The answer is usually unspoken but real. Coaching is something I do to improve another person or team; it’s part of my job. Learning happens to me; it makes me feel vulnerable. Learning focuses on my weaknesses, pressuring me to change the way I think and behave. Besides, I’m a professional, with established competencies and knowledge. I’m paid to get results, not to learn.

Thus, managers’ most common response to the growing demand for corporations to become learning organizations is to scramble to be the teacher, not the taught—the coach, not the coached. But, to be an effective coach, an individual must understand the nature of learning. And to understand learning, a coach must be actively engaged in the learning process and personally familiar with the kinds of vulnerabilities and obstacles a learner experiences.

Developing Learning Capability

Learning, coaching, and building a learning culture are critical to the success of modern businesses. Because learning increases our ability to perform, the capacity to grow capability is becoming indistinguishable from the capacity to grow wealth. However, unacknowledged resistance to learning and coaching can make it difficult for us to realize the ideals of the learning organization.

As children, we were naturally engaged in learning in everything we did. Thus, as adults, we don’t really need to learn how to learn, as much as we need to remember what we once knew. We need to unlearn some of the attitudes and practices we picked up from our formal education that seriously undermine our natural appetite and inherent capability for learning.

The Inner Game approach (see “The Inner Game” on p. 2) is about unlearning the personal and cultural habits that interfere with our ability to learn and perform. The goal is simple, if not easy: to give ourselves and our team’s greater access to our innate abilities. The approach can be summarized in a simple formula:

Performance = Potential – Interference

“Potential” includes all of our capabilities—actualized or latent—as well as our ability to learn; “Interference” represents the ways that we undermine the fulfillment or expression of our own capacities.

Diminishing the Obstacles to Learning

We can achieve increased capacity for performance and learning either by actualizing potential or by decreasing interference—or by a combination of both. In my experience, the natural learning process—which is how we actualize potential—is gradual and ongoing. By contrast, reducing interference can have an immediate and far-reaching impact on learning and levels of performance. Thus, a successful model for skill development must take into account the phenomenon of interference.

But beware: The barriers to learning are often well guarded and may become even more entrenched when challenged. Coaches must generally be gentle in their approach to surfacing interference to learning and performance in an individual or team. Hints, suggestions, and indirect probing, though they may seem to take longer than a more direct approach, are usually more successful over the long run.

I learned a great deal about interference and how to help people work through it while coaching tennis and golf—two sports in which the obstacles to performance are difficult to disguise. And I have continued to find these sports excellent examples for exposing hidden obstacles to learning and performance. In addition, tennis and golf show the kinds of results that can occur when one succeeds in diminishing the impact of interference.

One of my favorite examples is what I call “the uh-oh experience.” A tennis ball is coming toward a player who thinks she has a weak backhand. As the ball approaches, she thinks.

“Here comes a probable mistake.” She tightens her muscles, steps back defensively as if to avoid the threat, then slashes jerkily at the ball. When this action results in either an error or an easy shot for the opponent, she confirms to herself, “I really do have a terrible backhand,” and unwittingly sets herself up for the same results on the next similar shot.

If a coach tried to correct each of the elements of the player’s stroke that were incorrect, it would take months of “learning.” However, if the coach worked at eliminating the player’s negative self-talk by focusing her attention instead on perceiving the details of the ball’s trajectory, most of the positive behavioral changes would take place without conscious effort. Working at changing a player’s perception instead of his or her behavior saves time and frustration for both student and coach.

Below is a partial list of obstacles to growing capability:

• The assumption that “I already know.”Professionals often feel that they must present the appearance of already knowing everything and already being perfectly competent. This is an obstacle to learning that young children do not share.
• The assumption that learning means remediation. For many people, the suggestion that they should learn means there is something wrong with them or their level of performance.
• Fear of being judged. We learn this early, through teachers and parents who used judgment as a means to control behavior and effort.
• Doubt. The uncertainty we feel when we face the unknown is a prerequisite for learning. Young children are not embarrassed by not knowing something. However, as we age, we are taught to feel stupid or incompetent if we lack knowledge or experience or are unable to perform up to expectations. We are especially vulnerable to this feeling when faced with the challenge of unlearning something. The prospect of acknowledging that we might have invested time and effort in a perspective that is no longer valid can seem especially threatening.
• Trying too hard to learn and to appear learned. This phenomenon is a derivative of fear and doubt, and leads to constricted potential and mistakes. Our errors then confirm ours self-doubt and bring about the very outcome that we feared.

Revealing the barriers to learning and performance can be an important first step in maximizing an individual’s or a team’s potential. To find the greatest leverage for reducing obstacles to learning in the workplace, I believe we should start with our definition of work itself. The way we see “work” has an impact on how we perceive everything we do in the workplace.

What Is Work?

If you ask executives the meaning of the word work, they focus on work as doing something—as accomplishing a goal, such as providing a product or service. In other words, to many people, work means performance. But definitions that equate work with performance can be limiting, especially in the current business environment.

Are there other results of work? When I ask executives this question, they generally offer responses that refer to two other distinct aspects of work. One is the domain of experience: How you feel while working is also a result of work. While working, people feel satisfaction, meaning, accomplishment, and challenge, as well as frustration, stress, anxiety, and boredom. Everyone at work experiences feelings that range from misery to fulfillment.

A second set of answers fall into the category of learning: While working, you can grow, develop know-how and skills, and improve your ability to communicate, plan, and strategize. Like performance and experience, learning is a universal and fundamentally human result of work—people of all ages, cultures, and levels of expertise are either learning and growing or stagnating and “devolving” while working. Adults can learn while working, just as children learn naturally while playing.

The Work Triangle

How are these fundamental results of work—performance, experience, and learning—related? They are unquestionably interdependent. If individuals aren’t learning, their performance will decline over time; if their predominant experience of work is boredom or stress, both learning and performance will suffer. These three results can be represented in a mutually supportive “Work Triangle,” with performance at the apex, and experience and learning at the base angles (see “The Work Triangle” on p. 3).

When I ask a group of executives, “Which of the three work results gains the greatest support and encouragement in your work environment?” their response is overwhelmingly, “Performance.” I then place my marking pen at the center of the Work Triangle and slowly draw a line toward the performance apex. “How much more priority is performance given over learning and enjoyment?” I ask. As the pen reaches the top of the triangle, a voice usually says, “Stop there.” In response, the majority chants, “Keep going,” until the line has gone past the apex and is several inches outside the triangle. There is a general chuckle and a sense of a common understanding of corporate priorities.

In the competitive world of business, it is easy to see why performance may be given priority over learning and experience. But what are the consequences of pursuing performance at the expense of learning and experience? In any but the shortest timeframe, the consequences are dire: performance itself will fall. And what will be management’s typical response? More pressure on performance, resulting in even less time and fewer resources directed toward learning or quality of experience.

How does the emphasis on performance play out in practice? Take your average sales manager who meets weekly with his sales representatives. The conversation usually focuses on performance issues, such as, how many calls did you make? What were the results of those calls in terms of sales? What are your plans for next week?

But what if the manager were committed to his own learning, as well as to his team’s development? He might also ask: What did you find out from customers that you didn’t know before—about their resistances, their needs, their perception of our products, how we compare to our competitors? How are different customers responding to our latest promotion? Did you gain any insights into your own selling skills? What is the competition doing? What are you interested in finding out next week? Did you learn anything that might help others on the team?

Our definition of work should include the worker’s experience and learning, as well as his or her performance. The real value of this redefinition of work is that it includes me as an individual. I directly and immediately benefit from the learning and experience components of the Work Triangle. The “Experience” side of the triangle reminds me that I can’t afford to neglect personal fulfillment during my working hours in the hope of enjoying myself only during vacation time or on weekends. I can never replace the hours of my life I spend at work, so I need to make the most of them.

The “Learning” side of the triangle reminds me that my future work prospects depend on the growth in in my capabilities. Even if I’m fired from my present job, I take with me what I have learned, which I can leverage into productive and valued performance elsewhere. When my customers, managers, teammates, and the surrounding culture pressure me for performance results, the Work Triangle helps me remember that the person producing those results is important, too. I neglect my own learning and quality of experience at great peril to myself as well as to my future levels of performance.

The Tunnel Vision of Performance Momentum

The definition of work that focuses strictly on performance results at the expense of learning and experience produces a kind of tunnel vision that prevents workers from being fully aware and focused. I call this state of unconsciousness “performance momentum.” At its worst, performance momentum is a series of actions an individual performs without true consciousness of how they relate to his or her most important priorities. Some call this mode of operation “fire-fighting.” Examples include getting so caught up in a game of tennis that you forget it is a game, or engaging in conversations that undermine a relationship for the sake of merely winning an argument. In short, performance momentum means getting caught up in an action to the extent that you forget the purpose of the action.

I don’t know of a more fundamental problem facing workers today. When individuals are caught up in performance momentum, they tend to forget not only important performance goals, but also their fundamental purpose as human beings. For example, my need to finish an article by the requested deadline obscures the reasons I chose to write the article in the first place, and dampens the natural enjoyment of expressing my thoughts and convictions. The person caught up in performance momentum neglects learning, growth, and the inherent quality of the work experience.

THE WORK TRIANGLE

The fundamental results of work—performance, experience, and learning—are interdependent. If individuals aren’t learning, their performance will decline over time; if their predominant experience of work is boredom or stress, both learning and performance will suffer.

The tunnel vision that results from performance momentum is difficult to escape when individuals are working in a team that confirms and enforces the focus on performance. Any activity that is not seen as driving directly toward the goal is viewed as suspect. However, when a team or individual sacrifices the learning and experience sides of the Work Triangle to performance momentum, long-term performance suffers. More important, however, the individual suffers. And because the individual constitutes the building block of the team, the team suffers as well.

Balancing the Work Triangle

A simple method for assessing the balance among the three elements in the Work Triangle is to evaluate the way an individual or team articulates performance goals in comparison with learning and experience goals. It is revealing that many employees, when asked about learning or experience goals, are vague and express less conviction than when discussing performance goals. Setting clear learning goals is a good way to begin rebalancing the Work Triangle.

However, the distinction between learning and performance is often blurred. Even individuals who have worked on plans for the development of their competencies often fall into the trap of expressing their learning goals in terms of performance; for example, “I want to learn to focus more on the customer”; “I want to learn to reach higher sales quotas”; and“ I’m working on learning how to get a promotion. ”The general rule for distinguishing between learning and performance goals is that learning can be viewed as a change that takes place within an individual, while performance takes place on the outside. Learning is an increased capacity to perform; performance is the evidence that the capacity exists.

A good way to focus on learning goals is through the acronym QUEST.

Q—qualities or attributes you might want to develop in yourself or others

U—increased understanding of the components of any person, situation, or system

E—development of expertise, knowledge, or skills

S—capacity for strategic, or systemic, thinking

T—capacity to optimize what you do with time

Teams and individuals can use QUEST to help form goals regarding what capabilities they want to develop. To be most effective, these objectives should support immediate performance goals but at the same time apply to many future performance challenges.

Coaching: A Conversation That Promotes Learning

When executives list the qualities, skills, and expertise they want from employees, they often list intangible attributes, such as creativity, accountability, sense of humor, team player, problem solver, and so on. So, how can you get the qualities and capabilities you want from people? The first response to this question is usually, “We have to do a better job in hiring.” Clearly, it is important to hire capable people. But the real question is how to build the capabilities in the people you have hired, and how to keep those qualities from diminishing.

Unfortunately, the tools of managing performance are not particularly useful for promoting or developing important qualities and core skills. And it is difficult to imagine a course that teaches the rudiments of initiative or cooperation. So what is left? The word I use for the capacity to promote such desired attributes is coaching.

Coaching is a way of being, listening, asking, and speaking that draws out and augments characteristics and potential that are already present in a person. An effective coaching relationship creates a safe and challenging environment in which learning can take place. Coaches know that an oak tree already exists within an acorn. They have seen the one grow into the other, over time and under the right conditions, and are committed to providing those conditions to the best of their abilities. Successful coaches continually learn how best to “farm” the potential they are given to nurture.

A primary role of the coach is to stop performance momentum by calling a time out and providing questions or perspective that can encourage learning. Actual learning happens through experience—taking actions, observing the results, and modifying subsequent actions. To turn a work experience into a learning experience, a particular mindset must be established beforehand. Establishing this perspective can be done through something I call a “set-up conversation,” which an individual can conduct alone through self-talk or with a coach. The set-up conversation helps make the learner aware of the possibilities that the imminent work experience could yield. In conducting one of these conversations, the coach asks questions that aid in focusing the individual’s or team’s attention.

At the end of a work experience, the coach and individual can hold a “debrief conversation.” During this interchange, they might “mine” the gold of what was learned and refine questions to take into the next work experience. In this way, experience itself becomes the teacher. The coach’s role becomes helping the learner as valuable questions of the “teacher” and interpret the answers.

Coaching is very different from what we are generally taught as managers or teachers. We cannot teach work teams and individuals how to grow capabilities—in the sense of the transference of information in a class-room environment. Nor can we build capabilities through managerial techniques—for example, requiring certain abilities and rewarding employees when they display them or punishing them when they don’t. Neither can we measure learning, because we can’t directly observe it. In sum, it is the learner alone who controls the process and perceives its benefits. Managers don’t even need to reward employees for learning—if learning indeed takes place, it will lead to improved performance. And employers generally award bonuses, raises, and promotions based on an increase in a worker’s performance results.

Employees and managers cannot afford to wait for their corporate cultures to become learning cultures. Workers benefit from an expanded definition of work that includes learning and experience goals, and therefore must make the commitment to achieve those objectives. But companies also benefit from this new perspective on work. Wise are the corporate leaders who recognize that redefining work in this way is a difficult task, but that the company and its shareholders also gain advantages from a balanced Work Triangle. The best managers will provide what support and resources they can to the effort, and will make it their mission to shape their workplace into an optimal learning environment. The payoff will be improved business results and a corporate culture that attracts employees who equally value growth in capabilities.

Tim Gallwey is credited with founding the field of sports psychology. His four best-selling books on The Inner Game have deeply influenced the worlds of business and sports. For the last 15years, Tim has spent most of his time working with companies that want to find a better way to implement change. This article is based on a working progress called The Inner Game of Work, to be published in 1998 by Random House.

Editorial support for this article was provided by Janice Molloy.

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The division was in serious financial trouble. Up until then, it had been coping with its financial problems by cutting positions, which seemed to improve profits temporarily. Now, faced with new pressures, it seemed obvious to the financial group within the division that it was time to cut the workforce again. Others in the division, however, felt that downsizing was exactly what the company did not need to do. This group argued strongly that improving service quality was the solution to their financial woes.

When representatives from these two conflicting groups were brought together, the debate became almost hostile. It was clear that the issue of downsizing was painful to both sides. Because of the need to explore this topic further, our consulting team was invited to work with members of the division using a systems thinking approach.

Fragmented Views

We started the project work with a one-day training session for a cross-functional group of managers from the division. During the segment on systems thinking, we drew causal loops that explored the issues of downsizing and service quality in the Equipment Servicing Division, including a “Fixes that Fail” diagram (see “Downsizing that Failed?”). The central question that emerged from this session was whether the financial gains from downsizing would be offset by a decline in service quality, and ultimately a decline in sales.

To explore this question further, we decided to rake the next step and build a computer model. The first model we created was very simple, and was used in a series of small group sessions to help the managers become comfortable with the modeling software and with the basic dynamics of the system (see “Downsizing and Service Quality Model,” p. 10). The modeling tool we used was ithink’s predecessor, STELLA, which was used without any other interface.

The small group sessions were helpful in clarifying the assumptions behind the two contradictory views of the business. For example, when the VP of Finance — a lead supporter of the downsizing — tested his approach in the model, he was puzzled to see the financial situation continue to slide. When he reflected on this surprising result, he was finally able to articulate his mental model: he believed that he could cut staff and that there would be no ripple effects—that everything would “stay the same.” The data he had previously used to support this position was that downsizing in the past had led to a temporary increase in profits. Although typically there was a later downturn in profits, he attributed this to competitor activity. Our model, however, had no active competition, and the downturn still occurred. Thus the model seemed to suggest that the decline in profitability could be due to the delayed effects of reduced service quality on sales. For the first time, the VP was forced to consider feedback within the system — the potential unintended consequences of a reduction in workforce (see “Unintended Consequences,” p. 11).

The promoters of improved service quality were equally fragmented in their thinking. They believed that if the division just added more people, quality would increase, and that would improve their revenue stream. They also had data to support their view — the company had discovered through market research that its service quality rated poorly compared to its competitors. However, when this group worked with the model, they found that adding people did improve service quality and sales, but with consistently unprofitable results. By ignoring the high cost burden of the increased service force, they too were assuming that you can change one aspect of the system and that “everything else stays the same.”

Downsizing that Failed?

To “fix” its ailing Equipment Servicing Division, COPEX had tried reducing the number of employees in the post, which decreased us personnel costs and improved profits temporarily (B1). But the drop in numbers of service personnel may have led to decreases in service quality, bringing sales and service revenue down and making profits fall even further (R2).

Learning and Leverage

After our small group sessions, we went on to create a second model that incorporated enough detail to represent some of the specific initiatives the division was considering. To work with this larger model, we brought the group together for a one-day session to consider various strategies for improving the business. As the group tested various alternative strategies, their level of understanding deepened. One compelling lesson that emerged was that any proposed initiative would not affect results in the short term, and thus the company would face continued financial pressure for the foreseeable future.

The most important insights, however, were about the fundamental architecture of the business. The reason that the original policies (lay off workers vs. add service capacity) failed to create a sustainable business was that the basic relationship between cost and revenues in this division was unworkable. For example, keeping enough personnel on hand to provide competitive service quality would cause an unprofitable overhead structure, but reducing personnel to a profitable level would yield low service quality and inhibit growth. The lesson was clear: it was impossible to achieve growth without a fundamental restructuring of the business line.

The real leverage for dramatically changing the business line was to modify any one of the basic parameters that determined costs and revenues, such as Revenue per Product, Failures per Product, Time Spent per Service, and Average Salary (see “Critical Business Parameters”). For example, a reduction in breakdowns would require fewer technicians per installed machine, which would decrease overhead and improve profitability while actually increasing service quality.

It is important to recognize that improving the breakdown rate was not the answer — it was only one possible structural change that would bring about the desired results that the group wanted.

Downsizing and Service Quality Model

The initial computer model that was created for the Equipment Servicing Division was designed mainly to help the managers become comfortable with the modelling software and with the basic structure of the system. Although is looks visually complex, this simple STELLA model helped the managers look as their assumptions more explicitly.

Improving the breakdown rate would allow the business to continue to grow and to remain profitable with that growth strategy.

Another critical lesson for the group was that policies across divisions within the company were all interdependent. Before their experience with the model, the managers viewed the company in a highly fragmented way. Even within the Equipment Servicing Division, the financial and quality camps saw the others as “obstacles” to be overcome. As a result of our intervention, the groups saw the need to look more systemically at the issues, and formed cross-division teams to continue the work.

A final realization for this group was that downsizing might be as much the disease as the cure. The group voted to postpone additional downsizing for at least a year.

Epilogue

I wish I could say that they lived happily ever after. The business line is still alive, which was in some doubt at the time, but they continue to have difficulties. I suspect that having cross-divisional teams was a very difficult structure to maintain, given their historical operations. I do feel, however, that our work helped them become more insightful and systemic in their approach.

