An analogy I like to refer to on this topic, "some people walk in the rain and some get wet". Meaning, are you the type of person who is willing to embrace what life has to throw at you, learning from your mistakes and your successes, taking an optimistic view on the world and accepting that things are not perfect or fair but that if you are TRUE TO YOURSELF at all times you will be living your life to the full and you will feel 'alive'. The people that 'get wet' are the 'learned', those who stay within their comfort zones and who are not willing to venture out of their 'cave'. People who are willing to learn are comfortable in their own skin. How can management get the most out of their employees? - by creating an organizational culture that is people-focused and not system-focused, by investing and encouraging their staff to 'learn' whether that is via training courses, field trips, hot-desking (short-term experiences in other offices worldwide)...etc.

People are afraid of learning, because inevtitably learning means making mistakes. Not all culture are so open and willing to accept or more importantly admit to mistakes. The art is to turn those mistakes into positives and learnings, beacause that, in the end is what they are. A poorly performimg campaign can't be brushed under the carpet, it must be analysed and used to an even greater extent than a good one.

yes yes yes - you all are right. but this reminds me of one of the first sayings we learned in school: "non scolae sed vitae discimus". for all you non-latin speakers: this means we do not learn for school but for life. the truth, nevertheless, was that if I got too much of a 6 (english: E), my teachers went: "hey, good thing you made some valuable experiences for life - but sorry, you'll have to repeat class". so, the system just turned it ad absurdum. I was a learner but should have been learned in order to advance. now, if "better learned than a learner" is teached at school (I'm sure they do it most of this world's cultures), you learn it. as the whole process of becoming a more and more learned person the older you get is being rewarded (not only with money), how can we change this behaviour? "oh yeah, being a learner is good - but being learned earns me the money" seems to me the modern interpretation of "non scolae sed vitae discimus". but even if we were all learners: let's take a look at our clients. clients are amongst the most fearful species in the world. in our daily work we try to encourage them - it takes courage to risk half a million euro when you only got one shot - but who are we to blame them for being learned if they say "no"? it just shows that life and business have different rules. maybe our client guys are learners in their private time, but when they enter the company they like morph to a different being. as this blog also is about our business, my opinion is that we - as wunderman - have to show them that being a learner rather than being learned pays both for them and their company. so (and this is the moment I look everyone deep in the eye), are we a good example to the client? really? or are we just another service provider who does everything the clients want because it's them who pay us? hm?

to Martin : I guess we should not be wondering this, or at least this should not be more important for you than "I know where I am and I know where I'm taking my client to". Because if you ask the question you position yourself in the "learning" part. Which is good, of course, because it demands putting yourself into question, facing your client, do your own checklist. But if I was a client, I would prefer to have someone who's strong on its feets as you need to be in the rugby scrum. And this is also for your "Wunderman" part of the question. Big network, big agencies, big clients, is reassuring for a client. This automatically deletes competition with a lot of other agencies "from around the corner". But a side effect is the "big" thing as it's harder for us to be as reactive as our clients would need sometimes. this is why we try to teach them anticipation. And I'm sure it's the right way, as anticipation will help them in every side of their business. Anyway this becomes kind of boring no ? Let's just say we, as Wunderman, are a great RM agency for our clients and if there's better somewhere else (and I hope so), we try everyday to improve what we have to reach this "better".