The Fastest Way to Learn What Works
We tend to admire leaders with big, bold ideas.
The superintendent who launches a districtwide initiative. The CEO who unveils a new strategic direction. The principal who introduces a sweeping school improvement plan.
These leaders are often described as visionary, decisive, and courageous.
But I’ve become increasingly convinced that we pay attention to the wrong leaders.
The leaders who receive the most attention are often the ones making the biggest promises. The leaders who deserve the most attention are often the ones creating the fastest learning cycles.
When faced with a problem, these leaders don't immediately ask, "How do we scale this?"
They ask a different question: "What is the smallest test we can run to learn whether this idea actually works?"
That question rarely makes headlines.
Yet it may be one of the most important questions a leader can ask.
The larger the initiative, the longer it typically takes to learn whether the idea is helping, hurting, or having no effect at all.
By the time evidence arrives, significant time, money, and goodwill have often been spent. Frontline staff have been trained. New expectations have been established. Leaders become invested in proving the initiative was the right decision.
And once that happens, learning becomes much harder.
Why Big Initiatives Learn Slowly
Most improvement efforts begin with a solution.
A school adopts a new curriculum. A district launches a new attendance campaign. A leadership team introduces a new evaluation process.
The assumption is that the solution is already known and that success depends primarily on implementation.
But there is a problem with this approach. What if this solution doesn't work in our system?
When organizations start big, they often commit significant resources before they have gathered meaningful evidence. Months or, more likely, years may pass before leaders know whether the change is actually helping.
In some cases, the initiative works. In many cases, it doesn't. But because so much has already been invested, it becomes difficult to change course.
By this point, the organization is often more invested in defending the idea than learning from it.
The Alternative: Start Small, Learn Fast
One of the easiest mistakes in improvement work is falling in love with an idea.
The idea feels promising. The team gets excited. People start imagining the impact.
Before long, the conversation shifts from learning whether the idea works to confirming what everyone hopes will happen.
That is a dangerous moment.
The purpose of a small test is not to verify an idea. The purpose is to learn whether the idea survives contact with reality.
This way of thinking runs counter to how many organizations operate. Once a solution is selected, the focus often shifts toward implementation and adoption.
But improvement is fundamentally a learning process, not an implementation process.
Instead of asking, "How do we roll this out?" leaders should ask, "How can we learn more about this idea as quickly as possible?"
A small test reduces risk. It generates feedback. It reveals obstacles. Most importantly, it creates knowledge.
If the idea works, it can be expanded.
If the idea fails, little has been lost.
Either way, the organization learns.
Why Learning Often Goes Unnoticed
One reason large initiatives persist is that they attract attention.
We tend to celebrate leaders with bold visions, ambitious plans, and sweeping announcements. These leaders are often viewed as decisive and courageous because they appear to know exactly where the organization should go next.
The problem is that confidence can easily be mistaken for knowledge.
The leaders who receive the most recognition are often the ones making the biggest commitments before the evidence exists. Meanwhile, the leaders who deserve more attention are frequently doing something much less visible.
They are building systems that learn.
Instead of asking people to trust their ideas, they design ways to test them.
Instead of trying to prove themselves right, they try to discover where they might be wrong.
This distinction is important because improvement depends on knowledge, not enthusiasm.
A promising idea is not the same thing as a good idea.
And a good idea is not the same thing as an idea that works in your system.
The fastest-learning leaders understand that the goal is not to confirm what they hope will happen. The goal is to learn what actually happens.
Building Systems That Learn
The fastest-learning organizations understand that uncertainty is unavoidable whenever we are trying to improve a system.
The question is not whether uncertainty exists.
The question is whether the organization is structured to learn from it.
This idea has shaped the way we think about strategic planning at United Schools.
Many organizations treat strategic plans as prediction exercises. Leaders gather, establish priorities, launch initiatives, and then spend the next several years attempting to implement what was decided during the planning process.
The implicit assumption is that the answers are already known.
Our approach is different.
We believe schools operate in dynamic and unpredictable conditions that require both long-term constancy of purpose and continual adaptation.
The purpose of a strategic plan is not to eliminate uncertainty. The purpose of a strategic plan is to create constancy of purpose while the organization learns its way forward.
That is why our strategic plan functions less like a static document and more like a management system.
The plan establishes long-term priorities and organizational commitments. At the same time, annual goals, quarterly actions, and regular reviews create shorter learning cycles that allow us to study results, understand changing conditions, and refine the system over time.
In this way, the strategic plan does not tell us exactly what will work three years from now.
Instead, it creates a structure that helps us learn what works.
This distinction is important because improvement rarely comes from having a perfect plan at the outset. More often, improvement comes from creating a system capable of generating knowledge while remaining focused on a clear aim.
Every prediction is a theory about how the system works.
The purpose of learning is to continually improve those predictions by studying how the system behaves under changing conditions.
Organizations that improve the fastest are often the ones that learn the fastest because they are constantly strengthening their understanding of the systems they lead.
Putting It All Together
Many leaders believe improvement comes from bigger plans, larger initiatives, and stronger implementation.
In reality, improvement depends on learning.
Three ideas can help leaders learn faster and improve more effectively:
Big Idea 1: Large initiatives often create slow learning cycles. The bigger the rollout, the longer it typically takes to know whether the idea is working.
Big Idea 2: Small tests create knowledge. Starting small allows leaders to learn quickly, reduce risk, and make better decisions.
Big Idea 3: The organizations that improve the fastest are often the organizations that learn the fastest.
When leaders shift their focus from proving ideas to testing ideas, they create systems that continuously generate knowledge. And knowledge, more than confidence or urgency, is what ultimately drives improvement.
Whenever You're Ready, Here Are Three Ways to Continue the Work
1. EMAIL JOHN
Have a question, an improvement idea, or a challenge you're trying to work through? I regularly exchange ideas and resources with educators across the country and beyond, and I'd welcome hearing what you're working on.
If you're looking for a thought partner who understands the realities of leading complex school systems, I work with leaders to strengthen decision-making, build learning systems, and improve organizational performance over time.
Win-Win is an improvement science text written for education leaders. It equips readers with the concepts and habits of mind from W. Edwards Deming's System of Profound Knowledge to help them improve systems, not just react to results.
John A. Dues serves as the Chief Learning Officer for United Schools, a nonprofit charter management organization that supports four public charter school campuses in Columbus, Ohio. He is also the author of the award-winning book Win-Win: W. Edwards Deming, the System of Profound Knowledge, and the Science of Improving Schools. Send feedback to jdues@unitedschools.org.