Running through different simulations began to give them an understanding of the delays inherent in their service business — which was half the battle. For the first time, the group was able to test their assumptions about the way their business worked — and when you are caught in a “Fixes that Fail” or other problem-solving dynamic, exploring assumptions is always a good place to start.

Unintended Consequences

The simulation revealed the “better before worse” effects of downsizing on profitability, which may have resulted from the delayed effects of reduced service quality caused by the downsizing. (Note: This diagram is from a HyperCard interface that was developed for the model at a later date, in conjunction with Brian Kreutzer of Gould-Kreutzer Associates.)

Critical Business Parameters

The real leverage for the Equipment Servicing Division was to restructure their business by Editorial support for this article was provided fundamentally changing some of the parameters that were within its control, such as Average by Kellie T. Wardman. Salary, Time Spent per Service, Failures per Product and Revenue per Product (in bold italic).

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With a total of 300,000 employees, Ford operates in 50 countries around the world. It sells a huge array of products, and offers an equally widespread range of services — from financing to distributing and dealer support.

VENTURING INTO THE BADLANDS

When system and social complexity are high, the organization enters the realm of “the Badlands.”

Like any large organization, it’s also peopled by individuals who come from all walks of life — and who have the different outlooks to prove it. Engineers, accountants, human-resource folks — they all have unique backgrounds and view their work through unique perspectives. Add Ford’s various stakeholders to the mix, and you’ve got even more complexity. There are media stakeholders, shareholders, customers, the families of employees — all of them with different expectations and hopes for the company.

System and Social Complexity: “The Badlands”

Now let’s look even more deeply inside Ford to see what complexity really consists of. If you think about it, the complexity that Ford and other large organizations grapple with comes in two “flavors”: system complexity and social complexity. System complexity derives from the infrastructure of the company — the business model it uses, the way the company organizes its various functions and processes, the selection of products and services it offers. Social complexity comes from the different outlooks of the many people associated with Ford — workers, customers, families, and other stakeholders from every single country and culture that Ford operates in.

Why is it important to distinguish between these two kinds of complexity? The reason is that, if we put them on a basic graph, we get a disturbing picture of the kinds of problems that complexity can cause for an organization (see “Venturing into the Badlands”). We can think of these problems as falling into four categories:

“Tame” Problems. If an organization has low system and social complexity — for example, a mom-and-pop fruit market in a small Midwestern town — it experiences what we can think of as “tame” problems, such as figuring out when to order more inventory.

“Messy” Problems. If a company has low social complexity but high system complexity, it encounters “messy” problems. A good illustration might be the highly competitive network of tool-and-die shops in Michigan. These shops deal with intricate, precisely gauged devices that have to be delivered quickly. However, the workforce consists almost entirely of guys, all of whom root for the Detroit Lions football team — so there’s little social tension.

“Wicked” Problems. If a company has high social complexity but low system complexity, it suffers “wicked” problems. For instance, a newspaper publisher works in a relatively simple system, with clear goals and one product. However, the place is probably staffed with highly creative, culturally diverse employees — with all the accompanying differences in viewpoint and values.

The Winner: “Wicked messes,” or “The Badlands.” When an organization has high system and social complexity — like Ford and other large, globalized companies have — it enters “the Badlands.” Singer-songwriter Bruce Springsteen graphically captured that unique region in South Dakota characterized by dangerous temperature swings, ravenous carnivores, and uncertain survival in his song “Badlands.” But the area and the song also represent optimism and possibilities. More vegetation and wildlife inhabit the Badlands than anyplace else in the United States, and Springsteen’s voice and lyrics offer a sense of hope despite the song’s painful and angry chords.

What’s So Bad About the Badlands?

A company that’s operating in the Badlands faces a highly challenging brand of problems. The complexity is so extreme, and the number of interconnections among the various parts of the system so numerous, that the organization can barely control anything. Solutions take time, patience, and profound empathy on the part of everyone involved.

In Ford’s case, a number of especially daunting challenges have arisen recently. For one thing, the Firestone tires tragedy has left the entire Ford community reeling. Ford faces an immense struggle to make sure this kind of fiasco never happens again. The bonds of trust between company and supplier, and between company and customer, will take a long time to rebuild. In addition, Ford and other automotive manufacturers have come under fire not only for safety issues but also for environmental and human-rights concerns.

Clearly, Ford’s business environment keeps getting tougher. The company is held accountable for parts it buys from suppliers and for labor practices in the various parts of the world where it does business. It’s also accountable for resolving baffling patterns — for example, the demand for

All of these challenges come from a single error in thinking: the assumption that human beings can control a complex, living system like a large organization.

SUVs is rising, along with cries for environmentally friendly vehicles. The majority of Ford’s profits come from sales of SUVs; how will the company reconcile these conflicting demands? Ford’s newly launched initiative — to not only offer excellent products and services but to also make the world a better place through environmentally and socially responsible manufacturing — will probably be its toughest effort ever.

But here’s where the big lesson comes in. All of these challenges come from a single error in thinking: the assumption that human beings can control a complex, living system like a large organization. Systems thinker Meg Wheatley compares the complexity of large companies to that of the world. The world, she points out, existed for billions of years before we humans came along, but we have the nerve to think that it needs us to control it! Likewise, what makes us think that we can control a big, complex organization?

Yet attempt to control we do — often with disastrous results.

Our All-Too-Common Controls . . .

We human beings try to control the complexity of our work lives through lots of different means:

System Fixes. When we attempt to manage system complexity, we haul out a jumble of established tools and processes that seem to have worked for companies in the past. For example, we use something we blithely call “strategic planning.” Our assumption is simple: If we just write down the strategy we want to follow, and plan accordingly, everything will turn out the way we want. We even call in consultants to help us clarify our strategy — and pay them big bucks for it. The problem is that this approach to planning has long outlived its usefulness. The world has become a much more complicated place than it was back when organizations like General Motors and the MIT Sloan School of Management first devised this approach to strategy.

We also use financial analysis and reporting models that were probably invented as far back as the 1950s. These models don’t take into account all the real costs associated with doing business — such as social and environmental impacts. Nor do they recognize the value of “soft” assets, such as employee morale and commitment.

In addition, we all keep throwing the phrase “business case” around — “What’s the business case for that new HR program you want to launch?” “What’s the business case for that product modification?” In other words, what returns can we expect from a proposed change of any kind? Again, this focus on returns ignores the bigger picture: the long-term costs and benefits of the change.

Finally, we try to manage system complexity by making things as simple as possible through standardization — no matter how complicated the business is. Standardization is appropriate at times. For example, the Toyota Camry, Ford’s number-one competitor in that class of car, has just seven kinds of fuel pump applications. The Ford Taurus has more than 40! You can imagine how much simpler and cheaper it is to manufacture, sell, and service the Camry pump. But when we carry our fondness for standardization into areas of strategy — unthinkingly accepting methods and models that worked best during a simpler age — we run into trouble.

Social Fixes. Our attempts to manage social complexity get even more prickly. In many large companies, the human-resources department engineers all such efforts. HR of course deals with personnel planning, education and training, labor relations, and so forth. But in numerous companies, it spearheads change programs as well — whether to address work-life balance, professional development, conflict and communications management, or other social workplace issues. Yet as we’ll see, this realm of complexity is probably even more difficult to control than systemic complexity is.

. . . and Their Confounding Consequences

Each of the above “fixes” might gain us some positive results: We have a strategic plan to work with; we have some way of measuring certain aspects of our business; we manage to get a few employees thinking differently about important social issues. However, these improvements often prove only incremental. More important, these fixes also have unintended consequences — many of them profound enough to eclipse any gains they may have earned us.

The Price of System Fixes. As one cost of trying to control system complexity, we end up “micromanaging the metrics,” mainly because it’s the only thing we can do. This micromanaging in turn creates conflicts of interests. For example, when Ford decided to redesign one of its 40 fuel pumps to make it cheaper to build, it unwittingly pitted employees from different functions against each other. Engineering people felt pressured to reduce the design cost of the part, manufacturing staff felt compelled to shave off labor and overhead costs, and the purchasing department felt driven to find cheaper suppliers. Caught up in the crosscurrents of these conflicting objectives, none of these competing parties wanted to approve the change plan unless they got credit for its success. As you can imagine, the plan languished in people’s in-boxes as the various parties jockeyed for position as “the winner.”

Micromanaging the metrics can also create a “Tragedy of the Commons” situation — that archetypal dilemma in which all the parties in a system try to maximize their own gains, only to ruin things for everyone. For instance, at Ford (and probably at many other large companies), there’s only so much money available to support a new product or service idea. People know this, so when they build their annual budgets, they ask for the money they need for the new ideas — plus another 10 percent as a cushion (because they know the budget office would never give them what they originally asked for!). At the end of the year, everyone’s out of funds because they beefed up their budgets too much. And great, innovative ideas end up going unfunded.

The Price of Social Fixes. The biggest consequence of social fixes is probably a “Shifting the Burden” archetypal situation. Upper management, along with HR, tries to address a problem by applying a short-term, “bandage” solution rather than a longer-term, fundamental solution. The side effect of that bandage solution only makes the workforce dependent on management, thus preventing the organization from learning how to identify and implement a fundamental solution.

What does this look like in action? Usually, it takes the form of upper management’s decision to “roll out” a change initiative to address a problem. For instance, employees might be complaining about something — work-life tensions, conflicts over cultural differences, and so forth. Rather than letting people take responsibility for addressing their problems — that is, get involved in coming up with a shared solution — management force-feeds the company a new program (B1 in “Shifting the Burden to Management”). This might reduce complaints for a time, and managers might even capture a few hearts and minds. But these gains won’t stick. Worse, this approach makes employees passive, as they come to depend more and more on management to solve their problems and “take care of them.” The more dependent they become, the less able they are to feel a sense of responsibility and get involved in grappling with their problems (R3 in the diagram).

This “sheep-dip” approach to change — standardized for the masses — completely ignores employees’ true potential for making their own decisions and managing their own issues. For example, consider the difference between a company that legislates rigid work hours and one that trusts its employees to pull an all-nighter when the work demands it—and to head out to spend time with their kids

on a Friday afternoon because the work is in good shape. People can’t learn how to make these kinds of judgments wisely for themselves if their employer treats them like children.

“Sheep dipping” has another consequence as well: Because it makes employees passive, it discourages the fluid transfer of knowledge that occurs when people feel involved in and responsible for their work. Instead of looking to one another, anticipating needs, and collaborating as a team, employees have their eyes on management, waiting to be taken care of. Knowledge remains trapped in individuals’ minds and in separate functions in the organization, and the firm never leverages its true potential.

From Control to Soul

So, if we can’t control complexity, how do we go to work every day with some semblance of our sanity? Should we just give up hoping that our organizations can navigate skillfully enough through the Badlands to survive the competition and maybe even achieve their vision? What are we to do if we can’t control our work, our employees, and our organization? How can we take our organizations to places they’ve never been — scary, dangerous places, but places that also hold out opportunities for unimagined achievement?

The answer lies in one word: soul. “Soul” is a funny word. It means different things to different people, and for some it has a strong spiritual element. But in the context we’re discussing now — organizational health, values, and change — its meaning has to do with entirely new, radical perspectives on work and life.

To cross the Badlands successfully, all of us — from senior executives to middle managers to individual contributors — need to adopt these “soulful” perspectives:

Understand the system; don’t control it. As we saw above, we can’t manage, manipulate, or avoid problems in our organizations without spawning some unintended — and often undesirable — consequences. Understanding the organizational and social systems we live and work in makes us far more able to work within those systems in a healthy, successful way.

Know the relationships in the system. Understanding a system means grasping the nature of the relationships among its parts — whether those parts are business functions, individuals, external forces acting on the organization, etc. By knowing how the parts all influence each other, we can avoid taking actions that ripple through the system in ways that we never intended.

Strengthen human relationships. Success doesn’t come from dead-on metrics or a seemingly bulletproof business model; it comes from one thing only: strong, positive relationships among human beings. When you really think about it, nothing good in the world happens until people get together, talk, understand one another’s perspectives and assumptions, and work together toward a compelling goal or a vision. Even the most brilliant individual working alone can achieve only so much without connecting and collaborating with other people.

Understand others’ perspectives. This can take guts. People’s mental models — their assumptions about how the world works — derive from a complicated process of having experiences, drawing conclusions from those experiences, and then approaching their lives from those premises. Understanding where another person is “coming from” means being able to set aside our own mental models and earn enough of that other person’s trust so that he or she feels comfortable sharing those unique perspectives.

Determine what we stand for. Why do you work, really? Forget the easy answers — “I want to make money” or “I want to buy a nice house.” What lies beneath those easy answers? Around the world, people work for the same handful of profound reasons: They want their lives to have meaning, they want to create something worthwhile and wonderful, they want to see their families thrive in safe surroundings, they want to contribute to their communities, they want to leave this Earth knowing that they made it better. All these reasons define what we stand for. By clarifying what we stand for — that is, knowing in our souls why we go to work every day — we learn that we all are striving for similar and important things. That realization alone can build community and commitment a lot faster than any “rolled-out” management initiative can.

Determine our trust and our trustworthiness. Strong relationships stem from bonds of trust between people. To trust others, we have to assume the best in them — until and unless they prove themselves otherwise. But equally important, we also need to ask ourselves how trustworthy we are. We must realize that others are looking to us to prove our trustworthiness as well. By carefully and slowly building mutual trust, we create a network of robust relationships that will support us as we move forward together.

Be humble, courageous, and vulnerable. Understanding ourselves and others in ways that strengthen our relationships takes enormous courage — and a major dose of humility. It also takes a willingness to say “I don’t know” at times — something that many companies certainly don’t encourage. And finally, it takes a willingness to make ourselves vulnerable — to explain to others why we think and act the way we do, and why we value the things we value.

Find “soul heroes.” We need to keep an eye out for people whom we sense we can learn from — people who live and embody these soulful perspectives. These individuals can be colleagues, family members, friends, customers, or neighbors. If we find someone like this at work — no matter what their position — we must not be afraid to approach them, to talk with them about these questions of values, trust, and soul.

Tools for Your Badlands Backpack

So, to venture into the Badlands, we need soul — whole new ways of looking at our lives and work. But soul alone won’t get us safely through to the other side. We wouldn’t approach the real Badlands without also bringing along a backpack filled with water, food, first-aid materials, and other tools for survival and comfort. Likewise, we shouldn’t tackle the Badlands of organizational complexity without the proper tools.

These five tools are especially crucial:

Systems Thinking Tools.The field of systems thinking provides some powerful devices for understanding the systems in which we live and work, and for communicating our understanding about those systems to the other people who inhabit them. Causal loop diagrams, like the one in “Shifting the Burden to Management,” let us graphically depict our assumptions about how the system works. When we build such a diagram with others, we especially enrich that understanding, because we pull all our isolated perspectives into one shared picture. From there, we can explore possible ways to work with the system to get the results we want. These diagrams also powerfully demonstrate the folly in trying to manhandle a system: When we draw them, we can better see the long-term, undesirable consequences of our attempts to control the system.

Dialogue. The field of dialogue has grown in recent years to include specific approaches to talking with one other. For example, dialogue emphasizes patience in exploring mutual understanding and in arriving at potential solutions to problems. It also encourages us to suspend our judgments about others during verbal exchanges — that is, to temporarily hold our judgments aside in order to grasp others’ reasons for acting or thinking as they do. Dialogue lets a group tap into its collective intelligence — a powerful way of transferring and leveraging knowledge.

Ladder of Inference. This tool offers a potent way to understand why we think and respond to our world as we do. It helps us see how we construct our mental models from our life experiences — and how those mental models can ossify if we don’t keep testing them to see whether they’re still relevant. In the workplace, we all make decisions, say things, and take actions based on our mental models. By using the Ladder of Inference to examine where those models came from, we can revise them as necessary — and reap much more shared understanding with colleagues. (For information about the Ladder of Inference, see The Fifth Discipline Fieldbook published by Currency/ Doubleday).

Scenario Planning. This field has also grown in recent years. Numerous organizations, notably Royal Dutch/Shell, have used scenario planning to remarkable effect. This tool reflects the fact that we can’t control systems. Scenario planning encourages us to instead imagine a broad array of possible futures for our organization or even our entire industry — and to make the best possible arrangements we can to prepare for and benefit from those potential outcomes. This approach thus acknowledges the complexities inherent in any system; after all, there’s no way to easily determine the many different directions a system’s impact may take.

Managing by Means. New methodologies are emerging that can help us assess the true costs of running our businesses — costs to human society, to the environment, and to the business itself. And costs in the short run as well as the long run. We must grapple with these methodologies if we hope to achieve the only long-term business goal that really makes sense: business that doesn’t destroy the very means on which it depends.

Traditional change management methods build things to stick. They do not build things to last and are thus ineffective because well-intentioned people create the strategy, solution, and problem sets based on a narrow set of assumptions. To create a sustainable organization, we must work to understand the complex system dynamics of the environment and experiment with multidimensional strategies. We must also work to understand diverse social dynamics and allow multiple perspectives and behaviors to emerge. Finally, we must trust ourselves, hold true to our core convictions, and have courage, humility, and soul. In these ways, we can navigate through — and even prosper in — the most desolate and challenging of Badlands.

David Berdish is the corporate governance manager at Ford Motor Company. He is leading the development of sustainable business principles that will integrate the “triple bottom line” of economics, environmental, and societal performance and global human-rights processes. He is also supporting the organizational learning efforts at the renovation of the historic Rouge Assembly site.

The post Learning and Leading Through the Badlands appeared first on The Systems Thinker.

Defining Sustainability

Before sharing what I found, let me define what sustainability means. Our current economic system is fundamentally linear in nature. It focuses on producing products and delivering them to the customer in the fastest and cheapest way possible. We extract resources from the Earth’s surface, turn them into goods, and then discharge back into nature the byproducts of this process as massive amounts of often highly toxic waste (which we call air, water, and soil pollution) or as solid, industrial, and hazardous waste (which we dispose of in landfills or burn in incinerators). After 200 years, this so-called “cradle to grave” production system has become firmly embedded in our psyches as the dominant paradigm.

However, there is an underlying problem with this model: It turns out that the Earth’s air, forests, oceans, soils, plants, and animals do not have the capacity to endlessly supply increasing amounts of resources, nor can nature absorb all of society’s pollution and waste. The field of sustainable development has emerged in response to the mounting ecological and social challenges stemming from the traditional economic paradigm. At its core, this new approach fundamentally transforms the linear model into a circular one — what design experts Bill McDonough and Michael Braungart call a “cradle to cradle” production scheme.

This revolutionary economic paradigm eliminates the concept of waste entirely, because goods and services are designed from the outset as feedstocks for future beneficial use. To achieve this outcome, companies harvest energy and raw materials without damaging nature or communities. Then, as McDonough and Braungart say in their book Cradle to Cradle: Remaking the Way We Make Things (North Point Press, 2002), “Products can either be composed of materials that biodegrade and become food for biological cycles, or of technical (sometimes toxic) materials that stay in closed-loop technical cycles, where they continually circulate as valuable nutrients for industry.”

Organizations such as Herman Miller Inc., an international producer of office furniture and services; Inter face Inc., one of the largest manufacturers of commercial floor coverings; and Henkel, a German company that makes a broad range of industrial, commercial, and consumer chemical products are adopting this “cradle to cradle” model. As a result, they are realizing major cost savings, reduced risks, and increased competitive advantage, along with significant social and environmental benefits. But unfortunately, few executives in other businesses grasp the fundamental paradigm shift that sustainable development requires. Blinded by long-held mental models, they fail to fundamentally alter the ways in which their organizations produce goods and services. They believe that sustainability simply involves better controls, marginal improvements, or other “efficiencies” within their existing, linear business model. These managers cling to the fallacy that traditional, hierarchical organizations can manage closed-loop, cradle-to-cradle systems.

