Learning is not Understanding

Possibly one of ther most hackneyed phrases of the current situation is "we will learn lessons from this". It should be true, but more often it seems code for filing in the "too difficult" file.

Learning is a temporary phenomenon, like the taste of a new food. The real test of learning however is understanding, and that can take a lifetime. It's easy to learn not to put our fingers in the plug socket, but until we understand why, we're in danger around anything electrical. It's easy to enjoy good food, but a lifetime to become a master chef.

I many ways most of our organisations seem to be at the light socket phase. We may learn not to run down our stocks of PPE down to such a level that it creates unneccessary danger in the event of an pandemic, but we seem not to have learned that it's dangerous to run down our stock of Doctors and Nurses for the same reason. We may have learned that disengaged employees erode performance, but not that it's a function of culture rather than an isolate…