About this episode

The episode discusses a new approach to after-action reviews that emphasizes narrative inquiry over traditional methods.

A few years ago, senior FBI SWAT team leader Matt Hoffman called Preston after a fatal operation. To assist the team in working through the loss, Preston and Matt used a process that went beyond the standard after-action review by incorporating narrative inquiry. The goal was to let a fractured team's story come back together before anyone examined what went wrong, rather than extracting lessons first. Later, Preston worked with Matt and Dr. Angus Fletcher — Professor and Director of the Leadership Initiative at Ohio State's Fisher College of Business — to write up what they learned. Their paper, " A Better Approach to After-Action Reviews ," was published in Harvard Business Review. This summer Matt and Angus joined Preston to discuss Angus's research, why traditional AARs work when they're done right, and narrative competence over narrative allegiance. The three of them dig into why a story lands in the brain differently than a data point does, why the breakfast that follows a hard AAR isn't a throwaway ritual but an active repair, and why naming the discomfort in the room, not necessarily fixing it, is often the whole job of a leader. Advice for Monday: stop chasing lessons…

People in this episode

Host: Preston

Guests: Matt Hoffman, Dr. Angus Fletcher

Topics covered

• after-action reviews
• narrative inquiry
• team dynamics
• leadership
• learning from failure

Keywords

• after-action review
• narrative competence
• team story
• leadership
• lessons learned

Mentioned in this episode

Organizations: Harvard Business Review, Ohio State's Fisher College of Business, FBI

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