Seven Sustainability Blunders

Thus, most organizations seeking to improve their management of environmental and socio-economic issues inevitably fall prey to one or more of seven key “sustainability blunders.” Becoming aware of how these blunders can undermine an organization’s efforts to mitigate its impact on the environment is the first step in creating a sustainable enterprise.

Blunder 1: Patriarchal Thinking That Leads to a False Sense of Security Organizations that struggle to adopt a more sustainable path invariably employ a patriarchal approach to governance. Employees do only what management orders, and the organization strictly follows government mandates. Employees and the organization as a whole seldom, if ever, go beyond the requirements of their “superiors.” No one meaningfully challenges the linear economic paradigm or mechanical organizational designs that control thinking. This is the most serious of the seven blunders, because it creates an addiction to the directives of higher authorities and an abdication of personal responsibility.

Blunder 2: A “Silo” Approach to Environmental and Socio-Economic Issues In most organizations, different functions, such as environmental and labor relations, are usually assigned to separate units. Executives see sustainability as yet another special program and don’t understand how it affects design, purchasing, production, and all other units. Because no single unit can identify all of the ways in which processes or products affect the environment or social welfare, the status quo is perpetuated.

Blunder 3: No Clear Vision of Sustainability

Organizations struggling to adopt a sustainable path usually lack clarity about what they are striving to achieve. Without a clear vision, they often assume that being in compliance with the law is the sole purpose of their policies. But compliance is a backward-oriented, negative vision focused on what not to do. It depresses human motivation. Sustainability is a forward-looking vision that excites people and elicits their full commitment and energy.

Blunder 4: Confusion over Cause and Effect

The prevailing mental models held by most executives lead them to focus on the symptoms, not the true sources, of sustainability challenges. Organizations spend millions to mitigate emissions and discharges, never recognizing that these are the results, not the causes, of their problems. Emissions and discharges stem from the ways processes and products are designed and the kinds of toxic materials, chemicals, and energy used to make them. Pollution controls temporarily mask these problems and keep organizations focused on managing effects rather than on designing out root causes.

Blunder 5: Lack of Information

People need a tremendous amount of clear and easily understood information to comprehend the downsides of the linear production paradigm and the benefits of the circular cradle-to-cradle approach. However, most organizations fail to communicate effectively about the need for and the purpose, strategies, and expected outcomes of their sustainability efforts. Trainings, sign postings, and a few scattered events are insufficient to convey what a commitment to sustainable development involves or why employees should participate.

Blunder 6: Insufficient Mechanisms for Learning

When employees are given limited opportunities to test new ideas, and when they receive few rewards for doing so, not much learning occurs. Organizations struggling to become sustainable rarely institute mechanisms that allow workers to continually test new ideas, expand their knowledge base, and learn how to overcome barriers to change.

Blunder 7: Failure to Institutionalize Sustainability

The ultimate success of a change initiative occurs when sustainability-based thinking, perspectives, and behaviors are embedded in everyday operating procedures, policies, and culture; for example, when an organization links bonuses, promotions, new hiring, and succession planning to performance on sustainability. However, few organizations have incorporated sustainability in their core policies and procedures. Until they do so, employees will remain unconvinced of their employers’ commitment to this crucial issue.

The Wheel of Change

Although one or more of the blunders occur in most organizations, a small but growing number of early adopters are leading the way toward sustainability by successfully changing their traditional production and organizational paradigms. Their leaders grasp that deep-rooted cultural transformation is necessary to overcome the resistance inherent to the profound changes necessary to achieve true sustainability. Here are the interventions that successful change leaders use to resolve each of the seven sustainability blunders:

Intervention 1: Change the Dominant Mindset Through the Imperative of Achieving Sustainability

The false sense of security that people feel when they are in compliance with regulations must be undermined before employees will open themselves to circular cradle-to-cradle thinking and action. Disrupting an organization’s controlling mental models is the first — and most important — step toward the development of new ways of operating. Little change will occur if this step is unsuccessful.

An enlightened leader in a small organization can sometimes alter the controlling mindset by simply talking with senior executives, employees, and stakeholders. Tom Kelly, president of Neil Kelly Co., Portland, Oregon’s largest home remodeling firm, introduced sustainability principles to his employees and asked if they would like to apply them in their work. The workers said “yes.” The firm went on to manufacture the first interior cabinets certified by the Forest Stewardship Council and received the first LEED construction certification in the Northwest from the U. S. Green Building Council for its new showroom.

However, most organizations seem to require a major crisis to spur action. Senior executives at IKEA, a global furniture manufacturer, became committed to sustainability only after the company experienced a series of high-profile environmental and labor crises. Ray Anderson, chairman and former CEO of Interface, one of the world’s largest producers of commercial floor covering, became a convert after customers began to ask about the firm’s environmental policies. In the vast majority of cases, a relentless and compelling message from senior executives is required to make the case that safety from legal challenges, social protest, financial losses, customer defection, or environmental crisis can be achieved only by adopting a new business model based on sustainability.

Intervention 2: Rearrange the Parts by Organizing Transition Teams

Once business-as-usual thinking has been shattered, the next step is to rearrange the parts of the current system. Doing so requires the involvement of people from every function, department, and level of the organization — and key external stakeholders — in analysis, planning, and implementation. This “shake-up” is important because planners and decision-makers often surround themselves with likeminded people, do not trust the unknown, or may feel threatened by change. Consequently, they handle problems in the same way time after time. Changing the composition of groups brings fresh perspectives and ideas to the table. New people can see problems that the old guard couldn’t. They can also suggest different solutions because they are unconstrained by the dominant cultural paradigms.

The leading sustainability organizations shake up the status quo by organizing sustainability “transition teams” that develop new goals, strategies, and implementation plans. Over time, the composition and nature of the teams will change as people go deep into the organization to flesh out problems, break old thought patterns and perspectives, and align practices with sustainability. For example, the initial team may assess company policies and procedures and complete an audit of overall environmental and social impacts. Subsequent teams may be organized to apply the new approach within each unit and function. The most important step each team must take is to get clear about what it is striving to achieve, the role each person will play, and the rules they will follow to accomplish their mission.

Herman Miller Inc. established the Environmental Quality Action Team (EQAT) to “help the corporation through the muddy waters of environmentalism.” Once the EQAT was clear on its mission, it formed nine subcommittees, including the Design for the Environment team, which focused on formulating sustainable products. This team produced the Ergon 3 office chair, which is made with 60-percent recycled content. Ninety-five percent of the materials in the chair can be recycled or reused. Other subcommittees have identified reductions in energy use and packaging that have saved the company millions of dollars.

Intervention 3: Change Goals by Crafting an Ideal Vision and Guiding Sustainability Principles

The third key leverage point for cultural change toward sustainability is to alter the organization’s goals. Change the goals, and different kinds of decisions and outcomes will result. Doing so requires a clear depiction of the new ends the organization seeks to achieve and guidelines for how decisions should be made to achieve them.

The leading organizations use “ends-planning” (sometimes called “backcasting”) to craft an exciting vision of how they will look and operate when they are a sustainable enterprise. Compelling visions are felt in the heart and understood in the mind. Organizations can then adopt principles that support the vision and provide a roadmap for decision-making; for example, by deciding to use materials that are extracted from nature in ways that do not degrade the surrounding ecosystem.

Herman Miller’s vision is “to become a sustainable business: manufacturing products without reducing the capacity of the environment to provide for future generations.” The company uses The Natural Step and Bill McDonough’s “Eco-effectiveness” principles (www.mcdonough.com) as the guiding frameworks for its sustainability initiative. Scandic Hotels adopted a vision of achieving environmental sustainability by “moving from resource wasting to resource caring.” This vision led them to realize that ecological sustainability is not a cost but a source of profits and competitive advantage.

Intervention 4: Restructure the Rules of Engagement by Adopting New Strategies

After the organization has adopted new purposes and goals, the next intervention involves altering the rules that determine how work gets done. Doing so involves developing new strategies, tactics, and implementation plans. The organization should come up with both operational and governance strategies in this process. The enterprise as a whole must answer four questions: (1) How sustainable are we now? To respond, you need baseline data describing where and how the organization’s processes and products currently affect the environment and social welfare. (2) How sustainable do we want to be in the future? Adopt clear goals and targets that clarify when the organization expects to achieve certain milestones. (3) How do we get there? Design operational and governance change strategies for achieving the goals and targets. (4) How do we measure progress? Adopt credible sustainability indicators and measurement systems to quantify progress toward goals and facilitate adjustments.

In the early 1990s, the Xerox Corporation adopted the vision of becoming “Waste Free.” The vision catalyzed profound changes in operations all the way back to the initial designs of major product lines. The strategies required decentralized decision-making, which helped to dramatically increase employee morale and commitment. By the end of 2001, the initiative had led to the reuse or recycling of the equivalent of 1.8 million printers and copiers. It also resulted in several billion dollars of cost savings, as well as dramatic improvements in all environmental areas.

Intervention 5: Shift Information Flows by Tirelessly Communicating the Need, Vision, and Strategies for Achieving Sustainability

Even when all other interventions have been successful, progress will stall without the consistent exchange of clear information about the need for the sustainability initiative and its purpose, strategies, and benefits. Effective communication engages people at an emotional level. Sustainability visions and strategies become internalized as people ponder what these changes will mean to them personally. Transparent communication opens the door to honest understanding and sharing.

The leaders at Interface instituted a comprehensive information and communication program to engage employees and stakeholders in sustainability efforts. Now, environmental issues are discussed at almost every staff meeting, in executive retreats, and via internal communications. Board chairman Ray Anderson says, “Sustainability has become the language of the company.”

Intervention 6: Correct Feedback Loops by Encouraging and Rewarding Learning and Innovation

Even with excellent strategies, obstacles will surface. To overcome the barriers to change, the organization must alter its feedback and learning mechanisms so that employees and stakeholders are continually expanding their skills, knowledge, and understanding. The adoption of new learning mechanisms leads to wholesale changes of traditional feedback systems that are oriented toward maintaining the status quo.

The leading organizations provide accurate feedback on progress and setbacks, and rewards for those willing to experiment and learn. Henkel adopted a strategy to differentiate itself from its competitors based on its ecological and social performance. The company believes that “Innovation is the key to sustainability.” To encourage innovation, the company gives out “Henkel Innovation Awards” to employees who develop sustainable new products. The award includes public recognition via press releases and in company newspapers. Henkel also keeps a database of successful ideas generated by employees that is available to its workers worldwide.

Intervention 7: Adjust the Parameters by Aligning Systems and Structures with Sustainability

Because internal systems, structures, policies, and procedures should not be altered until the right kind of thinking and behaviors have been identified and implemented, changing these parameters is the last step in the change process. At the same time, the effort never actually ends at this stage. Change toward sustainability is iterative. The “wheel of change” must continually roll forward. As new knowledge is generated and employees gain increased know-how and skills, the organization needs to continually incorporate new ways of thinking and acting into how it does business.

Patagonia, the U. S. retailer of outdoor gear and clothing, explicitly seeks to create a culture that values protection of the environment and of communities. Raises, bonuses, promotions, and succession planning all depend on the level of contribution employees make to the firm’s core values of environmental protection and social equity. IKEA has followed a similar course. Says Thomas Bergmark, Social Responsibility Manager, “No one has been promoted to the senior management level who does not have a strong commitment to these issues. Before we engaged in sustainability, there were managers who did not take environmental and social issues to heart. These managers are no longer at IKEA. We take great care to get the right people promoted.”

The “Wheel of Change Toward Sustainability” shows how the seven interventions interact to form a continuous reinforcing process of transformation toward sustainability.

Sustainable Governance

Many leaders have found that changes in governance provide the greatest overall leverage for facilitating the successful introduction of the interventions outlined above. What is governance? The Journal of Management and Governance says, “Governance . . . includes the modes of allocating decisions, control, and rewarding rights within and between economic organizations.” In other words, governance systems shape the way information is gathered and shared, decisions are made and enforced, and resources and wealth are distributed. These factors guide how people perceive the world around them, how they are motivated, and how they exercise their power and authority (see “Sustainable Governance Systems”).

The organizations leading the way toward sustainability tend to view all of the people that are affected by their operations — internal members as well as external stakeholders — as important parts of an interdependent system. Their leaders understand that every component of the system must be fully engaged and must function effectively for the whole to succeed. In order for this to be possible, power and authority must be skillfully distributed among employees and stakeholders through effective information-sharing, decision-making, and resource allocation mechanisms.

This model of governance is much more sustainable over time than a patriarchal approach, because as a natural output of the process, employees and other stakeholders have a high level of commitment and involvement. With the proper purpose, vision, and guiding principles, a new production model and organizational paradigm evolves that works to eliminate environmental and socio-economic problems and create business opportunities.

Sustainable governance systems have five dominate characteristics:

1. They follow a vision and an inviolate set of principles focused on conserving the environment and enhancing socioeconomic well-being. Every system has a purpose that is the property of the whole and not of any particular part or person. Sustainability holds equal — or greater — footing with the goals of profitability or shareholder value.

2. They continually produce and widely distribute information necessary for expanding the knowledge base and for measuring progress toward the core purposes. A system of feedback mechanisms produces and widely disseminates timely and credible environmental, social, and financial data to provide the information needed for continued learning and improvement.

3. They engage all those affected by the activities of the organization. Sustainable governance systems involve in planning and decision-making all those affected by the organization, including employees from all units and functions, as well as key stakeholders such as suppliers, investors, distributors, and community, environmental, and labor organizations.

4. They equitably share the resources and wealth generated by the organization. By spreading the return on investment among employees and stakeholders and by equitably distributing resources such as staff, time, and capital to internal units, leaders ensure that all participants give the enterprise their full engagement and support.

5. They provide people with the freedom and authority to act within an agreed-upon framework. Clearly defined, mutually agreed-upon goals, rules, roles, and responsibilities result in clear strategies and implementation plans. Power and authority are decentralized, and people have both the freedom and the responsibility to act.

None of the leading organizations I reviewed can be considered truly sustainable yet. Each is plagued by inconsistencies between their ideal vision and current practices. The early adopters acknowledge that they have just begun the journey to sustainability. But they have all implemented most, if not all, of these principles of governance. The organizations all describe and apply the principles in their own unique ways. But no matter how they are articulated or employed, these tenants provide the governance structure necessary for the long journey to sustainability.

In addition to the focus on governance, leading organizations are blessed with — or take explicit steps to develop — exemplary leadership at the top and throughout the enterprise. It is not possible to initiate or sustain the tremendous transformation required to become more sustainable without exceptional leadership. Thus, good governance and leadership are the two hallmarks of successful change toward sustainability.

Organizations that apply these interventions and make the transition to cradle-to-cradle production and systems-oriented organizational paradigms are certain to be the big winners in the future. Pressure will only increase from consumers, civic groups, and the financial markets for improved environmental and social performance. Executives who believe that these demands will fade or be deflated by shifts in environmental, public health, or labor laws may experience short-term relief from these pressures. In the long run, however, recalcitrant organizations will experience a backlash that may threaten their very existence. The successful leaders of the future will be those who have adopted a more sustainable model of conducting business.

Bob Doppelt is executive director of the Center for Watershed and Community Health, a sustainability research and technical assistance program affiliated with the Institute for a Sustainable Environment at the University of Oregon. Doppelt is also a principal with Factor 10 Inc., a sustainability change management consulting firm.

The post Overcoming the Seven Sustainability Blunders appeared first on The Systems Thinker.

Why is this relationship problematic? First, although learning is clearly essential for sustained individual and organizational performance in a changing environment, at times the costs may be more visible than performance benefits. Learning can be messy, uncertain, interpersonally risky, and without guaranteed results. Moreover, not all learning leads to improved performance; it depends on what is being learned and how important it is

for particular dimensions of performance. Although some learning is straightforward (the knowledge is codified and readily used by newcomers), other forms rely on experimentation and exploration for which outcomes are unknown in advance. Lastly, time delays between learning and performance may obscure or even undermine evidence of a clear causal relationship.

As described in this article, organizations can at least partly address these challenges through leadership that creates a climate of psychological safety and that promotes inquiry. But first, let’s go into more detail about some of the ways in which a focus on learning can actually appear to undermine performance.

Impediments to Learning

Where catastrophic failure is possible, mistakes are inevitable, or innovation is necessary, learning from failure is highly desirable. Yet research suggests that few organizations dig deeply enough to understand and capture the potential learning from failures. Why this resistance to learning?

Psychological and Organizational Barriers. A multitude of barriers can preclude learning in teams and organizations. These include limitations in human skills or cognition that lead people to draw false conclusions, and complex and cross-disciplinary work designs that can make failures difficult to identify. Additional barriers include lack of policies and procedures to encourage experimentation or forums for employees to analyze and discuss the results.

Learning about complex, interconnected problems also suffers from ineffective discussion among parties with conflicting perspectives. Status differences, lack of psychological safety, and lack of inquiry into others’ information and experiences related to substantive issues can combine to ensure that a group as a whole learns little.

Powerful individuals or respected experts can stifle dissent simply by expressing their opinions. Social pressures for conformity exacerbate the impact of leaders’ actions, particularly when large status and power differences exist among leaders and subordinates. In addition, people in disagreement rarely ask the kind of sincere questions that are necessary for them to learn from each other. We tend to try to force our views on others rather than educating them by providing the underlying reasoning behind our perspectives, as Chris Argyris and Donald Schön showed long ago (see Argyris, C. and Schön, D. Organizational Learning: A Theory of Action Perspectives, Addison-Wesley, 1978).

More generally, the human desire to “get it right” rather than to treat both success and failure as useful data greatly impedes learning. Individuals prevent learning when they ignore their own mistakes in order to protect themselves from the unpleasantness and loss of self-esteem associated with acknowledging failure. People may also deny, distort, or cover up their mistakes in order to avoid the public embarrassment or private derision that frequently accompanies such confessions, despite the potential of learning from them. In addition, people derive comfort from evidence that enables them to believe what they want to believe, to deny responsibility for failures, and to attribute a problem to others or the system.

Similarly, groups and organizations tend to suppress awareness of failures. Organizational incentives typically reward success and punish failure, creating an incentive to hide mistakes. Teams and organizations are also predisposed to underreact to the threat of failure when stakes are high, different views and interests are present, and the situation is ambiguous. Such groups can fail to learn and hence make poor decisions.

Multiple mechanisms can combine to inhibit responsiveness and preclude learning in group settings. First, people tend to filter out subtle threats, blocking potentially valuable data from careful consideration. They also remain stubbornly attached to initial views and seek information and experts to confirm initial conclusions. Groups silence dissenting views, especially when power differences are present. They spend more time confirming shared views than envisioning alternative possibilities. Organizational structures often serve to block new information from reaching the top of the organization. Rather, they tend to reinforce existing wisdom.

IMPACT OF PSYCHOLOGICAL AND ORGANIZATIONAL BARRIERS TO LEARNING

While proactively seeking to acquire new capabilities often takes a toll on short-term performance, over time, it benefits both the individual and the organization. Avoiding learning behaviors, on the other hand, can undermine long-term performance.

