Tell me about a time…

Hearing about how our colleagues in the field address challenges can be extremely motivating and energizing. But sometimes, it’s hard to see how the steps one organization took can be translated to our own work. There’s no carbon copy solution to the issues facing the field but we can certainly benefit from understanding others’ experiences. What’s important is to find the key lessons that emerge from an experience rather than focus on the how-to of a particular example. At NAS, we love digging into stories from the field to find these learning points, and we feel that our role isn’t to provide best practices, but to contextualize these lessons so that they can help leaders throughout the sector think differently about how they might approach their own work.

One of the reasons we started Field Notes was to share out these lessons. Through our networks, we have access to a great number of impressive leaders and thinkers, but we realize there are many valuable stories beyond those we encounter in our daily work. We believe Field Notes should include stories – of successes and failures – from all types of leaders within and outside the field who are experimenting or striving to improve the way they work and create value. We want this to be a place of conversation. We want to share your story.

So, tell us about a time when you tried something new or addressed a challenge, and the lessons you took away from the experience. What was your goal? What steps did you take? Did it work? Sometimes we can learn more from failed experiments than our most successful ventures.

If you’re keen to share your story in hopes of helping others learn, send me an email about your experience. Selected leaders will be asked to participate in a brief interview (by email, phone or in person, depending on where you are) and will be profiled in future Field Notes stories that highlight the lessons we can learn from each other.