The Art of the Debrief

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The Art of the Debrief

Nobody gets out of bed to crash a helicopter.

And yet I’ve crashed a helicopter… MORE THAN ONCE in fact.

The same is true for the people in your team.

None of them want to make a mistake. And yet they will.

If an organisation fires someone who has made an honest mistake they’ve just fired the person with the most information about what went wrong, and the most motivation to put it right.

Punishing mistakes is NOT the way to prevent them happening again.

Instead we need to create a culture where we extract maximum learning from mistakes (or even better, before they become mistakes).

Minutes

This is where the TEAM DEBRIEF comes in.

We did these every day in the military, so I took them for granted. But I realise this idea may be new or scary to you.

So this video gives some pointers on how to lead an effective team debrief. Some golden rules:

Make it formulaic (follow the same format every time so it’s more objective).

Make it routine (do it regularly so it get’s less scary).

Comment on observed facts and behaviours only (don’t assume you know what someone was thinking).

Assume positive intent (if someone made a mistake anyone else could have made the same mistake).

Ask a brave question (be prepared to be debriefed yourself by asking a question like “how would you have done it”, or “what would you say if I wasn’t the boss?”).