Inability to Learn from Failure. Most organizations’ inability to learn from failure stems from a lack of attention to small, everyday problems and mistakes. Organizations that embrace small failures as part of a learning process are more likely to innovate successfully. Likewise, organizations that pay more attention to small problems are more likely to avert big ones, especially where tasks are interconnected. Despite the increased rate of failure that accompanies deliberate experimentation, organizations that experiment effectively are likely to be more innovative, productive, and successful than those that do not take such risks (see especially Sitkin, S. B., “Learning Through Failure: The Strategy of Small Losses,” in L. L. Cummings and B. M. Staw (Eds.), Research in Organizational Behavior, Vol. 14: 231–266, JAI Press, 1992, and Cannon and Edmondson (2005), cited above).

Small failures arise not only in the course of purposeful experimentation, but also in daily work that is complex and interdependent. When problems inevitably arise during the course of business in these situations, workers can either simply compensate for or work around problems, or they can seek to resolve the underlying cause by notifying those who can help to correct them. The former would likely go unnoticed, while the latter would expose poor performance. Nevertheless, compensating for problems can be counterproductive if doing so isolates information about problems such that no learning occurs.

In hazardous situations, small failures not identified as problems worth examination often precede catastrophic failures. Small failures are often the key early warning sign that could provide a wake-up call needed to avert disaster down the road. Yet, in recognizing small failures in order to learn from them, individuals and groups must acknowledge the performance gaps.

Collective learning requires valuing failure and being willing to incur small failures in front of colleagues. It requires being willing to enhance rather than reduce variance. Learning groups must proactively identify, discuss, and analyze what may appear to be insignificant mistakes or problems in addition to large failures. When organizations ignore small problems, preventing larger failures becomes more difficult (see “Impact of Psychological and Organizational Barriers to Learning”).

The Learning Mindset

Given the above challenges, this section describes some of the theoretical alternatives for promoting organizational learning that enhances future performance. It ties together different but related ideas from research at several levels of analysis (see “Learning Mindsets at Multiple Levels of Analysis,” p. 4).

Advocacy and Inquiry Orientations. As discussed above, organizational structures and processes can severely inhibit the ability of a group to effectively incorporate the unique knowledge and concerns of different members. Key features of group process failures include antagonism; a lack of listening, learning, and inquiring; and limited psychological safety for challenging authority. These kinds of individual and interpersonal behaviors have been collectively referred to as an advocacy orientation (Garvin and Roberto introduced this term in “What You Don’t Know About Making Decisions,” Harvard Business Review, Vol. 79, No. 8, September 2001).

For example, simple but genuine inquiry into the thinking of other team members could have generated critical new insights about the threat posed by the foam strike to the Columbia space shuttle. Instead, NASA managers spent 16 days downplaying the problem and so did not view the events as a trigger for conducting detailed analyses of the situation. A recent analysis by Roberto, Bohmer, and Edmondson concluded that NASA’s response to the foam strike threat was characterized by active discounting of risk, fragmented, discipline-based analyses, and a wait-and-see orientation to action. When engineers became concerned about the foam strike, the impact of their questions and analyses was dampened by poor team design, coordination, and support. In contrast to the flat and flexible organizational structures that enable research and development, NASA exhibited a rigid hierarchy with strict rules and guidelines for behavior, structures conducive to aims of routine production and efficiency. The cultural reliance on data-driven problem solving and quantitative analysis discouraged novel lines of inquiry based on intuitive judgments and interpretations of incomplete, yet troubling information. In short, the shuttle team faced a significant learning opportunity but was not able to take advantage of it due to counterproductive organizational and group dynamics.

In contrast, effectively conducting an analysis of a failure requires a spirit of inquiry and openness, patience, and a tolerance for ambiguity. Such an inquiry orientation is characterized by the perception among group members that multiple alternatives exist, frequent dissent, deepening understanding of issues and development of new possibilities, filling gaps in knowledge through combining information sources, and awareness of each others’ reasoning and its implications. Such an orientation can counteract common group process failures. Learning about the perspectives, ideas, experiences, and concerns of others when facing uncertainty and high-stakes decisions is critical to making appropriate choices.

Confirmatory and Exploratory Responses. Leaders play an important role in determining group orientation to an observed or suspected failure. Analyzing the Columbia Shuttle tragedy, Edmondson and colleagues suggested that when small problems occur, leaders can respond in one of two basic ways. A confirmatory response — appropriate in routine production settings, but harmful in more volatile or uncertain environments — reinforces accepted assumptions, naturally promoting an advocacy orientation on the part of leaders and others. When individuals seek information, they naturally look for data that confirms existing beliefs. Confirmatory leaders act in ways consistent with established frames and beliefs, passive and reactionary rather than active and forward-looking.

In uncertain or risky situations or where innovation is required, an exploratory response may be more appropriate than seeking to confirm existing views. An exploratory response involves challenging and testing existing assumptions and experimenting with new behaviors and possibilities, the goal of which is to learn and to learn quickly. By deliberately exaggerating ambiguous threats, actively directing and coordinating team analysis and problem solving, and encouraging an overall orientation toward action, exploratory leaders encourage inquiry and experimentation. Leaders seeking to encourage exploration also actively foster constructive conflict and dissent and generate psychological safety by creating an environment in which people have an incentive, or at least do not have a disincentive, to identify and reveal failures, questions, and concerns. This form of leader response helps to accelerate learning through deliberate information gathering, creative mental simulations, and simple, rapid experimentation.

Rather than supporting existing assumptions, an exploratory response requires a deliberate shift in the mindset of a leader — and of others — that alters the way they interpret, make sense of, and diagnose situations. When leaders follow an exploratory approach, they embrace ambiguity and openly acknowledge gaps in knowledge. They recognize that their current understanding may require revision, and they actively seek evidence in support of alternative hypotheses. Rather than seeking to prove what they already believe, exploratory leaders seek discovery through creative and iterative experimentation.

Learning-Oriented and Coping-Oriented Approaches. When implementing an innovation such as a new technology or practice, leaders can orient those who will be responsible for implementation by responding in one of two ways. They may view the innovation challenge as something with which they need to cope or as an exciting learning and improvement opportunity. A coping-oriented approach is characterized by protective or defensive aims and technically oriented leadership. In contrast, learning-oriented leaders share with team members a sense of purpose related to accomplishing compelling goals and view project success as dependent on all team members.

In a study of 16 cardiac surgery departments implementing a minimally invasive cardiovascular surgery technique, successful surgical team leaders demonstrated a learning-oriented approach rather than a coping approach. Learning-oriented leaders explicitly communicated their interdependence with others, emphasizing their own fallibility and need for others’ input for the new technology to work. Without conveying any loss of expertise or status, these leaders simply recognized and communicated that in doing the new procedure they were dependent on others. In learning-oriented teams, members felt a profound sense of ownership of the project’s goals and processes, and they believed their roles to be crucial. Elsewhere, the surgeon’s position as expert precluded others from seeing a way to make genuine contributions beyond enacting their own narrow tasks, and it put them in a position of not seeing themselves as affecting whether the project succeeded or not. Learning-oriented teams had a palpable sense of teamwork and collegiality, aided by early practice sessions.

Organizing to learn and organizing to execute are two distinct management practices, one suited to exploration and the other to exploitation respectively.

In addition, team members felt completely comfortable speaking about their observations and concerns in the operating room, and they also were included in meaningful reflection sessions to discuss how the technology implementation was going. In teams that framed the innovation as a learning opportunity, leaders enrolled carefully selected team members, conducted pretrial team preparation, and engaged in multiple iterations of trial and reflection. Dramatic differences in the success of learning-oriented versus coping oriented leaders suggest that project leaders have substantial power to influence how team members see a project, especially its purpose and their own role in achieving that purpose.

Organizational Exploitation and Exploration. Inquiry and advocacy orientations describe individuals and groups; exploration and exploitation are terms that have been used to describe parallel characteristics of organizations. In mature markets, where solutions for getting a job done exist and are well understood, organizations tend to be designed and oriented toward a focus on execution of tasks and exploitation of current products or services. In more uncertain environments, knowledge about how to achieve performance is limited, requiring collective learning — or exploration in which open-ended experimentation is an integral part. In sum, exploration in search of new or better processes or products is conceptually and managerially distinct from execution, which is characterized by planning and structured implementation and amenable to formal tools such as statistical control.

Organizing to Learn and Organizing to Execute. In the same way that leader response drives group member orientation, the mindset of organizational leaders as well as the structures and systems they initiate play a large role in determining firm behavior and capabilities. Organizing to learn and organizing to execute are two distinct management practices, one suited to exploration and the other to exploitation respectively.

Where problems and processes are well understood and where solutions are known, leaders are advised to organize to execute. Organizing to execute relies on traditional management tools that motivate people and resources to carry out well-defined tasks. When reflecting on the work, leaders who organize to execute are well advised to ask, “Did we do it right?” In general, this approach is systematic, involves first-order learning in which feedback is used to modify or redirect activities, and eschews diversion from prescribed processes without good cause.

In contrast, facing a situation in which process solutions are not yet well developed, leaders must organize to learn: generating variance, learning from failure, sharing results, and experimenting continuously until workable processes are discovered, developed, and refined. Motivating organizational exploration requires a different mindset than motivating accurate and efficient execution. Leaders must ask not “did we succeed?” but rather “did we learn?”

In this way, organizing to learn considers the lessons of failure to be at least as valuable as the lessons of success. Such a managerial approach organizes people and resources for second-order learning that challenges, reframes, and expands possible alternatives. Practices involved in organizing to learn include promoting rather than reducing variance, conducting experiments rather than executing prescribed tasks, and rewarding learning rather than accuracy.

Creating systems to expose failures can help organizations create and sustain competitive advantage. For example, General Electric, UPS, and Intuit proactively seek data to help them identify failures. GE places an 800 number directly on each of its products. UPS allocates protected time for each of its drivers to express concerns or make suggestions. Intuit staffs its customer service line with technical designers, who directly translate feedback from customers into product improvements. At IDEO, brainstorming about problems on a particular project often enables engineers to discover ideas that benefit other design initiatives. At Toyota, the Andon cord, which permits any employee to halt production, enables continuous improvement through frequent investigation of potential concerns.

Leading Organizational Learning

Edmondson’s research has identified several success factors for leaders seeking to incorporate learning into their efforts to manage their organizations effectively. These include recognizing and responding to the need for learning versus execution, embracing the small failures from which organizations can learn, and maintaining the ability to shift nimbly between learning and execution as needed.

Diagnose the Situation and Respond Accordingly. Rather than vary their style as appropriate for the situation, in practice leaders tend to employ a consistent approach. They frequently gravitate toward organizing to execute, particularly when associated practices are consistent with the organization’s culture. However, being good at organizing to execute can hamper efforts that require learning. When leaders facing a novel challenge organize to execute rather than employing a learning approach, their organizations miss opportunities to innovate successfully.

Several years ago, the new chief operating officer at Children’s Hospital and Clinics in Minnesota, Julie Morath, exemplified a mindset of organizing to learn. Emphasizing that she did not have the answers, she invited people throughout the organization to join in a learning journey, aimed at discovering how to ensure 100 percent patient safety.

Organizing a team to experiment and learn about an unknown process requires a management approach that embraces failure rather than seeking perfect execution.

Embrace Failure. Organizing a team to experiment and learn about an unknown process requires a management approach that embraces failure rather than seeking perfect execution. Discovery and expeditious trial and error are the keys to successful learning. In the Electric Maze®, an interactive learning exercise created by Interel, participants recognize how unnatural collective learning is for most managers. Teams of students must get each member from one end of the maze to the other without speaking. Individuals step on the maze until a square beeps, at which point the individual must retrace his or her steps back to the start.

To optimize the learning process, the team should “embrace failure” (symbolized in the Electric Maze exercise as “beeps going forward”) and systematically collect as many “failures” as quickly as possible. More typically, however, the need to learn is hampered by the perceived interpersonal risk of “failing” in front of colleagues by stepping on a beeping square. In reality, only by stepping on beeping squares can the team learn quickly and discover the true path forward. The exercise offers a palpable experience to show managers that the desire to look as if one never makes mistakes hinders team and organizational learning.

Maintain Flexibility and Shift as Needed. Some business situations require innovation and execution simultaneously, or in rapid sequence. However, shifting from organizing to learn to organizing to execute can be difficult. Participants in the Electric Maze exercise come to appreciate this challenge as well. To find the correct path through the maze requires organizing to learn.

Once the path is discovered, teams are required to have participants walk through the path as quickly as possible with minimal error. In practical terms, this means the teams must shift their behavior from learning to execution, something that most teams find difficult. The Maze exercise illustrates that managing a team for superb execution of a known process calls for a different approach than managing a team to experiment and discover a new process. The ability to recognize situations that require learning and the flexibility to shift from execution to learning requires awareness as well as skillful management, posing significant challenge to many leaders and competitive advantage to leaders with such ability.

Implications for Performance Measurement

The implication of the complex relationship between learning and performance for performance measurement is worth a brief discussion. Performance is easier to measure in execution contexts than in exploratory learning contexts. In the latter, performance can be challenging to measure in the short term, even if it contributes to clear performance criteria in the long term.

Consider the Electric Maze exercise again. In the second phase, excellent performance is error-free, rapid completion of the task—every member traversing the discovered path. In the first phase, success requires encountering and learning from failures, but how many is the right number? How fast should experiments be run? As in this example, the success of experimentation is far more difficult to assess than the success of execution.

Clearly, there are situations in which it is appropriate to measure performance against quality and efficiency standards. This is true when tasks are routine. However, employee rewards based primarily on indices measuring routine performance, such as accuracy and speed, can thwart efforts to innovate. Stated goals of increasing innovation are more effective when rewards promote experimentation rather than penalize failure. At Bank of America, for example, innovation was an espoused value. Leaders targeted a projected failure rate of 30 percent as suggestive of sufficient experimentation. However, few employees experimented with new ideas until management changed its reward system from traditional performance measures to those that rewarded innovation. Truly supporting innovation requires recognition that trying out innovative ideas will produce failures on the path to improvement.

Leaders need to align incentives and to offer resources to promote and facilitate effective learning. Supporting improvement requires understanding that mistakes are inevitable in uncertain and risky situations. Organizations must reward improvement rather than success, reward experimentation even when it results in failure, and publicize and reward speaking up about concerns and mistakes, so others can learn. Policies that reward compliance with specific targets or procedures encourage effort toward those measures but may thwart efforts toward innovation and experimentation.

Given the problematic nature of the relationship between learning and performance, to provide incentives for learning, performance measurement must examine learning, not just performance. Useful tools include surveys, questionnaires, and interviews to examine attitudes toward and depth of understanding regarding new ideas, knowledge, and ways of thinking. Process measures are also helpful. Direct observation is useful for assessing behavioral change due to new insights. Finally, performance measurement must consider improvement by measuring results over time. Groups that improve more over a fixed time frame or that take less time to improve must be learning faster than their peers.

Supporting improvement requires understanding that mistakes are inevitable in uncertain and risky situations.

Conclusions

This brief article calls attention to some of the challenges and tensions that exist when trying to improve team or organizational performance through proactive learning. We note several ways in which learning and performance in organizations can be at odds. Notably, when organizations engage in a new learning challenge, performance often suffers, or appears to suffer, in the short term. Struggling to acquire new skills or capabilities often takes a real, not just apparent, toll on short-term performance. Moreover, by revealing and analyzing their failures and mistakes — a critical aspect of learning — work groups may appear to be performing less well than they would otherwise.

The work reviewed here has elucidated the challenges of learning from failure in organizations, including the challenges of admitting errors and failures and production pressure that make it difficult to invest time in learning. These challenges are at least partially addressed by managerial efforts to create a climate of psychological safety and to promote inquiry. Leadership is thus essential to foster the mindset, group behaviors, and organizational investments needed to promote today’s learning and invest in tomorrow’s performance.

Amy C. Edmondson is the Novartis Professor of Leadership and Management and chair of the doctoral programs at Harvard Business School. Her research examines leadership influences on psychological safety, learning, collaboration, and innovation in teams and organizations.

Sara J. Singer, M. B. A., Ph. D., is assistant professor of Health Care Management and Policy at Harvard School of Public Health and an assistant in Health Policy in the Institute for Health Policy, Massachusetts General Hospital. Her research uses organizational safety, organizational learning, and leadership theories to understand and address the causes and consequences of errors and adverse events.

The post Confronting the Tension Between Learning and Performance appeared first on The Systems Thinker.

In the world of big data and high-stakes, disruptive change, learning becomes essential for leadership. Reason may have been concerned with high-risk leadership situations, but he could have easily been referring to any leader. In fact, contemporary leaders in business organizations share many of the same challenges faced by well-known high-stress and high-consequence positions such as pilots, surgery teams, and military quick reaction forces.

The Shift from Traditional to Learning-Directed Leadership

Traditional approaches to leadership focus on power, influence, and position as the sources of leadership. No doubt, these are important factors. However, they prove less important in a complex and dynamic world where disruptive change is considered normal. Leaders working in the world of “big data” engage learning rather than power, knowledge rather than influence, expertise rather than position. Learning-directed leaders see continual learning, not the hoarding of power and resources, as their primary advantage. At their core, learning-directed leaders work to be open to new information and ready to revise past assessments of a situation, cultivating knowledge, learning, and expertise along the way as described by psychologist Theodore Mills (1967).

Leadership requires a shift in understanding about the nature of problems and how these problems are solved. The study of knowledge distinguishes between ill-structured and well-structured problems. Well-structured problems require time, patience, and persistence. Given enough time and resources, leaders can always solve well-structured problems. An example of a well-structured problem is reducing a budget by 15 percent. On the other hand, determining a new strategic direction in a fast-changing marketplace is an ill-structured problem.

Well-structured problems are the work of traditional leaders. Learning-directed leaders, on the other hand, work to solve ill-structured problems. No matter how much time, persistence, and patience a leader puts into solving an ill-structured problem, it can never be fully understood, and people will never fully agree on one right decision. In fact, there is no single best solution for an ill-structured problem. “Moving from Traditional to Learning-Directed Leadership” represents the shift in thinking required for a leader to be successful in this context. The shift, although difficult, is essential for leading, as an example from the medical profession illustrates.

CHARACTERISTICS OF A COMPLEX LEADERSHIP ENVIRONMENT

Eliminating Infections in Critical Care Medicine

Medical personnel insert or replace thousands of central line catheters each day. These catheters, which are inserted into veins in the neck, groin, or chest, dispense medications or fluids and can be used to measure blood volume. In the most trying cases, a central line catheter can save a life or limit pain. Inserting one of these devices is a common procedure. Unfortunately every year, an estimated 80,000 patients contract an infection that could have been avoided. Between 30,000 and 50,000 of these patients die as a result (Landro, 2010).

The procedures involved in changing a central line catheter may seem simple and routine, but learning to do something other than the existing procedures is much more difficult. In reality, improving the process of inserting or changing central line catheters has proven particularly challenging. Changing a well-established procedure involves monitoring hundreds of pieces of information, coordinating complex processes, and overcoming deeply ingrained cultural barriers.

MOVING FROM TRADITIONAL TO LEARNING-DIRECTED LEADERSHIP

Several factors contribute to the problem. A medical professional may care for hundreds of patients a month. The human mind is only capable of remembering a limited amount of data at any one time and so keeping track of each procedure becomes difficult. Further, many professionals don’t have direct access to the correct supplies. Changing a catheter may prove a challenge because resources come from different locations and quality is difficult to assess. Adding to the problem, changing and inserting a catheter requires coordination among various professionals.

A group of physicians sought to change the way medical professionals go about inserting and changing catheters in patients to decrease the high rate of infection and death. Led by Dr. Peter Pronovost of the Department of Anesthesiology and Critical Care Medicine at the Johns Hopkins Hospital, they tackled the problem by turning learning into action (Pronovost & Vohr, 2010). They began by reviewing prior research on catheter-related infections and related topics. From this research, they identified five practices that showed promise in limiting infection.

