In a recent article Raj Persand quotes recent research from Abraham Carmeli and John Schaubroeck published in Long Range Planning Journal -The importance of Learning from Failure. This research is rather pertinent in a week we saw several banks in serious trouble and Lehman's who prided themselves from having come through and learnt from previous difficulties go to the wall. Carmeli and Schaubroeck propose that there are two kinds of learning single loop learning where we receive information that generates corrective action. A bit like the thermostat on your heating system. When it receives information that the room is too hot it turns off the heating. Turning it back on when the information tells it the room is to cold.

The other sort of learning they call double loop learning this is when, on detecting the error we (or the corporation) make changes at a more fundamental level, our habits, routines or expectation. For the corporation this could be changes in the policies, norms, culture and values. If a crises helps us and companies to think more deeply about our lives and provides the impetus for deep change it maybe, in the long term of benefit. The gift in the crisis!

So what has this got to do with HR. Well in the corporate or organisational world this is exactly in our territory. We are talking about policies, norms and culture. The task for the HR person it to identify the root cause and then have the presence of minds and the influencing skills to present them to the, probably panic stricken senior management with ideas for solving the root cause or at least with the means to start the debate. In the recent financial crises HR people all over the city should be busy pulling this data together and making their case. The list is long but compensation and reward practices must be close to the top of the list.

So if you are in HR, be it in the city or any major organisation ask yourself do you have two fundamental elements in place to support the organisation in a crises? The scanning and analytical tools that help you to identify the root cause of issues and the influencing tactics to present them persuasively to senior management?