Today: The other four
disciplines
Recitation
Personal Mastery: Chapter 8
Mental Models: Chapter 9
Shared Vision: Chapter 10
Team Learning: Chapter 11
Senge: Chapter 8
Personal Mastery
Recitation
• What is meant by THE EASY
WAY OUT USUALLY LEADS
BACK IN?
– Give some examples
Recitation
Senge asserts that we should see
ourselves
1. As separate from the processes
we deal with daily
2. As a part of the processes we
interact with daily
Recitation
• Which of the Archetypes is an
example of “The harder you
push, the harder the ‘system’
pushes back??
Recitation
• Which of the Archetypes is an
example of “Behavior grows
better before it grows worse”
Recitation
• WonderTech is an illustration of
what archetype?
PERSONAL MASTERY:
Introduction – Chapter 8
• The Spirit of the Learning
Organization
• Mastery and Proficiency
• Why we want it
• Resistance
• The Discipline of Personal Mastery
• Holding creative Tension
Introduction, Continued
• STRUCTURAL CONFLICT: THE
POWER OF YOUR POWERLESSNESS
• Commitment to the Truth
• Using the Subconscious
• Personal Mastery and the Fifth
Discipline
• Fostering Personal Mastery in the
Organization
Personal Mastery =
Personal Growth &
Learning
• People with high levels of PM
are continually expanding their
ability to create the results in
life they truly seek.
Mastery and Proficiency
• Goes beyond competence and skills
• First, we must continually clarify
what is important to us.
• Second, we must learn how to see
current reality more clearly.
• The gap between what we want
and what our current reality is
generates creative tension
What its like to have
lots of PM
• For such people, a vision is a calling
rather than just a good idea
• PM is not something you possess, it
is a process--a lifelong discipline
• People with lots of PM are more
committed, they take more initiative
Employers want PM for
their employees because…
• Full personal development has a
strong impact on individual happiness
• Work should be seen as an opportunity
to build something to last, something
of value
• PM is a means toward the
organization’s ends
Resistance
• Many individuals and
organizations do resist PM
• No one will ever be able to
measure how much PM
contributes to productivity and the
bottom line
• Cynicism: humanistic
management over promised itself
to firms in the 1970s
More Resistance
• Could it threaten the established
order of a well-managed company?
YES!!
• TO EMPOWER PEOPLE IN AN
UNALIGNED ORGANIZATION CAN
BE COUNTERPRODUCTIVE
– Without this alignment, organizational
stress will increase
• “People don’t resist change. They
resist being changed..”
The Discipline of
Personal Mastery
• PM is a discipline, a series of
principles and practices that
continually expand PM
• Most adults have little sense of real
vision
• Our personal vision must be positive
– An example of diminished vision is focusing
on the means rather than the ends or
results
– The ability to focus on ultimate intrinsic
desires, not only on secondary goals, is a
cornerstone of PM
Holding creative Tension
• The gap between our vision and our
current reality is called creative tension
• The principle of creative tension is central
to the principle of PM, integrating all
elements of the discipline
• Still creative tension often leads to
anxiety, sadness, discouragement or
worry.
• But these negative emotions are
emotional tension and not creative
tension
• Watch out for the eroding goals archetype
“STRUCTURAL CONFLICT”: THE
POWER OF YOUR
POWERLESSNESS
• Many of us have a dominant belief
that we are not able to fulfill our
desires
– a by-product of growing up
• We believe in our powerlessness-our inability to bring into being all
the things we really care about.
• Page 157 illustrates the conflict-our vision pulling us forward, while
our belief in powerlessness pulls us
back
Eliminating self-limiting
beliefs
• Many of us do not believe that
we are worthy or deserving to
have what we truly desire
• Manifestations are: loss of
energy, not able to finish the
job, unexpected obstacles
develop, people let us down, we
don’t believe we can do it
Strategies for coping
with self-limiting beliefs-Bro Ray Fritz
• Letting our vision erode
• Conflict Manipulation
• Will power
Focusing on what we
don’t want: conflict
manipulation (negative
vision)
– The way many athletic coaches
manipulate and motivate their players
– The way many managers point out the
highly unpleasant consequences if the
company’s goals are not achieved
• Do you really want to live your life in
a state of fear of failure?