First, they introduced an educational program to teach physicians, residents, nurses, and other medical professionals about the existing procedures and how small changes might reduce infections. Second, they created a central cart that included all the materials needed to conduct the procedure with a greater degree of safety. In the past, medical personnel might have to search for the proper equipment, losing valuable time and focus in the process. Third, they instituted a daily care plan meeting that addressed whether patients needed a new catheter. Fourth, and most important, they implemented a checklist procedure, adopted from preflight checklists used by airline flight crews. The process, led by the bedside nurse, ensured that personnel followed proper and safe procedures. The checklist was to be used each time a new catheter was inserted or rewired. Fifth, they called on nurses to stop the process if any care provider failed to follow the guidelines as stated on the checklist. The steps on the checklist were clear and concise. When inserting a catheter, the professionals were to wash their hands; clean the patient’s skin with a disinfectant; wear a cap and gown and use a surgical drape; insert the catheter through parts of the body other than the groin; and remove any unnecessary catheters.

The physicians achieved a successful result by almost any measure. Researchers estimated that, when adopted in 50 intensive care units in Michigan, the procedure might have prevented 2,000 infections, reaching an infection rate of near zero (Landro, 2010). The procedures demonstrate the power of learning-directed leadership. Learning-directed leadership impacts organizational effectiveness through five processes: increasing awareness of a problem or system, learning from (rather than simply repeating) experience, facilitating behavioral change through coordination, improving judgment of individual employees, and breaking down hierarchy to transfer knowledge across levels of the organization. We present each of these in turn.

Increasing Awareness. Like most successful organization-wide learning initiatives, the catheter safety effort began by focusing attention on the general problem. The hospitals that adopted the catheter safety process implemented a training course for the general population and garnered the support of management. Frontline employees, those who were responsible for insertion and replacement of catheters, received additional training that focused on the specific elements of the problem. Increasing awareness stands as the first step in learning by focusing the attention of the entire organization on an otherwise misunderstood or overlooked problem.

Learning from Past Experience. One reason that the intervention proved so successful was that it relied on a comprehensive review of existing knowledge. The researchers didn’t start from scratch; they sifted through years of studies, in fields from medicine to flight crew operations. They identified ways to put these research findings into action. But they went further by culling best practices. They identified what practices were cursory and which were central to success. Much of the success could be attributed to the fact that these techniques had been used before, and only the most successful processes were adopted.

The researchers went beyond use of existing experience; they made gains in applying the model to a new situation. No one could logically accept that a flight crew checklist would be appropriate for a hospital. The researchers knew they had to adapt the checklist for their own unique purposes. The process of adaptation cannot be underestimated, for it seems that many best practices go unused because organizations fail to adapt them to the specific circumstances they face.

Facilitating Behavior Change. The central line catheter awareness program also involved behavioral change by encouraging medical professionals to consider small changes in how they work. Behavioral components included adoption of a common cart, institution of a checklist to detail critical procedures, and establishment of standardized review procedures for each patient.

These changes help medical professionals focus on the processes most important to achieving the goal, in this case infection-free catheter insertion. At the same time, the professionals develop a clearer picture of the larger task, seeing how their individual actions fit into the larger treatment plan for the patient. Learning occurs through the constant monitoring of patient treatment as given by other caregivers. Thus, this approach engages the best element of goal setting. It helps to simplify a complex process by focusing attention on key aspects of a task while simultaneously allowing for learning about the implications for the larger task. The most important behavioral change may not be the actual medical procedures itself, but the improved coordination that results.

We know that learning involves collective rather than just individual processes. Yet, the role of coordination in learning is often characterized as mysterious and therefore often overlooked. Perhaps this is because coordination can be difficult to observe and capture. Psychologist Daniel Wegner (Wegner and Wegner, 1985) has taken some of the mystery out of coordinated learning with something he calls “transactive memory.” His early research was largely confined to laboratory studies. In one study, pairs of individuals who had been in a relationship more than three months were better able to recall words than those who were not in these relationships. Over the last few years, the notion of transactive memory has been confirmed in dozens of studies in real-world settings. These studies largely confirm Wegner’s findings – teamwork matters. The catheter safety program demonstrates the role of transactive memory in learning. Teams that demonstrate transactive memory share three characteristics.

First, team members believe in the credibility of the information shared by other members. The catheter safety program appears to increase credibility because it provides a shared template, common repository, and agreed-upon procedure for documenting knowledge. Essentially, the shared checklist replaces individual memory with a team memory. Credibility increases because the checklist serves as a shared and likely more credible source of memory, so that memory is no longer assigned to the more fallible process of individual cognition.

Second, transactive memory involves effectively coordinating actions. Coordination means that information moves across and between individuals in a way that contributes to the team’s overall performance. The catheter safety program encourages coordination by helping teams establish a common set of procedures that guide action. The development, implementation, and integration of a checklist fosters learning because coordination becomes an everyday practice, not an abstraction. Coordination leads to learning because it necessitates an agreed-upon procedure, standardizes routine processes, and creates a template for improving processes.

Third, the common checklist improves coordination among a group of specialized professionals. Organizations manage complexity by distributing labor. Nurses, physicians, and residents each perform a specific duty. This division of labor helps the organization but creates challenges for coordination. Learning occurs when team members understand, respect, and utilize the unique expertise of these diverse roles. The catheter safety program provides evidence that when learning becomes a daily practice, it improves performance.

Improving Judgment. In addition to creating awareness and making incremental changes to behavior, lessons from catheter safety checklists point to the importance of improving professional judgment. The checklist implementation process marks an important shift from institutionalizing organization-wide policies to allowing experienced professionals to exercise judgment. For example, the development and implementation of a checklist is not abstract but part of the daily routine of professionals. For sure, implementation requires a coordinated effort at all levels of the organization, including strong support from management, but ultimately, the change occurs at the most direct levels of patient care, not policy. The program success results from the learning that occurs as professionals exercise autonomy and judgment unencumbered by overly burdensome institutional rules.

Improving professional judgment is an important part of learning. In a 1986 study, Vimla Patel and colleagues found that experienced physicians saw medical situations in a more holistic and complete way than did residents. In other words, physicians relied on a greater source of data, including patient histories and lifestyle data, to make a diagnosis. In non-routine cases, experts rely on “flexible reasoning” to generate alternatives, revise hypotheses, and develop meaningful courses of action. Judgment and its cousin learning require adapting, looking at a broad range of information, challenging, and understanding context.

Breaking Down Hierarchy. The cornerstone of the catheter safety program can be found in the introduction and use of a common checklist. However, from a learning standpoint, the checklist itself serves simply to facilitate a larger psychological purpose. It facilitates the breakdown of traditional organizational and professional hierarchies.

Medicine’s adoption of checklists builds on a legacy established by commercial pilots. Studies of numerous air tragedies and near misses have revealed that all too often, dysfunctional power dynamics among the flight crews contributed to the disaster. Overly authoritarian cockpit captains ignored the insights and warnings of copilots, leading to a crash or near miss. The checklist serves to neutralize traditional forms of power such as rank or profession because authority no longer rests in the rank of individuals but in their knowledge, and this paves the way for learning. Nurses and residents gain the authority to stop a procedure if it doesn’t conform to guidelines.

Each of these five processes underscores the importance of learning in improving organizational effectiveness. The initial experiment for catheter safety has been adopted by other hospitals around the US. It stands as a remarkable example of learning in organizations. We can’t emphasize enough that the learning from such an effort occurs on two levels. The first level is the learning that occurs from engaging in the process of building the procedure. The second level of learning occurs as an outcome of the continued engagement in the process itself.

A successful program can tell us something important, but an overt collapse of learning can tell us something else. Next we turn to the case of Lehman Brothers and the failure to learn.

Failure to Learn at Lehman Brothers

As one way to understand just how the catheter safety program invokes learning, we can contrast it with an organization that failed to learn. Lehman Brothers can be described as a collapse of learning because it had, at the time of this writing, the largest bankruptcy in the world’s history, topping an estimated $639 billion in assets.

Over years, Lehman grew into a rigid culture, where it enforced strict informal rules for behavior. The culture served the company well at times, but the same rigidity also restricted its ability to learn and adapt. During the mortgage crisis of 2007, the managers at Lehman needed to assess and change their behavior and respond to the need for new direction. Rather, as former chief talent officer Hope Greenfield indicated in Leader to Leader, managers “stood in the sidelines waiting to see who was going to take the reins next” and occupied themselves with “finger pointing and blame.” The culture did not change behaviors even when the company needed that change to survive.

Lehman found itself plagued by widespread turnover, which resulted in continual loss of talent. These trends meant that professional judgment was constantly under threat. As Greenfield pointed out, managers who tried to exercise their professionalism found themselves sidelined and ostracized, and many eventually left the organization. As a result, the culture at Lehman restricted independent professional judgment in favor of rigid thinking. Learning ultimately became stifled.

Team coordination, another hallmark of learning, is built on a foundation of credibility that allows individual team members the freedom to act. However, in cultures that breed a strong sense of competitiveness among managers, it is difficult to build credible, trustworthy teams in which members place the team’s interests and welfare above their personal interests. In this “underdog eat underdog world,” managers prided themselves on their work ethic and fierce competitive spirit rather than good leadership.

This competitive spirit often overshadowed level-headed thinking. The head of Lehmann was bound for retirement, and his number two in command was not a likely successor. This dynamic enhanced the spirit of competition, since according to Greenfield, “any newcomer was regarded as a potential rival and there was smug satisfaction in seeing peers falter.” Although some competition can be a good thing, too much competition can lead to wasted resources, knowledge hoarding, and lack of cooperation. Eventually, problems go unaddressed because leaders lack the information and perspective necessary to overcome them.

Lehmann Brothers had a strong belief in the firm as a family. While this is generally a positive attribute – with, for example, the firm rushing to help when an employee had an ill family member – too much of a family culture means that the hierarchy is rigid and unyielding in decision making. When the firm had 8,000 employees, having only a handful of people at the top making the key decisions may have worked, as these were the handful that Lehmann believed really understood the business. By the end of 2008, the firm had grown large and complex, but the hierarchical family decision-making structure had not changed. The executive committee briefly tried to expand its membership, involving more in the decision-making process, but this effort was short-lived and threatened those in power. The case of Lehman shows that when organizations fail to break down rigid hierarchies, learning and adaptation are the primary victims.

Lehman Brothers’ ultimate bankruptcy stands in sharp contrast to the organizational learning demonstrated by hospitals that adopted the catheter safety procedures. The contrast cannot be overstated: Leaders who foster learning in organizations perform better, provide better work environments for employees, and stand a stronger chance of survival in the face of threats or challenges, as the next example confirms.

Learning-Directed Leadership in Consulting Firms

Whether the organization is involved in healthcare, professional services, or other fields, learning provides an advantage. A recent study by Richard Boyatzis (2006) of Case Western Reserve University illustrates how learning connects to revenue. The study involved a professional service firm with more than 3,000 partners worldwide. Professional service firms serve as a good proving ground for the advantage of learning because they typify the kinds of problems commonly faced by knowledge workers. Only partners and those who ranked at the top of the firm based on quality of client relationships, performance in growing the business, and strength in managing the practice were included. Thirty-two of the top-ranked performers met the benchmark as the best of the best. On average, the partners billed $2.4 million annually and produced a gross margin of 57 percent.

The study first gauged the behaviors and attitudes of the senior partners using a 360-degree feedback process, with five of the partners’ peers, five of their subordinates, and their boss completing a survey. Each partner also completed the survey. The survey sought feedback on 20 different competencies considered important by the organization. One cluster of competencies involved leadership, initiative, and planning. The second included knowledge-based competencies such as pattern recognition, systems thinking, and general knowledge of the job. A third cluster measured the degree to which senior partners valued learning and facilitated learning in others.

Just over a year and half later, the researchers looked at the relationship between the competencies and the partners’ performance. Performance was measured using two clear, agreed-upon measures: revenue, or how much money the partners brought into the firm, and gross margin, or how well the partner utilized the organization’s resources. Once the researchers collected this data, they then conducted various analyses on the relationship between these two performance measures and the 20 competencies.

The results resonate with learning-directed leadership. While several competencies showed value for performance, only two correlated significantly with both revenue and gross margin: valuing learning and facilitating learning in others. We estimate that the competency of valuing learning accounted for almost $800,000 in additional revenue. Facilitating learning accounted for an additional $1.6 million! Performance on gross margin was more than 10 percent higher for those senior partners who valued and facilitated learning.

As with any study, this one had limitations; however, it provides evidence of a clear relationship between desired performance outcomes and the value of learning-directed behaviors. The study not only shows the importance of learning in knowledge work, but also provides solid evidence of how important it is for leaders to facilitate learning in others.

Identifying new problems faced by clients, forging new relationships, and building new business lie at the heart of consulting work. Recall the distinction between ill-structured and well-structured problems. A second consideration for learning involves learning in the face of both complexity and novelty. “Learning Situations Based on Complexity and Novelty” plots these considerations along two dimensions.

Leaders in the medical profession and consultants share something in common: learning in the face of complexity. For the medical professionals, the situation involved routine. The physicians involved in the effort to decrease catheter-related infections learned by focusing on the most important issues and standardizing procedures. The consultants, on the other hand, learned to identify novel situations and new business opportunities. The physicians and consultants both employed learning to improve organizational performance, but learned different things. Of course, the nature of learning is constantly shifting. The consultants will at some point need to learn under routine, just as the medical professionals will also face novel problems.

Conclusion

Through the examples above, we can begin to see how the demands of novelty and complexity shape leadership. The stories of learning in this article highlight the remarkable link between leadership, learning, and organizational performance. We provided examples of how expertise, knowledge, and creativity hold a clear advantage over position, influence, and authority. Ultimately, leadership is embedded in learning-directed actions.

LEARNING SITUATIONS BASED ON COMPLEXITY AND NOVELTY

© 2011 Anna B. Kayes and D. Christopher Kayes

Anna B. Kayes (EdD, the George Washington University) is Associate Professor of Business in the School of Business and Leadership at Stevenson University. She is author of articles on learning and leadership in outlets such as the Journal of Managerial Psychology and the Journal of Management Education, and is co-author of the forthcoming book, The Learning Advantage: The Six Practices of Learning Directed Leadership.

D. Christopher Kayes (PhD, Case Western Reserve University) is Dean’s Research Scholar and Associate Professor of Management at the George Washington University. His article, “The Destructive Pursuit of Idealized Goals,” was recognized as the most significant contribution to the practice of management by the Organizational Behavior Division of the Academy of Management. He is the author of “Destructive Goal Pursuit: The Mt. Everest Disaster” and co-author of the forthcoming The Learning Advantage: The Six Practices of Learning Directed Leadership.

References

American Management Association. How to build a high performance organization, 2007. [link]

Boyatzis, R. E., “Using tipping points of emotional intelligence and cognitive competencies to predict financial performance of leaders,” Psicothema, 18, 2006.

The Economist, “Data, data everywhere. A special report on managing information,” February 27, 2010).

Greenfield, H., “The decline of the best: An insider’s lessons from Lehman Brothers,” Leader to Leader, 55, 2010.

Landro, L., “Building team spirit: Nurses hesitate to challenge doctors even when doctors are ordering the wrong drug or operating on the wrong limb,” Wall Street Journal Online, February 16, 2010.

Mills, T. M. The Sociology of Small Groups. Prentice-Hall, 1967.

Patel, V. L., Groen, G. J., & Frederiksen, C. H., “Differences between students and physicians in memory for clinical cases,” Medical Education, 20, 1986.

Pronovost, P., &Vohr, E. Safe Patients, Smart Hospitals: How One Doctor’s Checklist Can Help Us Change Health Care from the Inside Out. Hudson Street Press, 2010.

Reason, J., “Safety in the operating theatre — Part 2: Human error and organizational failure,” Current Anesthesia and Critical Care, 6, 1995.

Wegner, T. G., & Wegner, D. M., “Transactive memory,” in A. S. R. Manstead & M. Hewstone (Eds.), The Blackwell Encyclopedia of Social Psychology, Blackwell, 1995.

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What Is Human Dynamics?

Human Dynamics is a body of work that identifies and illuminates innate distinctions in the way people function as whole systems that include mental, emotional, and physical dimensions. It is the result of an ongoing investigation launched 24 years ago that has so far involved more than 80,000 people from over 25 cultures. From this research, we discovered that three universal principles – mental, emotional, and physical – combine in people in specific patterns characterized by distinctly different ways of processing information, learning, communicating, relating to others, solving problems, undertaking tasks, and, as a result, exercising leadership and contributing to groups or teams. These different “ways of being” appear to be so foundational in the human make-up that they can be seen the world over, identified at every age level (even in infancy), and observed in males and females equally. In other words, these distinctions are more fundamental to who we are and how we function than age, race, culture, or gender.

We have identified nine of these distinct human systems, or “personality dynamics.” Of these, five appear to be by far the most prevalent. The individuals representing these groups have characteristic gifts and affinities for certain ways of functioning. They flourish and contribute best under certain conditions. Most importantly, they have their own distinctive paths of development.

Being aware of and understanding these natural, inherent differences is significant for developing successful and effective human relationships of all kinds – for leading and partnering with others in the workplace, for developing loving and supportive family relationships, and for successful teaching and learning. When we don’t recognize and take into account these differences, we fall prey to misunderstanding others and misinterpreting their behavior; poor communication; less than optimum teamwork; and, in class and training settings, teaching approaches that do not “match” students’ specific learning processes. When we do understand the differences, the way is open for us to acknowledge and appreciate diverse ways of functioning; to see and adapt to others’ needs; and to relate, manage, and teach in ways that enable each group member to perform at his or her best. We are able to consciously utilize our own and others’ distinctive processes and capacities to achieve optimal individual and group performance.

The Three Principles

Let us first briefly explain what we mean when we refer to each of the three principles – mental, emotional, and physical. The Mental Principle is related to the mind. It is expressed in thinking, seeing things from a detached perspective, formulating a purpose or vision, seeing the overview, setting structure, and establishing principles and values.

The Emotional Principle is concerned with forming relationships. It is the subjective part of us that knows and values the world of feelings in ourselves and others; that needs and offers personal communication; and that relates, organizes, and collaborates. We express the Emotional Principle when we make new connections among diverse elements and exercise our creative imagination.

The Physical Principle is that part of us that is most down-to-earth and practical. It is expressed in making, doing, actualizing, and operationalizing. The Physical Principle has to do with the realm of the senses, rather than that of the mind or the emotions. It is concerned with understanding the operation of systems, both natural and human-made, and with creating effective systems of operation.

All of these dimensions are active in all people, but to varying degrees and in various combinations (see “The Mental, Emotional, and Physical Principles”).

It is also important to note that each of these principles is of equal value. They are all needed in the functioning and development of a whole and balanced person. We could also say that all are equally needed for the functioning of a whole and balanced organization.

At this point, pause and ask yourself, “With which of these principles am I most comfortable and familiar? Which do I express most easily and naturally? Could I benefit from some development or help with one of these areas?” As we shall see, individuals are generally more comfortable and familiar with two of the principles, while the third is often less known, developed, and utilized.

Mental, Emotional, and Physical Centering

While all of us have mental, emotional, and physical dimensions, we have discovered that people seem to be “wired” in such a way that one of these three principles is central in each individual’s functioning. People are “centered” mentally (rationally), emotionally (relationally), or physically (pragmatically) (see “Centering”).

