LEARNING FROM EXPERIENCE?
 
 

"You seem to be quiet,my friend",observed my friend he sipped his  teh tarik and I was enjoying my roti naan with kima. I did not answer him immediately because I was doing my mental arithmetic trying to figure out how many roti naan and teh tarik I could buy with RM 5400 that I had to pay for my nine traffic summons-all for exceeding speed limit over a span of three years. I felt bad about it because I never received any notice to pay at all. My car was registered under my company name and if there were any summons sent, they were sent to my office. There are many possibilities-may be the police did not send the summons or my officers did not inform me about them. Or may be my driver received it but dared not let me know about it. Whatever it is , I had to cough out RM 5400 ,enough to buy a good notebook computer:-((

That was quite an expensive lesson on speeding and the lesson I learnt is that I must obey traffic rules and check every year for any offences . People told me that it is good if I can learn from my own experience and better if I could also learn from the experience of others.

The question that begs the answer is that do we actually learn from our mistakes or bad experience?

Every year, about 6000 Malaysians died on the roads and the statistics shows that the figure is not going down despite all the campaign. In Kelantan alone ,there are about 120,000 diabetic patients due to their preference eating sweet foods and drinks.Similarly,the figure is not decreasing but increasing by the year. No body wanted to die on the roads and no body wants to suffer diabetic and yet it appears that people never learn from experience.

Let me recall from my short memory of the last six months. One of my schoolmates passed away within three days due to brain haemorage when he collapsed due to work stress. A young cousin of mine,age 41 died due to heart attack and another age 62 died within 7 days of being admitted to hospital due to hepatatis B. Now, my uncle ,age 52 is lying in the hospital due to stroke and my schoolmate is also in the hospital suffering from colon cancer. I visited all of them ,and what did I learn? You also visited your sick and dying friends and relatives and what did you learn?

I am still smoking, having very little exercises and eat whatever I like. How about you?

Last month, I met a management guru and he told me that we and organisations 'never' learn from experience. Immediately, I disputed his statement. When he quoted a few cases and scenarios , I began to think that he may be right. When I went home to reflect on what he said, I began to see for myself that not many of us or organisations really learn from their own experience , not to mention about other people's  experience. Last two weeks, he gave me a book entitled The Fifth Discipline -The Art and Practice of the Learning Organnisation by Peter Senge.

(Special Note: This writing was pleasantly interrupted by an old friend who dropped by with a bundle of honey lemons from Terengganu at 6pm,8th of June,2002. )

(Sad news:Last night,around 8:30pm I got a call from my friend telling me that my schoolmate(Supain) who was suffering from colon cancer was dying. By the time I arrived at the hospital around 9:40pm  he already passed away one hour ago.)

I am supposed to continue writing on this topic this morning( Sunday 9th June,2002) but somehow I am not really in the mood to continue..... I am sorry.

NOTE:In summary, people ( including you and me) have short memory. We forget very fast.That is why  individuals, companies, organisations even countries keep repeating the same mistakes again and again. To benefit from experience, we must know how to learn. Just go and buy some books; read them and do something about it if you really want to learn from experience.

ps: I was really disappointed with Supian's schoolmates cold response to visit him when he was dying and also less than 5 sdara were at his funeral.