It's like picking up a golf club for the first time and recognizing the extraordinary amount of errors you'll make before gaining mere competence at the game. Unless it's something you care about, you won't learn. Yet, crisis and fear can only go so far as a motivation for learning. Kids learn because they want to, not because they have to. Indeed, children, who learn best when they can play without fear of making mistakes or being punished, provide the clearest clues to effective learning.
Practice reduces the cost of making mistakes.
According to Senge, the learning lab helped the team finish the car design a year early, without the last-minute modifications that usually accompany a prelaunch. Despite the group's success, Senge admits that creating learning environments such as Ford's lab are not easy. Until there's a critical mass of line leadership that can redefine the work setting, learning won't happen. But work setting alone is not enough to ensure success. Given the increasing prevalence of team-based work, more thought needs to be given to the collaborative impact of the different personalities of the various team members, according to another speaker, Gerald Macdaid, CEO of the Center for Applications of Psychological Type.