Of course, each human system comprises a continual interplay of mental, emotional, and physical life. Nevertheless, each person is characterized by a central process that is specific and consistent. The principle at our core determines how we typically take in and process information.

Mentally centered people process information in a logical and sequential way. They are also characterized characterized by an innate detachment. They experience life as if they were standing on a hilltop, so they naturally maintain a birds-eye view on events and a long-term perspective.

Emotionally centered people, on the other hand, process information in a non-linear, associative, interactive way that incorporates feelings and intuition, rather than through a strictly rational process. This relatively spontaneous way of proceeding often results in the generation of new ideas and the exploration of new avenues of thought or action that might not have emerged through a more linear process. For emotionally centered people, engaging in dialogue with others is essential as a means of clarifying thoughts, feelings, and intuitions, as well as for establishing the sense of personal connection with others that makes life meaningful for them.

Finally, physically centered people process information in a systemic way – they gather and assimilate large amounts of data, and think in terms of the interconnections that make up whole systems of functioning. Because of their affinity for the systemic, they may be fascinated by the patterns they observe in the flow of events across time, from past to present and projected into the future, or they may have a keen interest in, and sense for, how things work mechanically.

Five Predominant Personality Dynamics

We have found that there are three variations on each of these major themes. Mentally centered people may be “mental-mental,” “mental-emotional,” or “mental-physical.” Emotionally centered people may be “emotional-mental,” “emotional-emotional,” or “emotional-physical.” And physically centered people may be “physical-mental,” “physical-emotional,” or “physical-physical,” making nine personality dynamics in all. Whereas the first principle indicates how one processes information, the second indicates what one processes – the kind of material that is the natural focus of attention. (This interaction will become clearer when we outline particular personality dynamics.)

CENTERING

While all of us have mental, emotional, and physical dimensions, people seem to be “wired” in such a way that one of these three principles is central in each individual’s functioning. People are “centered” mentally (rationally), emotionally (relationally), or physically (pragmatically).

Of these nine possible systems of functioning, we have found that five are by far the most prevalent – mental-physical, emotional-mental, emotional-physical, physical-mental, and physical-emotional. Any group of people – the members of a management or project team, a department, the students in a classroom, family members seated around the dinner table, a meeting of heads of state – will include some combination of these five different ways of being “wired,” with their distinctly different natural processes of learning, communicating, problem-solving, relating, developing, and so on.

Following are brief thumbnail sketches of each of these five most commonly encountered personality dynamics. These summaries provide a basic sense of their similarities and distinctions, and also of the misinterpretations of each that commonly arise as a result of their particular ways of functioning.

Mental-Physical. As we have already indicated, the thinking process of mental-physical people is linear, logical, and sequential (mental principle), and it is focused upon operations in the external world (physical principle) – as opposed to emotional data. Because of their “hilltop” perspective, they tend to focus on the long term and to think in relation to enduring principles and values. Because of their innate detachment, their emotional life is typically extremely even. Mental-physical people offer teams emotional stability, objectivity, and their gift for selecting and articulating what is essential – key points, principles, values, goals, and information. They value clarity; for this reason, they often prefer written communication. They are usually precise and meticulous in any task that they undertake.

Mental-physical people often ask the questions “Why?” and “What do you mean by…?” But they are frequently silent in groups, either because they feel no need to speak if others are saying what needs to be said, or because they think carefully before speaking and cannot find the space to participate if a process is less than orderly. Because of their natural detachment and reticence, and because they do not readily express their feelings, others may interpret mental physical people as being aloof, disengaged, uncaring, or unwilling to be approached. None of these interpretations is necessarily true. If you want to know how a mental-physical person is really thinking or feeling, just ask. Such questions will help him or her to connect and communicate.

Emotional-Mental. Emotional mental people process in a non-linear, associative way (emotional principle) the world of ideas (mental principle). They deeply enjoy a highly interactive brainstorming kind of communication, in which one idea triggers another, leading to the generation of new ways of thinking or acting. Emotional-mental people typically love movement and change. They are often innovators, drawn to the new and untried. They intuitively sense new possibilities in people, situations, and events, and endeavor to make them happen.

In undertaking new projects, emotional-mental people can move into action with the strong sense of a general direction to be taken, but with minimal data and little or no real prior planning. This experimental movement leads to new experiences, which suggest next steps that may be entirely unanticipated at the beginning. They repeat this process until they reach a satisfactory outcome.

Because emotional-mental people concentrate on the future, they typically recollect very little about the past. They do, however, remember data required for any project that is their current focus of attention – but only until the project is completed. Emotional-mental people usually have little awareness of physical signals from their bodies. They may be able to work long hours with great concentration because they are unaware that they are hungry or tired.

Others may misunderstand emotional-mental people as being either pushy or, because they will initiate movement with little or no prior planning, irresponsible. Instead, they are following their natural instinct to move things forward and light the fires of new endeavors, often relying on others to execute the details.

Emotional-Physical. Emotional-physical people also think in a non-linear, associative way (emotional principle), preferably through dialogue with others, but their focus is on the physical world (physical principle) – especially people! They experience constantly changing emotional responses to their environment and all the objects, people, and events in it. They are sensitive to others’ feelings and often can sense those feelings in their own bodies, even when others aren’t outwardly expressing them. This ability can be a gift, providing helpful information and insights; it can also be a burden, affecting the emotional physical person’s sense of well-being in negative circumstances, or creating confusion about whether feelings experienced are his or her own or those of someone else.

Emotional-physical people value personal connection and communication with others. They bring to teams both a high degree of creative thinking and a concern for creating harmony among group members. The quality of the group’s process is as important to them as the outcomes. However, they can only offer their full capacities if they feel comfortable and “safe.” If they feel threatened or judged in any way, they may withdraw and stay silent.

Emotional-physical people can relive emotion-laden events from the past as if they were occurring again in the present. Sometimes others judge them as “too sensitive,” “using too many words,” or insufficiently logical. The truth is that their sensitivity is a gift to be valued – they use it for understanding individuals and interpersonal situations. Their sometimes extensive communication results from their need to establish personal connections and to ensure that misunderstandings don’t arise. And their non-linear thinking has an emotional logic, frequently reflecting a “knowing” that they cannot rationally explain. Their intuitive gift is often a wasted resource in organizations.

Physical-Mental. Physical-mental people think systemically (physical principle), with a focus on ideas, purposes, and structures (mental principle). They plan consciously, strategically, and systematically. They want to know the purpose of any endeavor and then create a logical step-by-step plan for achieving that purpose. They tend to have a conscious strategy for almost everything they do.

Physical-mental people value efficiency and create systems of operation to achieve it, then refine those systems to make them even more efficient and, if possible, broadly applicable. They like to use models, diagrams, and charts to assist their thinking or communicate their ideas. Physical-mental individuals gather considerable data as a basis for their planning and put it into logical structure quite quickly. They have a capacity for seeing patterns in varied data or in the flow of events, from which they make projections into the future and devise action plans.

Physical-mental people have a detailed memory for data in areas that interest them. In communicating with others, they are always looking for the action to be taken or problem to be solved. They like communication to be factual and organized.

A common misunderstanding about physical-mental people is that they do not care about people or their feelings. This misperception can occur because they may be so focused on results that they may sometimes fail to consider human factors in their planning. Also, they usually find it difficult to express personal feelings. They typically express their caring through their actions rather than their words.

Physical-Emotional. Physical-emotional people process in a systemic way (physical principle) the connections (emotional principle) among data, events, and people in order to comprehend or create whole systems of operation. Their natural process of thinking, planning, and learning is not systematic but organic. When approaching any new endeavor, they immerse themselves in gathering and absorbing data without initially sorting or prioritizing it. (Because for them everything is connected to everything else, they do not always know initially what might be relevant). They then assimilate, sort, and link all of this information in a process that may be as much unconsciously as consciously directed. This process, like digestion, takes its own time, until suddenly everything comes together in a highly detailed, systemic understanding of a situation, plan of action, or product. Because the entire process takes place internally, others may think that “nothing is going on,” when in fact very much is “going on,” though the person may not be able to clearly articulate what it is until the process is complete.

Physical-emotional people are sometimes labeled “slow” in a negative sense. In classrooms they may be categorized as “slow learners,” with the implication that they may not be as smart as other students who respond more quickly. They are not really slow at all, but rather thorough. Their organic process takes time, but they are typically able to assimilate and synthesize more data and comprehend and handle more complex situations than people of any other personality dynamic.

Physical-emotional people typically have a prodigious capacity to remember data. They can recollect events from even the distant past in which they were fully engaged in extraordinary sensory detail. Because physical-emotional people think and experience in terms of interconnections, they appreciate communication that provides “the whole story,” and they often convey information through detailed stories.

Distribution of Personality Dynamics

The personality dynamics that we have identified are not equally prevalent or evenly distributed. Of the five dynamics that we have described, mental-physical people are encountered most rarely – they seem to constitute no more than about 3 percent of the population. The great majority of the world’s people appear to be either emotionally or physically centered.

Anyone of any personality dynamic may be more or less intelligent, more or less compassionate, more or less contributive, more or less gifted.

It has been fascinating for us to experience over the years that in the Western cultures in which we, or the facilitators we have trained, have worked extensively (such as North America, Europe, South America, and Israel), we have found a slight majority of people to be emotionally centered and the rest to be physically centered. In Eastern countries in which we have worked, such as Malaysia, China, Singapore, and Japan, we have found by far the great majority of the people to be physically centered. These findings apply even to people of Asian descent whose families have lived in the West for many generations.

We have no explanation for the fact that the two physically centered personality dynamics seem to predominate in the East and the two emotionally centered ones in the West. We simply offer our findings. However, we emphasize that no value judgments adhere to this observation. All of the personality dynamics are equal in value. It is not “better” to be one more than another. Anyone of any personality dynamic may be more or less intelligent, more or less compassionate, more or less contributive, more or less gifted. What is different is how they “are,” think, experience, and go about things. Indeed, we can say that each needs the others for results that are optimal and whole.

Nature vs. Nurture

We have often been asked if we think that this distribution of personality dynamics could be the result of cultural influence. Our experience has led us to believe otherwise, for a number of reasons:

The cultural explanation does not account for the many physically centered people in the West or the emotionally centered people in the East.

If culture created the personality dynamics, then one would expect the many people of Asian background who have been assimilated over generations into Western cultures, and who are not part of an Asian community within the larger community, to show the characteristic processes of the majority in their adoptive cultures. However, we have not observed this to be the case. Although many Asian Americans, for instance, may have adopted more characteristically Western values, their foundational processes of handling information, learning, problem-solving, and so on remain those characteristic of physical centering.

We have come up with the same findings in following infants adopted from the East into families in the West in which both of the adoptive parents were emotionally centered. As these youngsters develop, they may exhibit their parents’ influences in some aspects of their outer behavior – for example, by being somewhat more expressive of their feelings and individually oriented than is typical of their Asian-raised counterparts – but their fundamental processes remain those we have described as characteristic of physical centering.

The evidence indicates, therefore, that while there is a continual interaction between any individual’s personality dynamic and the external environment, the latter neither determines the basic natural processes nor fundamentally alters them. It may influence what one thinks or learns, but not how one naturally thinks or learns.

We are led to assume, therefore, that the distinctions we have identified are inherent and genetically determined. This conclusion is reinforced by our findings that people almost always identify at least one parent as having the same personality dynamic as themselves or, if not, a grandparent.

Implications for the Workplace

These different ways of being and functioning are represented wherever people live, learn, and work together. They are present in every work environment, among management and project teams, in boardrooms and training rooms, in meetings with staff or potential clients, in conference calls with colleagues or strangers from around the globe, and, of course, in classrooms (see “Human Dynamics in Education”). It has been said that 90 percent of the difficulties that organizations face can be attributed to dysfunctional relationships among people. When people develop awareness and understanding of the different personality dynamics, much interpersonal misunderstanding and conflict is avoided. Also a groundwork is laid for developing optimal communication, teamwork, coaching, mentoring, and training. A shared base of understanding enables colleagues to work together more effectively and to consciously leverage one another’s gifts and capacities.

Sandra Seagal and David Horne are the founders and directors of Human Dynamics International, an organization that disseminates unique training programs in the fields of organizational development, education, healthcare, and cross-cultural bridge-building. They are also the founders and directors of the Human Dynamics Institute, which is engaged in original research into the personal, interpersonal, and transpersonal functioning and development of people. Sandra and David are coauthors of Human Dynamics: A New Framework for Understanding People and Realizing the Potential in Our Organizations (Pegasus Communications, 1997) and are working on a new book directed toward parents, teachers, and all who care about children. For more information, go to www.humandynamics.com.

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In the mid 1980s, “knowledge management” superseded “information management,” again building on the best aspects of the existing practice while representing an exponential leap forward. By recognizing the need to capture, store, and make accessible people’s operational knowledge, proponents of knowledge management tapped into a hidden source of competitive advantage.

Today, the field of “knowledge ecology” has emerged as a natural outgrowth of knowledge management. Whereas the target of knowledge management is to accumulate and leverage knowledge, knowledge ecology’s goal is to develop and mobilize collective intelligence and ultimately organizational wisdom. By acknowledging the social nature of learning and the key role that technology can play in bringing people together, knowledge ecology bridges the gap between the static data repositories of knowledge management and the dynamic, adaptive behavior of natural systems (see “The Virtuous Cycle of Knowledge Ecology”). To understand this new approach to “knowing what we know,” we first must understand the relationship among knowledge, intelligence, and wisdom.

The Knowledge, Intelligence, Wisdom Value Chain

Knowledge. Knowledge is the capacity to act. As Peter Drucker has said, “Knowledge is information that changes something or somebody — either by becoming grounds for actions, or by making an individual (or an institution) capable of different or more effective action.” Books, databases, lists of “best practices,” help desks, and so on are important in that they contribute to and influence our knowledge. However, these mainstays of traditional knowledge management implementation themselves do not have the capacity to act. They are repositories of information, not of knowledge.

Researchers from across the spectrum agree that learning is a social activity. We create, share, and utilize knowledge through our interactions with others. In this way, knowledge emerges through productive conversations — both face-to-face and through various media — and networks of relationships. These resources cannot be managed, only inspired by work systems that reward collaboration, learning, and innovation.

Intelligence. Designing knowledge-creation structures and practices requires a certain level of intelligence. Intelligence refers to our effective use of knowledge and our capacity to respond to specific opportunities and challenges as they emerge. In biological systems, an organism’s innate intelligence enables it to adapt to changing circumstances. The same is true of social systems. The main function of a workplace’s collective intelligence is to sustain the “social organism” by augmenting its ability to rapidly respond to conditions of accelerating complexity and chaos.

An organization develops collective intelligence the same way bodies do — through a nervous system. The nervous system in a social organism is the ongoing series of conversations and contacts that enable it to coordinate its actions and learn from its experience. It is embedded not in computers and hardware, but in the interactions among people that bring the organization into existence day after day and help it evolve. Collective intelligence continually emerges from the energy and information that move through this infrastructure.

To thrive, an organization must have both the wisdom to ask the right questions at the right time, and the infrastructure for tapping into its own collective intelligence for responses.

In both biological and social systems, the quality of the nervous system affects the quality of the intelligence that flows through it. Organizations have better chances to grow healthy and robust nervous systems — with requisite flexibility — if their members are connected and motivated to realize their full creative potential in support of the joint enterprise. If participants have easy and convenient ways to share what they know, the accelerated flow of knowledge lets the organization act with cat-like reflexes in the face of rapid changes in its environment.

The stage of evolution of a given nervous system — both in biological and social organisms — defines how effectively it can perform the following four functions.

• Communication: Facilitating the exchange and flow of information among the organizations’ subsystems and with its external environment.
• Coordination: Effectively coordinating the actions of the subsystems and of the whole.
• Memory/Knowledge Management: Storing, organizing, and recalling information as needed.
• Learning: Guiding and supporting the development of new competencies and effective behaviors.

Each of these activities is vital to the performance and evolution of the organism, be it biological or social. The biological ones have seamlessly integrated these functions in their repertoire of capabilities. Millions of years of trial-and-error have paid off!

Social organisms such as corporations don’t have the luxury to wait that long. If they are to survive and meet the challenges triggered by the current waves of epochal transition, they quickly need to enhance their nervous systems. Only then can they respond to their volatile strategic options with increased agility.

But having an adequate intelligence infrastructure isn’t enough to maintain a community at the leading edge over the long-term. The sustainability of social organisms also requires the exercise of systemic, collective wisdom.

Wisdom. Wisdom refers to our effective use of intelligence, as evidenced by our capacity to alleviate suffering and increase joy in human and organizational systems. As Verna Allee noted in Knowledge Evolution, “Wisdom is . . . a highly creative and connective way of processing knowledge that distills out essential principles and truths. Wisdom tells us what to pay attention to. Wisdom is the truth seeker and pattern finder that penetrates to the core of what really matters.” Systemic wisdom can help with intuiting the long view, understanding systems in the context of their larger whole, and anticipating future crises.

To thrive, an organization must have both the wisdom to ask the right questions at the right time, and the infrastructure for tapping into its own collective intelligence for responses. Organizational wisdom thus plays a key role in dealing with two essential aspects of the new marketplace: the “attention economy” and the “experience economy.” The concept of the “attention economy” derives from the fact that we’re living in an age in which we are continually inundated by information. The competition for people’s attention has reached a fevered pitch. Time and attention are scarce resources; learning to use them wisely has become a valuable personal competence.

In the current conditions of galloping “complexity multiplied by urgency” (as described by Douglas Engelbart, the pioneer of augmenting human intellect with computers), only wisdom can effectively guide our decisions on how to invest our attention, both individual and organizational. Wisdom helps us find a balance between focusing on current tasks and on long-term priorities by offering the power of perspective. It provides us with the ability to take a step back, view the larger picture, and determine what is really important and what is really at stake.

We can also view today’s working world through the lens of the “experience economy.” Customers are looking for more than products/services; they want to have a memorable experience of buying and using those commodities for achieving their aspirations. B. Joseph Pine II and James H. Gilmore, authors of The Experience Economy (Harvard Business School Publishing, 1999), describe this phenomenon: “No matter how acute an experience, one’s memory of it fades over time. Transformations, on the other hand, guide the individual [and the organization] towards realizing some aspiration and then help to sustain that change over time. There is no earthly value more concrete, more palpable, or more worthwhile than achieving an aspiration. Nothing is more important, more abiding, or more wealth-creating than the wisdom required to transform customers. And nothing will command as high a price.”

Where does the wisdom to create this kind of transforming experience reside in an enterprise? How can we notice it and cultivate it? We used to think of wisdom as a hard-earned quality of elderly, white-haired men and women. The emerging field of knowledge ecology opens the possibility of nurturing wisdom as a distributed quality of human communities.

What Is Knowledge Ecology?

What is “knowledge ecology” (KE) and how can it help us to boost organizational knowledge, intelligence, and wisdom? KE is a field of theory and practice that focuses on discovering better social, organizational, behavioral, and technical conditions for knowledge creation and utilization. It is an interdisciplinary discipline that draws on the best of current thought and action, including knowledge management; communities of practice; businesses as complex, adaptive systems; organizational learning; and the hypertext organization. By integrating these and other ideas, KE seeks to help organizations achieve unprecedented breakthroughs in performance while nurturing and enhancing people’s capacity to reach their highest aspirations.