• For such people, there is little joy in
life
Third-strategy--WILL
POWER
• We psych ourselves up to overpower
all forms of resistance to achieving
our goals
• We motivate ourselves through
heightened volition
• This dogged determination gets
things done at work, but doesn’t turn
the trick at home
The bottom line of SelfLimiting Beliefs (SLBs)
• They are hard to change-psychologists widely concur
To change SLBs, we
need a COMMITMENT
TO THE TRUTH
• Tell yourself the truth
• Continually broadening our awareness
• Continually deepening our
understanding of the structures
underlying current events
• First, must recognize the structural
conflict--recognize the patterns
Structures of which we
are unaware hold us
prisoner
• Discovering these structures at
work is the stock-and-trade of
people with high levels of PM
Truth--seeing reality
more and more as it is
• Pure observation--Buddhists
• Witnessing--Hindus
• “What a tragedy that man must
die before he wakes up”--Koran
• “You shall know the truth and
the truth shall set you free”-Christianity
Using the Subconscious;
Or, You Don’t Really
Need to Figure it all out
• People with high levels of PM can
accomplish extraordinarily complex
tasks with grace and ease
• The subconscious is intimately involved
in PM: through it, all of us deal with
complexity
• The aspect of our mind that is
exceedingly capable of dealing with
complexity is called the subconscious
Subconscious--
• What distinguishes people with high
levels of personal mastery is they
have developed a higher level of
rapport between their normal
awareness and their subconscious
• Subconscious capacity is larger by a
factor of 10 as compared to the
conscious
The Core Values of PM
• Integrate reason and intuition
• See your connectedness to the
world
• Be compassionate
• Be committed to the whole
Fostering PM in an
Organization
• You can’t force employees into
PM--to do so is the most surefire way to impede the genuine
spread of commitment to PM
• Leaders must foster a climate in
which the principles of PM are
practiced in daily life
The Organizational
Climate
• establishing visions, being
committed to the truth, challenging
the status quo
• Will reinforce the idea that PM is
truly valued in the organization
• Will reinforce the idea that PM is a
continual, ongoing process
The Climate, Continued
• Work to develop all five
disciplines at the same time
• Leaders should be a model
If you can’t picture it,
you won’t make it
• You have to know where you are
headed
• Choose your companions as if
your life depended on it
• Leaders know when to put their
foot down, and when to back
down
Mental Models
Senge: Chapter 9
THE FIFTH DISCIPLINE
What are Mental
Models?
• The mental constructs that
dictate
– the decisions that we take
– the actions that we engage in
• The Second of Five Disciplines
– Who remembers the other four?
What’s the Problem?
• Many of the best ideas never get put
into practice
– Why???
– Because they conflict with deeply held
internal images of how the world works
– These images limit us to familiar ways
of thinking and acting
• We keep making the same mistakes
over and over again--we’re not
learning
The discipline of Mental
Models (MMs) Involves
• Surfacing these models
• Testing these models
• Improving our internal pictures
of how the world works
• PROMISES TO BE A MAJOR
BREAKTHROUGH FOR BUILDING
LEARNING ORGANIZATIONS
Why are MMs so
powerful in affecting
what we do?
• They affect what we see
– They become the cognitive lense through
which we view the world
– Two people with different MMs can see
the same situation and describe it
differently
– Big three auto-makers believed
Americans bought cars on the basis of
styling
– Today outdated MMs dominate the
service industries, which still provide
mediocre quality in the name of
controlling costs
So the Problem arises
when our mental model
is wrong…RIGHT?
• WRONG!!!
• The problem with mental models
is that they are tacit--below the
level of awareness
• We don’t realize that our
behavior is being dictated by a
certain mental model that we
have bought into deeply
A Digression and Break
• Arm Wrestling
• Good Exercise
• Good way to break up a boring
session on mental models
• Find an opponent
• The contestant who can defeat
his opponent the most times in
one minute wins.
An Industrial Goods
Manufacturer
• Was losing market share
• Production managers held
inventories as low as possible
• Result was long lead times, long
delivery times even though
production capacity was adequate
• A team of MIT system dynamicists
were brought in
What did the models
show?
• Low inventories meant long lead
times
• Why not carry some inventory
• They did this for a while and it worked
– The firm’s market share picked up
• But the new policies were not taken
to heart
• Four years later when another
recession occurred, the firm went
back to their original low inventories
and began losing market share again
Why did they do this?
• The inertia of deeply entrenched
mental models can overwhelm
even the best systemic insights
Shell--one of the first
firms to investigate MMs
• Is broken up into over a hundred
companies
• Must continually challenge the
leaders of these firms to
scrutinize their MMs
Overcoming the basic
diseases of the hierarchy
• For hierarchical organizations the
dogma is “manage, organize, control”
• For learning organizations, the
dogma is vision, values, and MMs
• