Sharing Best Practice: Learning from Ugg and Thugg

The Neanderthals sat huddled round the fire. The soft orange light reflected from the walls of the large cave in which they were gathered, giving an eerie light to proceedings.  From the walls of the cave the dull handprints and paintings of the top mammoth hunters from all ancestry hung over the group, reminding them of just why they were here.  

 

Ugg gruntedfirst. He grunted of how he and his team of hunters had worked all day to corner the great mammoth whose carcass now filled their bellies. It was the first time they'd eaten mammoth in many moons. The other hunters sat and listened as Ugg told the tale of how he, newly returned to the community from sabbatical work with the tribe on the other side of the stream, demonstrated how he had used his new "cat-a-pult" process to maximum effect to bring down the giant beast. They listened in awe. "Cat-a-pult". What a strange device.  The hunters glanced uneasily at each other as Ugg handed round the new device for them all to look at. They poked it and grunted excitedly.

 

The mighty Thugg grunted back loudly. He queried Ugg on his exploits. What was this weird looking 'cat-a-pult' device that Ugg had used? How had it made him approach the hunt in a different and more succesful way? What lessons could he share? Could Ugg show them all how to use it?

 

Ugg shifted uncomfortably in his loincloth and picked a gristly piece of mammoth flesh from between his few remaining teeth. Thugg was a powerful caveman who certainly knew what he was grunting about. He'd been the community's most successful mammoth bagger of recent times. What he didn't know about mammoth bagging could be smeared on the walls of the largest cavern in the valley. Why should he be interested in what Ugg had to say? Didn't he know it all already?

 

But thanks to his ever growing pre-frontal cortex, Thugg knew that he could learn from Ugg. Ugg had been to the wacky tribe across the stream, he'd seen how they used that new fangled catapult thing-a-ma-jig, and he'd brought that know how back to the group. Sending him there had been worthwhile after all. If the hunters whose faces he could see now in the dim glow of the fire could master this new technology, then there was hope for the tribe after all.  If they could share Ugg's expertise then this community could be the greatest mammoth bagging group of all time, securing complete market domination within even the shortest planning horizon… maybe they could make a better catapult capable of bringing down even bigger mammoths… profits would soar and he might get promotion to the Board...

 

You get the message.

 

Working and talking together to share new and best practices isn't new. Ugg and Thugg did it as part of an intuitive process millions of years ago. That intuition remains strong with us today. We know it makes sense to share our stories and new ways of working with our colleagues and yet so few of us manage to squeeze in any time to do this. Result? Our mammoth bagging techniques are outdated, impractical and we are seldom at our best. In short, we are not all using the catapult.

 

The moral of the story? Schedule time for your team to come together to share stories. By sharing experiences they will share new thinking, generate new ideas and will soon be sharing best practice. 

 

You know it makes sense.