KE operates on the principle that the best models we have for designing systems that create, sustain, and foster organizational learning and development are natural “learning organizations,” like a rainforest or the human brain. KE’s primary area of study and domain of action are the design and support of self-organizing knowledge “ecosystems,” in which information, ideas, insights, and inspiration cross-fertilize and feed one another, free from the constraints of geography and schedule.

According to the 10th edition of Merriam-Webster’s Collegiate Dictionary, an ecosystem is “the complex of a community of organisms and its environment functioning as an ecological unit in nature.” The simplest form of a knowledge ecosystem consists of

• a network of conversations — face-to-face or virtual — contributing to and informed by
• rich knowledge repositories.

Knowledge ecosystems, just like biological ones, are self-sustaining, self-regulating, and self-organizing. They have permeable boundaries through which they can interact with other ecosystems. In a natural ecosystem, the higher the diversity of species, the more robust the community and the more fit for longevity. The same applies to organizational ecosystems.

To visualize a knowledge ecosystem, picture the waves of ideas, requests, and offers that move through your awareness each day as bundles of color-coded lights that link you with your coworkers, customers, and coaches. Play with the colors, if you wish. Then imagine an animated flowchart with small circles representing all the employees in your organization. Arrows of different sizes and colors link the circles to indicate the length and form of each contact — phone calls, memos, reports, meetings — in a single day. Finally, think of this network of contacts as a web of distributed intelligence, comprised of all the members of the enterprise and all the ways in which they create value for other members, the enterprise as a whole, and its stakeholders.

For any organization to have all of its members share what they know with other stakeholders in a limited timeframe, it must “electrify” its network of conversations; that is, link its people networks and computer networks. This kind of “electrified” nervous system can then serve as the infrastructure necessary for a community to self-organize and improve its collective intelligence effectively and consistently.

Practitioners of KE maintain that in knowledge ecosystems, people networks create knowledge networks supported by technology networks (see “The Triple Network”). By “people network,” we mean the members of the organization, their communities of practice, and their company’s customers and other stakeholders, as well as the ways in which they organize their collaboration. By “knowledge network,” we mean the web-like connections between productive ideas that people in organizations generate in the normal course of work.

Unprecedented synergies and creative breakthroughs occur when enabling technologies offer new ways of forming meaningful connections. “Technology network” in this context includes all of the technological means that support communication and collaboration for knowledge creation, sharing, and utilization, ranging from e-mail to video and web conferencing to virtual worlds.

Knowledge communities co-evolve with their shared body of knowledge, and with the protocols and tools for upgrading that knowledge. Organizations pass an evolutionary test when they learn to adapt to and drive innovations in technologies, markets, and organizational design by increasing individual and collective intelligence. The smarter we become as individuals in managing our personal learning processes, the more we can enhance our organization’s collective intelligence. The smarter we become as learning communities, the deeper will be the pool of the collective intelligence that each of us can tap into, thus enhancing our individual intelligence. The two interconnected spirals drive each other ever higher. Companies like Hewlett-Packard and Lucent have found that the “triple network” of people, knowledge, and technology is vital to this process.

The Practice of KE

At the heart of knowledge ecology is the art and science of gleaning meaning and value from productive conversations. This practice represents an art in that it involves the sensitive, spontaneous realm of human relations. It is a science in that it relies on the best of today’s new technologies for bringing people and their ideas together across time and space. KE offers a framework for enhancing an organization’s capacity to learn faster by linking these two seemingly disparate facets of organizational effectiveness (see “The Duality of Conversations and Knowledge Bases”).

How does an organization begin to incorporate KE into its daily activities? Perhaps the first step is to ensure that the corporate culture recognizes the synergy between personal growth and expression and organizational productivity. Management must encourage listening, dialogue, participation, openness, inquiry, reflection, sharing, collaboration, and learning as expressed through mission statements, reward systems, and actions. Every member of the community — whether an organization as a whole, department, community of practice, or team — must feel included in the process and have the means to contribute as an equal participant.

Restricting any member’s contribution to and use of the ecosystem reduces its vitality and capacity to support emergent action. Fortunately, technology offers myriad options for enabling community members in different locations to conduct effective, efficient, and enjoyable knowledge-sharing, collaboration, and coordination of action. “Virtual space” technologies — such as conference calls and videoconferencing, which allow “same time/different-space” meetings — fill the need when speed of action is important and the community needs to process and evaluate simultaneous input from multiple sources.

When conflicting schedules prevent concurrent participation or when continuous access to the community’s shared intellect is crucial, the “virtual time” technologies of e-mail, electronic bulletin boards, and computer conferencing support “different-time/different-space” meetings. In this case, the host computer receives and holds everyone’s input, allowing community members to access the documents at any time of their choice and convenience — , “anytime/anywhere” communication.

The seamless integration of real-time conversations held in a meeting room and those held in the virtual realm is another crucial need. Teams that meet both in-person and on the electronic network need to discover and agree on the best mix of these and other media — telephone, fax, email, videotape, and so on — for completing each of the major tasks that they need to collaborate on.

A computerized system for managing the community’s knowledge assets and memory must provide easy access to shared documents and lessons learned from the past. A well designed system is not merely a repository of files and archives; it also includes the rationale and assumptions upon which actions were based so they can be examined and improved for more effective future action. The system should also indicate where specific organizational memories are located and should be indexed in a logical and easy-to-use manner.

A system has yet to be created that provides all the features that good gardeners of corporate knowledge ecologies would want to have. However, there are many knowledge systems vendors with helpful products. The challenge is to anticipate the set of features that you’ll need in six months or a year. Collaborative scenario-planning, “future conference,” and other processes for anticipating and co-inventing the future can help you design systems to meet upcoming needs.

KE’s Value Proposition

Dysfunctional knowledge ecologies cost organizations much more then well-functioning ones. When information is placed in a database where it is seldom accessed because the details have been separated from the context in which they occurred, companies lose time, money, and valuable insights. When employees hoard working knowledge —  either intentionally or because the organization doesn’t have an infrastructure for individuals to share what they know — it results in lost productivity by triggering the “reinventing the wheel” syndrome, “The same result is produced by hoarding failures. As long as a culture makes people hide their ‘mistakes,’ it pushes others to fall into similar erroneous experiments” (as my colleague Holly Blue Hawkins put it). In each case, the organization’s collective intelligence is squandered and stunted, leaving the company more vulnerable to the whims of the marketplace.

KE is a perspective that responds to the need to nurture systemic wisdom with emerging interdisciplinary insights into the organization and operation of living systems. Corporate knowledge ecosystems are complex adaptive systems. Their power exists in the flexible and evolving relationships among the elements of the system, which interact in complex and often surprising ways. KE provides a framework, tools, and practices for crafting and sustaining evolving webs of relationship in which we can embed and preserve the knowledge that emerges from social activity. In today’s knowledge-driven economy, the highest payoff investment that any business can make is in improving its practices, tools, and methods for creating and sharing new knowledge (see “Improving Organizational Performance”).

Think about your organization. Does it have a collective intelligence, or is it merely a collection of individual intelligences? Organizations that succeed in these times of accelerating change will be social organisms with the collective intelligence to guide them through turbulence and transformation — and the wisdom to take the long view and let it inform the strategic choices of the present. The companies that succeed in achieving repeatable wins in fast-shifting market conditions will be those that have learned to increase value to all stakeholders by leveraging the power of people, knowledge, and technology. These wisdom-driven businesses will easily provide the highest quality products, the highest quality work experience for their members, and an energizing context for societal evolution in the new economy.

George Pór is a pioneer of Knowledge Ecology and the founder of Community Intelligence Labs, a network of change agents dedicated to eliciting transformation by mobilizing the intelligence and wisdom of the whole organization. George is also the convener of the Attention Leadership Circle, an intercorporate research alliance focused on developing better practices and environments for augmenting attention resources of organizations, their leaders, and free agents. Meet him at http://www.co-i-l.com/coil/who/george.shtml.

The post Nurturing Systemic Wisdom Through Knowledge Ecology appeared first on The Systems Thinker.

This kind of “trust walk” is one example of what we might call experiential learning, but other examples abound. Facilitators use energizers, brief activities to get participants’ blood and creative juices flowing at the outset of meetings. Managers practice techniques derived from Aikido to better understand physically and metaphorically their patterns of interaction with others. Workshop participants walk ancient labyrinths as a meditative way of seeking solutions to vexing problems. Marketing and distribution specialists play games designed to help them understand the consequences of various decision-making strategies. Long-range planners use powerful software programs to play out different scenarios in cyber-space before they try them in the real world. And, leadership teams practice working with risk and fear by rappelling from rocky cliffs. All these experiences were designed to capitalize on the human brain’s remarkable capacity to learn in tandem with the body.

Experiential learning engages the entire physiology, by design.

What is experiential learning? With such a wide variety of activities that fall under a common heading, the definition can be elusive. After years of talking about the difference between process and content and relating elaborate tales about the power of learning by doing, I have come to rely on this simple and straightforward response: Experiential learning engages the entire physiology, by design.

The significant elements of this definition lie in the qualifier, entire, and in the phrase, by design. In other words, experiential learning involves questions of degree and intent. So, it follows that instructors who use an experiential approach should intentionally engage as much of the physiology as possible in the learning process. Indeed, some exciting new discoveries about the mind/body connection suggest that we should attempt to infuse all learning with experience.

A Sedentary Lifestyle

In the future, we will come to rely more and more upon experiential learning because of the double-edged sword of technological advances. Technology has eliminated large portions of the physical work that daily living used to require, such as chopping wood and carrying water. The upside to this change is that we now have more time to pursue other kinds of work and leisure. The downside is that it has also lopped off a fair amount of the activity that grounds us in the natural world and, in the long run, keeps us healthy.

We are an active species, just a few twists of DNA away from the rest of the mammals. And unless the family dogs have become addicted to reruns of Lassie, you will not find any other animals that sit stone-faced in front of CRTs. Nor will you find them staring at each other all day across tables made of plastic laminate. Rather, they spend their waking hours playing, stretching, exploring, and learning. They engage the world continuously with their entire beings. We, on the other hand, have conditioned ourselves to suppress the urge to move around and experience things, instead confining our existence to small boxes surrounded by profoundly uninteresting scenery and sensation-deadening appliances.

The information age has converted us into a sedentary culture that has forgotten the powerful synergy of mind and body working together. We have relegated physical activity to the role of stress and health-management techniques that serve the sole function of enabling us to remain productive workers and consumers. As a culture, we have not yet found the appropriate blending of action and contemplation that will lead to the next curve of our evolution. This leap to the next curve will require a robust society whose individuals have reestablished the connection between mind and body in their working lives.

If we are to pay attention to an entire system, be it organizational, national, or global, we must begin with the system that lies within each of us. This step will require a rich infusion of experience to recapture the capacities of our natural learning systems. Let’s look at some of the scientific underpinnings for experiential learning and think about ways we can increase the amount of day-to-day experience in our organizational lives.

The Corporal Self in Cognition

A Sea of Hormones. Recent research on consciousness, most notably by Antonio Damasio, suggests that our attention and arousal systems emerge from complex interactions between the central nervous system and chemical activators that surge continually throughout the body. Even the title of his book on this topic, The Feeling of What Happens: Body and Emotion in the Making of Consciousness (Harcourt Brace, 1999), hints at a revolutionary perspective on the role of the corporal self in cognition. Sure, we still need the cognitive and language areas of the brain to recall facts and manipulate variables as we solve problems. But the emotions are essential players in the attention system and, by direct consequence, in the learning system. Without emotions, we would not engage ourselves in, or for that matter even recognize, the problems at hand.

Here is an example: If you narrowly miss striking a child on a bicycle who has veered in front of your car, for 20 minutes after the event, your heart pounds, your muscles shake, and your anxiety levels remain high. You are so distracted, you might miss your turn into the office’s parking lot. This disturbance to your equilibrium results from your adrenal gland’s releasing a tiny amount of epinephrine into your system. This hormone produces a state of mind and a level of physical readiness that enable you to take evasive action, but it leaves you with a bit of a hangover.

Mercifully, these attention-getting chemical alarms do not activate often. The real news is that powerful but very subtle chemical states influence virtually all of our cognitive functioning! Below the level of our recognition, human consciousness floats on an ever-changing sea of hormones and peptides. Here is a case in point: Low-level stress, the kind that is our near-constant companion in Western civilization, produces cortisol, a hormone that stays with us for hours. Cortisol interferes with learning and memory, ultimately causing the axons and dendrites in a part of the brain associated with long-term memory to atrophy and, in extreme cases, to die. Stress breaks down the neural networks that keep us in touch with ourselves. As we lose touch with ourselves, we lose touch with those around us – something that should be of great concern to managers.

Try not to let this information drag you down (remember, all that cortisol is not good for you). Better to ask how we can create working environments that support rather than inhibit learning. Our internal chemical environment determines not only what we learn, but also how well we learn it. Thus, our first task should be to attend to the physical/emotional status of learners. By acknowledging the primacy of biology, good experiential design works toward this end.

Mirror Neurons. On another research front, scientists have opened up an entirely new field of investigation that may have extensive ramifications for learning and teaching. Cutting-edge imaging technology affords researchers the ability to study brains at work. It should come as no surprise that certain areas of the brain become active when we make different motions. What is very surprising is that Giacomo Rizzolatti and his partners at the University of Parma have discovered a collection of neurons in higher primates that light up when an action is merely observed. Shortly after this announcement in the late 1990s, another Italian team confirmed the existence of a similar structure in humans.

Dubbed mirror neurons, these cells fire when we watch someone else perform an action, say picking up an apple. For example, if a dozen people are in a room with a single apple, only one person can pick up and taste the fruit, but 12 brains will mimic the action and activate salivary glands to begin digestion. Mirror neurons could account for a whole host of behaviors related to the power of suggestion, including the contagious nature of yawns, and are most likely linked to things such as the learning of tasks, intuition, empathy, and language acquisition.

In humans, mirror neurons are associated with the portion of the brain most directly connected to speech production. Rizzolatti and others speculate that the physical mirroring capacity in this area allows sophisticated human communication to develop and evolve. In other words, one’s abilities to perform an action and then to talk about that action may develop in tandem. This mutual emergence of experience and language holds great importance for us in that it suggests we are biologically programmed to employ thought and action simultaneously.

The speculation that talking and doing are inextricably entwined in our brains has mind-boggling implications for educators and facilitators. If true, then role playing, drama, energizers, and other experiential activities should take a central role, equal with lectures and written material, in any learning endeavor. An ancient proverb reminds us that a picture is worth 10,000 words. By extension, might an experience be worth 10,000 pictures?

Furthermore, imaging technologies are showing researchers that seemingly unrelated functions of the mind interact with and influence one another. In other words, an action can influence a mood, and a change in mood can affect your perspective on an issue. Laughter may truly be the best medicine. Of course, the subtle interplay of various portions of the body and mind is much more complex than we may ever understand. But the current research suggests that if we are serious about tapping all our learning capacities, we will seek physiologically engaged learning. In short, get out of your seat and act!

The Learning Continuum

At one end of the learning continuum, the subject is passive; the emotions lie dormant; few senses are engaged; and the ideas are abstract. At the other end, the learner is physically active; is emotionally involved; is sensorially alive; and is grappling with tangible things. Any learning event may be placed along this continuum. I believe that our current understanding of learning suggests that, to the extent possible, we should be striving toward the experiential end of the spectrum.

When I mention the learning environment in an organization, I’m referring to much more than typical training settings. I include all those events where two or more come together for collaborative work. In any organization really trying to be a learning organization, every daily encounter should create the conditions in which learning best occurs. These conditions include a high challenge/low threat environment, a minimum of distractions, sufficient time for quiet reflection, and physical activity.

As we begin to appreciate the complexity of the learning process, the challenge of designing an instructional experience that engages the entire physiology can feel overwhelming. How can we attend to the thousands of factors that can be manipulated to influence a person’s learning? How can we incorporate some of the wonderful work that has been done involving learning styles and multiple intelligences by Howard Gardner, Daniel Goleman, MelLevine, Dawna Markova, and others?

Fortunately, the task need not be daunting. One possible path through the complexity is a simple approach that stems from the early work of Geoffrey and Renate Caine, whose classic Making Connections: Teaching and the Human Brain(Addison-Wesley,1994) has helped many educators come to a better understanding of how humans learn (see the reinforcing loops of “The Experiential Learning Cycle”). As a place to begin, this framework ensures that three essential ingredients for effective learning are added to the curriculum: paying attention to the learner’s biology, providing an engaging experience, and assisting the learner to make meaning of the experience.

Relaxed Alertness. The circle begins with relaxed alertness. Creating a warm and welcoming atmosphere is important and not as simple as merely providing fresh coffee and a box of Krispy Kreme donuts. In fact, every sensory stimulus in the environment, planned or not, will either contribute to or detract from your purpose. Traffic noise, cooking smells, and other peripheral distractions make a difference.

At a more sophisticated level, the emotional and physical status of individuals and the group will affect outcomes. With the discovery of mirror neurons, we now have tangible evidence that one person’s emotional state will affect the entire group. For this reason, facilitators should create a warm and supportive tone, in effect modeling a relaxed and attentive approach to the session. Beyond that, they can choose from a host of techniques aimed at relaxing the body and preparing the mind, including progressive relaxation, guided imagery, and balancing and centering techniques. None of this suggests that facilitators should lull participants to sleep. Rather, the intent is to remove threats and in so doing allow the participants to focus exclusively on the challenging work of learning something new.

With the exception of on-the-job coaching, all structured learning events are to a certain extent artificial. After all, they are not intended to be real life/make-or-break events. Instead, I think of them as learning laboratories where participants may increase their skill, understanding, and capacity to better meet the challenges that lie ahead. Because the facilitator is creating the environment, it must be the facilitator’s role to prepare learners to enter that environment.

THE EXPERIENTIAL LEARNING CYCLE

This model captures the flow of three essential components in the learning process. Beginning at relaxed alertness will always remind us to attend to the learner’s biology first.(Adapted from Education at the Edge of Possibility, Caine and Caine (ASCD,1997))

This means creating safe physical and emotional spaces in which to begin an activity. It also means being clear about expectations for levels of participation and attending to the physical needs of the people in the room. Remember that during any learning session, participants will, for their own reasons, “check out” from time to time. Sitting in a classroom or meeting, they can do so unnoticed and then refocus on the session when ready. In any experiential work, “checking out” becomes obvious to the entire group. Making this need for downtime acceptable from the outset is part of the facilitator’s role. One way to do so is to acknowledge that everyone learns differently and that some people may choose to step out of an activity and merely observe for a while.

Immersion in Complex Experience. The circle continues with orchestrated immersion in complex experience. One of the grand paradoxes of designing rich learning environments is that we are never sure what learning is going to emerge. The richer the design, the more room for creativity and insight. In fact, aside from the teaching of essential skills and the conveyance of rote information, any attempt to limit or control the outcome of an event will likely impede the progress of the learners. Why limit participants only to what we know or expect? Also, complex activities provide opportunities for all learners to find a point of access that suits their particular learning style or intelligence.

By now, you are wondering if I’m going to say anything about the actual design of an activity. Because of space limitations, the answer is “no.” There are many excellent resources and books that, combined, provide thousands of activities aimed at specific learning outcomes. The key is to always let your intent drive your search for activities rather than the other way around.

Here are a few questions that may help guide you in increasing the “experience” factor in designing your own context-specific activities:

• What do I want the learners to learn?
• What do I want the learners to be able to do?
• How can I inspire the learners to become emotionally engaged in this activity?
• How can I involve their senses in the process?
• How can I engage them with another person?
• How can I encourage the learners to physically move, even if it is just to make a gesture?
• How can I increase the richness of the experience?

