To create a learning culture, you have to admit failure. It's as simple as that. You can't claim to encourage skill acquisition, growth and progress without accepting that people will make mistakes - because it's human nature not to get everything right, right away. The first thing to do is to create a climate in which people feel secure and confident enough to dare to experiment with new things - even if it means sometimes being reckless. It saddens me when I see teams whose momentum has died down or been stifled. If you encourage them to take risks, they are capable of transforming themselves into incredible learning laboratories.

There's a rule of thumb, expressed by the formula 70-20-10, that 70% of learning is based on concrete experience (mainly daily tasks), 20% on exposure to more informal situations involving interaction and cooperation with others, and only 10% on formal education (e.g. courses and other structured training). In other words, 90% of all learning opportunities are linked to teamwork! Knowing that learning contributes greatly to people's employability, it's easy to conclude that teams that foster it are better equipped than others to attract, develop and retain talent.

• Make work rhyme with learning opportunities. Behind every challenge are opportunities to learn and grow. Make sure your team recognizes them. Instill a winning spirit throughout the organization, explaining that individual talents can be perfected through practice.
• Encourage risk-taking and tolerate "mistakes". The notion of error in the sense of fault, failure or defeat, does not exist in an environment that favors continuous improvement. Quite simply because learning happens naturally through trial and error. This process can only take place if people feel confident enough to venture outside their comfort zone. So encourage risk-taking (in appropriate proportion, of course), experimentation, prototype-building and so on. Think of your team as a kind of Fab Lab, where everyone is allowed to let their creativity flourish. But above all, support risk-takers and destigmatize failure.
• Spend time with your colleagues and treat these moments as precious. Encourage people to cultivate their strengths. Discuss, and plan with them, their specific development needs. Make continuous learning a normal and valued activity. Consider people's potential when recruiting and promoting. Openly congratulate people who have taken the time and trouble to acquire new skills (e.g. as part of a personal development plan). Finally, don't forget this: promoting learning requires an investment of time!
• Institute systematic project analyses. Whether the results are good or bad, take the time to elucidate what happened and why. n top-level sport, a match is always followed by a detailed analysis of individual and team performance. The same applies to your team. After each challenge, discuss these four key questions with your team: What did we set out to do? What actually happened? Why did it happen? What will we do differently, or better, next time?
• Share the lessons to inspire others inside and outside the team. For example, put up a bulletin board in the office. Feedback can flow more easily. Incidentally, it will give ideas to people passing through the premises, stimulating their own desire to progress. Never stop encouraging your team to learn from its experiences, positive or negative, because what is considered a failure often contains the seeds of a solution.

• The fundamental attribution error. People tend to believe that their successes are not due to luck, but to hard work, intelligence or skill. On the other hand, they tend to
  blame their failures on bad luck. This phenomenon, which psychologists refer to as attribution error/bias, significantly hampers the learning process. In fact, as long as we refuse to make the connection between our actions and what we consider to be failures, it will be difficult to learn anything useful from them.
• Overconfidence bias. It's a well-known fact: success increases self-confidence. But so does an over-inflated ego, and therein lies the problem. While self-confidence is a good thing, overconfidence makes you feel invincible, which is obviously not true. To really learn, we must humbly acknowledge our weaknesses and errors of judgment.
• Imposter syndrome. Some people are convinced, despite evidence to the contrary, that they are less capable than others. They feel they don't deserve to celebrate their successes, which they almost want to apologize for, as if these results were usurped. Don't let your team and colleagues believe that their successes are purely down to luck. Correct them when they undervalue themselves.
• Excessive work standards and procedures. Don't saturate your teams with instructions. A profusion of internal rules will hinder experimentation and therefore continuous learning. In particular, it could have a chilling effect on newcomers, who might be tempted to "play it safe" by reducing their contribution to the organization.
• The trap of productivism. Most organizations value action over reflection. And yet, the eureka effect (also known as the Aha! moment) - that magical moment when you suddenly understand a previously mysterious problem - is most likely to occur when you are willing to step out of your routine and let your mind wander. So give your team a bit of slack so they can take a step back and let themselves be inspired.