ownership, engagement, and collaboration. It also recognizes that safety – like quality, productivity, and culture – is an outcome of how well the system supports people in their work. When leaders spend time with employees during normal operations – not just after incidents – they gain insights that are often unavailable through reports, metrics, or investigations alone.
By approaching work with curiosity, leaders uncover opportunities for improvement and encourage people to share their knowledge and ideas. Throughout my career, I’ve seen that when leaders focus on learning rather than blame, the benefits extend well beyond safety to stronger systems, improved performance, and greater organizational resilience.
Creating Opportunities for Learning
One of the best ways leaders can connect with those closest to the work is through regular workplace walkthroughs, which lead to opportunities for genuine conversations. During one walkthrough, a frontline employee shared a workaround with me that had become part of the daily routine. What appeared to be an individual choice was actually a response to a recurring process obstacle. The conversation revealed an opportunity for a system improvement that might never have surfaced in a meeting room.
Another strategy is to bring together a small group of employees who are directly involved in the work and ask them to identify a process they would like to improve. The goal is not to fix a broken system but to learn from everyday work and explore opportunities for improvement. In an initial session, a facilitator can help the team map how the process normally operates. After allowing time for reflection, the group reconvenes to generate and pilot small improvement ideas. One manufacturing team I facilitated a few years ago identified several ways to improve their training process. What stood out to me was how quickly the team’s enthusiasm for learning spread, generating ideas well beyond the original project. This approach uncovers practical solutions while giving employees the autonomy to improve their own work.
Leaders can also strengthen learning and engagement through one-on-one meetings. Too often, these conversations become status updates focused solely on current problems. Instead, encourage the employee to identify an aspect of their work they would like to improve, and use several meetings to explore their ideas. The leader’s role is to coach through questions rather than provide answers. During a one-on-one session, I coached a leader who developed a plan for launching a supervisor community of practice. The employee ultimately turned the idea into a resource that benefited the broader organization. When improvement ideas come from the individual rather than the manager, people develop greater confidence, ownership, and agency, creating the conditions for innovation and continuous improvement.
Helping People See the Path Ahead
I’ve seen entire organizations transform when leaders change the way they show up. The most successful leaders I’ve worked with were not necessarily the ones with the most answers; they were the ones who spent the most time listening, learning, and removing obstacles so others could succeed.
This shift builds trust, ownership, and accountability while helping leaders identify and eliminate low-value work. When leaders lead this way, the benefits extend far beyond safety. Quality improves, productivity increases, engagement grows, and culture strengthens across the organization. The question for leaders is simple: Are you spending most of your time focused on the pole, or are you helping people see the path ahead?