To the extent that you move learners along the continuum toward more experience, you will increase the potential for learning.

Active Processing. The next step along the circular path is active processing. All learning that arises from direct experience is felt by the learner. It lies inside his or her body, perhaps locked in some complex chemical mix that he or she cannot express verbally. Meaning may be hidden from the learner and, by logical extension, from the rest of the group. Processing is the act of teasing into consciousness and giving language to those feelings in the body. This process may begin as a solitary task employing a bit of quiet reflection. Things will eventually begin to emerge, such as creative solutions to difficult problems, new ways of framing essential questions, or insights about patterns of interaction in a work group. Tapping into the body’s innate intelligence takes time and patience but can lead to great rewards.

At some point, the facilitator may encourage participants to share their thoughts with the group, asking questions such as: What happened during the experience? What meaning does that hold for us? And, now what do we do with our new understanding? As observations come to the fore, the group can consider them and arrive at some shared learning. Often the understandings that emerge involve underlying assumptions about how the world works. (One advantage to participating in structured experiences that are not directly related to the bottom line is that they can allow learners to feel and speak very freely without fear of criticism or reprisal.)

Once the group has processed and assimilated the learning from an activity, it is ready to continue its journey through the cycle again (see “Guidelines for Experiential Learning Design”).

Initial Resistance

When you introduce experiential activities to a group, you may encounter some initial resistance. Here are some arguments I have heard against experiential learning, as well as some responses:

“We don’t have time for this; just tell me what I need to know.” Because we tend to separate physical activity from the intellectual work many of us do to make a living, assumptions about what it means to spend productive time on the job may lead some to question the appropriateness of physically and emotionally engaged learning. Despite all attempts to make it something else, learning is a biological process that takes time. The expedience of just telling people what they need to know often undermines their actually learning it.

“We don’t want to get into how people feel about this.” Deep learning profoundly touches people. When we employ experiential methods that require high levels of commitment and involvement, emotionally charged issues will emerge. Unless the group is a highly functioning and trustworthy team, or unless a skilled facilitator is present to help manage these difficult situations, the quality of interaction can deteriorate and the session may be counterproductive.

“None of that touchy-feely stuff for me.” Experiential learning often involves sharing emotions and, in some cases, physical touch. Some participants, especially if they are old enough to remember the encounter groups of the late 1960s, will react with everything from reluctance to disdain. This guilt by association is unfortunate. Well-designed experiences in work settings should not involve coercion, expectations to participate outside one’s level of comfort, or inappropriate physical touch. Facilitators must also remain aware of particular cultural differences regarding the appropriateness of different forms of touch. And although facilitators may sometimes borrow from the language of counseling, experiential learning is not about psychotherapy or probing into participants’ personal lives.

“You can’t prove to me this works any better than just having a meeting.” That is probably true, at least in the short term. The process is messy. Outcomes are often unpredictable, and evaluation can be difficult. Of course, we can measure whether or not learners have acquired some new understanding or skill. But the deeper learnings that involve changes in perception, behavior, or fundamental assumptions about how the world works are always in process. Perceptions shift, and meaning emerges over time. Traditional forms of assessment do not measure these things well, if at all.

“This stuff just doesn’t apply in the real world.” Some people will criticize an experiential approach because the game-playing nature of many activities and the emphasis on relaxed alertness do not seem to adequately mirror the difficult lives they lead in the work world. They wonder, justifiably, how a consciously constructed model or simulation relates to the chaotic nature of today’s business environment.

In response to this concern, I refer to the most stressful environment I know: emergency medicine and rescue. In training people to work under severe stress, where life and death decisions are often necessary and complex techniques and equipment must be employed, the training is often fun, laid back, infused with humor, and highly experiential. Although their jobs are loaded with real-world stress, these professionals generally build skills and capacities in an arena that supports learning.

Nevertheless, the issue of context raises legitimate concerns. Research and practical experience suggest that learning is highly specific to the environment in which it was acquired, and we must be very careful about assuming that learning will somehow magically transfer from one setting to another. Processing, by raising issues to the conscious level, may help us to frame questions differently or experiment with options, but with no guarantees of crossover.

A Seamless Whole

I’ve said nothing new. Experiential learning predates the emergence of Homo sapiens. But we need only to look at the state of most public schools to recognize that the techniques and technologies supporting learning have reached a bit of a standstill in the past century.

Brain research, still in its infancy, promises to help us gain some insight into natural learning propensities we have lost. Even now, it is providing good reason to do away with some of the dualistic thinking about human behavior that informs our culture. Paired opposites such as physical/mental, affective/cognitive, and hard skills/soft skills may drop from usage in the next generation.

Upon reflection, even the term experiential learning feels a bit dated. Science is now offering us a new way of framing experience that dramatically illuminates the relationship between head and heart. Perhaps as our understanding evolves, we will invent new language that honors the complex relationships that weave human experience into a seamless whole.

We have, with our technology, created a complex and challenging future – a future that will demand increasingly sophisticated learning to negotiate. But however advanced we become, we must remember that learning will always remain rooted firmly in our biology.

Kenneth L. Thompson is chair of the department of Experiential Education at Albuquerque Academy, an independent secondary school in New Mexico, where he coordinates wilderness programs and project-based learning. His 20-year career in education includes university teaching and work in corporate and organizational consulting.

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This exchange brings into sharp contrast the two different definitions of learning that we were operating under. For Elise, learning algebra meant acquiring information in her head about how to manipulate numbers and symbols according to prescribed rules in order to give an answer that would be deemed correct by someone in authority. My definition of learning, in contrast, involved increasing the ability to achieve desired results. Learning had to be practically useful — it had to lead to outcomes in the real world. To me, what Elise was doing wasn’t learning at all: She was simply storing information that she may or may not ever retrieve again (she has no interest in pursuing a career in math or science). So if what she was doing really wasn’t learning, why did I want her to learn algebra? For a while, I really wasn’t quite sure. How was studying algebra going to help Elise achieve her desired results?

In a moment of inspired brilliance (or so I thought), I conjured up three reasons why she should learn algebra: (1) It increases brain development by making new neural connections; (2) It helps her acquire intellectual discipline; and (3) It increases her maturity. She was having a hard time relating to these noble, idealized reasons. Then as an afterthought, I added a fourth: It helps her do better on her college entrance exams. Now, I had her attention. She saw a practical use for algebra after all.

As the story above illustrates, we need a more robust perspective of learning than we’ve had in the past. In this article, I am advocating for an integrated framework that describes a new way to understand, utilize, and sustain learning—and, in turn, achieve our desired results.

Human Efficacy

The ultimate aim of humans can be boiled down into three basic categories:

• Seeking fulfillment (pursuing happiness, consciousness, meaning)
• Creating relationships (giving and receiving love, strengthening connection to other people or a higher being)
• Having a purpose (pursuing a dream, fighting for justice, improving the world)

We cannot achieve these aims or our day-to-day goals (e.g., shaving, buying groceries, getting your kids to school on time, serving people in need) without a certain level of human efficacy.

Efficacy is being able to produce a desired effect (see “Achieving Results and Human Efficacy”). Some level of effort must be expended, and therefore some effect produced, to attain our goals as humans. (This is not to say that we can achieve all our aims through individual human effort alone. We must work in cooperation with others and in alignment with our sources of influence, authority, or wisdom. However, we cannot fail to exert an effort and expect we are going to get the outcome we’re seeking.)

For example, let’s say you want to experience more love in your life. How successful would you be if, in order to accomplish this goal, you sit in a chair and wait for the love to come to you? You don’t talk to anyone, you don’t look at anyone, you don’t think about anyone — in reality, all you really do is wait. Not very. You will be unable to produce the desired effect. Another example: Will it be possible for you to be more effective in your job if you don’t initiate some sort of movement or influence — even if that movement is simply to begin to notice what others are saying or doing? All desires, lofty or modest, will only be reached through some level of human efficacy.

So then, how do you increase your efficacy? Psychologist Albert Bandura argues that there are several sources for increasing our effectiveness: “They include [1] mastery experiences, [2] seeing people similar to oneself manage task demands successfully, [3] social persuasion that one has the capabilities to succeed in given activities, and [4] inferences from somatic and emotional states indicative of personal strengths and vulnerabilities.” Bandura goes on to say that “the most effective way of creating a strong sense of efficacy is through mastery experiences” (Albert Bandura, “Self-Efficacy,” in Encyclopedia of Human Behavior). In other words, you build efficacy by repeatedly achieving your desired results.

The next question, naturally, is, “How do you get better at ‘repeatedly achieving your desired results’?” The answer is learning. Unfortunately, without understanding how learning actually works, most of us are less than intentional about how we learn. And, consequently, we take actions that are unconscious, random, or undirected, at worst, or ineffective, at best. Therefore, the next section will attempt to provide that important understanding.

How Learning Works

In the most concise, generic form I can express, learning works in the following way (see “A New View of Learning”).

First, you become aware of a discrepancy between “the way things are” and “the way things ought to be”—you realize that you are not achieving desired results.

Second, you make a choice to address the discrepancy and decide that something has to change. Your response emerges either out of a knower stance, which says someone or something else will have to change (a focus on the circumstances) or a learner stance, which says you will have to change (a focus on your ability to respond to the circumstances).

If you decide to respond out of a knower stance, you will (eventually) become ineffective. New and different challenges and circumstances confront you daily. Responding to tomorrow’s dynamic challenges with your current, static abilities will, over time, lose its effectiveness.

Third, you choose to respond out of the learner stance and decide that you will have to change. So, you will take actions to increase your ability to respond to the circumstances you are facing. If your ability to respond becomes greater than the circumstances, you will achieve positive results, but if the circumstances remain greater than your ability to respond, then you will get negative results.

STANCE DECISION TREE

Whether you adopt the knower stance or the learner stance depends on how you answer three questions.

Because learning can be difficult, we all, unfortunately, have a tendency to respond from the knower stance. Making a change requires a direct confrontation with the status quo. And in confronting the status quo, you will eventually discover that your ability to respond is less than you’d like it to be, and this discovery, in turn, may generate feelings of threat or embarrassment. So, in order to protect yourself, you take the stance that someone or something else (i.e., the circumstances) must change. Over time, you become so skilled at this way of reacting that you assimilate these thinking habits into your everyday practice, and they become your knower stance.

Fourth, you will vigilantly notice whenever you are responding out of a knower stance and choose to shift back into the learner stance. You will make this shift easier by diligently employing five learning practices: personal mastery, shared vision, mental models, systems thinking, and team learning. A disciplined application of these five learning practices will help you continually look at yourself as the necessary focus of change and increase your ability to respond appropriately and achieve your desired results.

Awareness and Choice

Many times, the choices we make are hidden from our conscious awareness. For example, when I first got married, I was in the habit of pointing out the flaws in my wife’s suggestions when she proposed an idea with which I disagreed. I figured I was just helping her to “think things through a little more clearly,” when in reality all I was doing was frustrating her to no end. It wasn’t until she pointed out that all I ever did was poke holes in her ideas, without making an alternative suggestion of my own, that I became aware of how my behavior was unfair to her. When I became consciously aware of how I was acting, I could choose to continue with it (perhaps more skillfully, so as not to get caught quite so often), or I could choose to change my behavior, so that it was more productive and caring.

We go through life, to a great extent, unaware of the choices we are making. To be more effective in the world, it is important to consciously operate from a learner stance. So we need a way to wake up our awareness about which stance we are living out of, so we can then make choices — behave in ways — that are in alignment with the learner stance rather than the knower stance. Learning cannot begin without awareness and cannot continue without the making of fundamental choices.

Knower Stance Versus Learner Stance

The terms “knower” and “learner” will be used throughout this article. In short, let’s define a knower as someone who can’t admit that they don’t know something, for fear that doing so will make them look bad. They often pretend that they know things even when they don’t, and they are not willing to be influenced. They are like those know-it-all kids we knew in grade school, except that, as adults, they are much better at hiding it when they don’t know something. Alternatively, let’s define a learner as someone who admits they could be wrong, or that they are uncertain, or that they probably have to change their usual actions in order to achieve their desired results. Learners are willing to be influenced.

Whether you adopt the knower stance or the learner stance depends on how you answer the three questions depicted in the Stance Decision Tree. If you believe you are actually “getting what you want,” you will take on a non-learner stance — there is no need for learning, things are fine, nothing needs to change. If, however, you believe you are not getting what you want, but you don’t want to do something about that discrepancy, then you will, likewise, take on the non-learner stance.

If you believe that you are not getting what you want and you decide that you will do something about it, your next choice is “What will you try to change?” If you attempt to change someone or something else (focus on the circumstances), you are living out of the knower stance, and if you attempt to change yourself (focus on improving your ability to respond), you are living out of the learner stance.

For example, let’s say you become aware that your accounting practices are peppered with errors rather than being the pristine example of proper accounting you thought they were. You are now faced with a choice. How will you address what is happening? If you focus attention on someone or something else, such as why no one ever told you this before, or how you had received poor training in accounting, or how this was fine at the place you used to work, then you are taking a knower stance. On the other hand, if you focus attention on yourself, such as feeling stuck in a rut, or not staying up-to-date on the latest techniques, or lacking passion for doing accounting in the first place, then you are choosing a learner stance. You can tell whether people have taken a learner stance or a knower stance based on where they primarily focus their attention (this is illustrated by the two vertical lines in “A New View of Learning”). If they persistently focus their attention on changing someone or something else, they are living from the knower stance; if they persistently focus on changing themselves, then they have taken a learner stance.

Results

In baseball, home plate is the most important place on the diamond. A run is scored when a player rounds the bases and touches home plate, and not before. It is the central focus of the action—the ball must always be thrown to it or hit from it.

Likewise, achievement of results is the home plate of learning. All learning must be directed to achievement of results or emerge from it. There is no learning without achieving desired results. As illustrated at the top of “A New View of Learning,” results occur through the interaction of (1) the challenge or circumstances we face and (2) our ability to successfully respond to the challenge. When our ability to respond is greater than the challenge itself, then results will be positive; and when the challenge is greater than our ability to respond, we will get negative results.

Let’s bring the baseball analogy a little further. Think of the pitcher as the circumstances or challenges you must face, and think of yourself, and your ability to respond, as the batter. The pitcher hurls challenge after challenge at you. If your ability to respond is greater than the circumstances, you will hit the ball, but if the circumstances are greater than your ability to respond, you will miss the ball or watch it fly past.

The most effective people are always increasing their ability to respond to the changes and challenges they face, and thereby keeping the ratio of “challenge” to “ability to respond” tilted in their favor. On the other hand, when faced with challenging circumstances, less effective people focus their attention on the circumstances rather than increasing their ability to respond. So they blame the circumstances, avoid the circumstances, cover up the circumstances, deny that the circumstances are as bad as they seem, or blame someone or something else for the circumstances.

As an effective baseball player, you would continually seek to increase your ability to hit the ball, no matter who the pitcher is or what type of pitch he is throwing. If you began to frequently strike out, you would focus on your inability to respond and ask, “What part of my hitting needs to improve in order to hit what is being pitched to me?” As an ineffective player, frequently striking out, you would start to question the circumstances (e.g., the umpire isn’t fair; the sun is in my eyes; at least I haven’t struck out as many times as Carlos; I’ve got the wrong bat; etc.) rather than your ability to respond (hitting ability).

You cannot achieve your desired results by focusing attention exclusively on the circumstances rather than on your ability to respond to those circumstances. It doesn’t make sense to ignore the circumstances, however, for they are part of the equation of effectiveness. In fact, you must explore and interact with them. But then you must redirect your energy toward developing the ability to respond successfully to those circumstances.

Learning begins and ends with achievement of desired results. You cannot know whether you have actually learned anything unless and until you compare the results you are getting with those that you desire to achieve.

Five Core Learning Practices

As you become more skillful at catching yourself reacting from the knower stance and, simultaneously, desiring to live more out of the learner stance, you will recognize a need to develop your learning muscles, or your capacity for learning. In order to do so, you will need to practice five fundamental learning disciplines (as Peter Senge described in The Fifth Discipline) — personal mastery, shared vision, mental models, systems thinking, and team learning. As you develop your learning muscles in each of the five disciplines, you will progress along five continuums from a “knower” to a “learner” (illustrated by horizontal arrows in “A New View of Learning”).

As you practice the disciplines, there is a developmental process — a progression away from knower behaviors toward learner behaviors. While there is some risk of labeling people by using such words as “knower” and “learner,” these terms are used in this context as convenient handles to suggest a contrast between “where we are” in our learning journey and “where we want to end up.” You might think of them like those “before” and “after” photographs often used in weight-loss advertisements. You don’t have much of an appreciation for the “after” picture unless it’s contrasted with the “before” picture. Likewise, you don’t much appreciate what it takes to become a learner unless it’s contrasted with living like a knower. This framework is meant to imply that you cannot stay the same and remain effective in your life.

There are many, many learning practices that you can use, including meditation, reading, intuition, reflection, suspending assumptions, dialogue, intention, team-building, productive conversations, and so on. The five learning disciplines that are explored here are not the exclusive practices that you need to master to get to learning “heaven.” Instead, consider them the core disciplines (along with any associated tools, techniques, or practices) that will help you develop your capacity for deeper and richer learning. Many of the learning practices would serve to enhance and build capacity for progressing along one or more of the learning discipline continuums.

Personal Mastery — If you have transitioned from knower to learner along the personal mastery continuum, you will have felt an internal shift from external pressure to internal desire. Formerly, you reacted to external pressures and expectations defined for you by someone or something else, but now you experience an intense internal desire to create the results you truly want in your life. You have developed the ability to bring something new into existence.

Shared Vision — As an advanced practitioner of shared vision, you have shifted from controlling group interactions with a goal of getting compliance from the members to facilitating mutual commitment. You have developed the ability to co-create collective aspiration.

Mental Models — As someone operating from the learner end of the mental models continuum, you have given up defending yourself during conversations using “protection mode” and now embrace self-exploration using “reflection mode.” You have a well-developed ability to distinguish between “myself” and “my view.”

Systems Thinking — An experienced practitioner of systems thinking, you have shifted your perspective from focusing exclusively on “my part” to focusing on “the whole.” You have a well-developed ability to see your role in the whole.

Team Learning — As you have moved from knower to learner along the team learning continuum, you have shifted from directing and debating during group conversations to having group conversations focused on mutual learning. You have a well-developed ability to generate collective insight.

Living As a Learner

The ultimate aim of this article is to help you live your life as a learner, both individually and collectively. Living an effective life — whether it is achieving your ultimate aim or swatting at little problems that annoy you — begins and ends with understanding how learning works. With this understanding, you are in a position to make critical choices. Do you want to take actions based on a knower stance or based on a learner stance? If you see yourself avoiding, covering up, or denying the circumstances or blaming someone or something else for the circumstances, you know you are living from the knower stance. If you see yourself taking actions designed to change someone or something else, without first focusing on changing yourself, you will, again, recognize that you are mired in the knower stance. If you see yourself creating, reflecting, building commitment, seeing your role in the whole, and engaging in mutual learning, you will be aware that you are living from the learner stance.

Becoming aware, making choices, focusing on your ability to respond, and achieving your desired results — this is living your life as a learner.

Brian Hinken is the author of the newly released book, The Learner’s Path: Practices for Recovering Knowers (Pegasus Communications, 2007), from which this article was adapted. He serves as the Organizational Development Facilitator at Gerber Memorial Health Services, a progressive rural hospital in Fremont, MI. Brian is responsible for leadership development, process facilitation, and making organizational learning practically useful for people at all levels of the organization.

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