Leaders frequently encourage teams to apply an experimental mindset to business initiatives and to reframe failures as learning opportunities. But in reality, few organizations systematically explore the reasons behind their wins and losses — which means they routinely miss out on valuable insights.

Taking a structured approach to learning helps top management teams dig below the surface to examine the factors that contributed to success or failure. Doing so is particularly important when navigating volatility and uncertainty, whether the pressure driving them is external or stems from the risks inherent in product launches, new business models, or other growth efforts. When leaders treat outcomes as a source of strategic insight, they get better at recognizing and reinforcing successful behaviors and processes and applying the most effective approaches across the company.

To help leaders discover and act on such insights systematically, we have used observations from a longitudinal study of corporate growth, resilience, and longevity to create three powerful tools. The Decompose, Interpret, Reward, and Scale (DIRS) framework guides managers in applying lessons from execution to future business development opportunities and repeatable growth strategies. Embedded in this framework is the Learning From Execution Matrix, which helps leaders categorize their company’s growth efforts according to the results and their usefulness for future efforts. To assist them with making decisions based on their findings, we offer the Stop, Improve, Intensify, Start (SIIS) assessment, which brings discipline to what can otherwise be an opportunistic and political process.1

By making sense of what works and what does not, leaders can turn scattered wins into an engine for growth and ground their strategic planning not in existing strengths and old success formulas but in insight gained from the current, and evolving, environment.

The Learning From Execution Matrix draws attention to results and their underlying drivers.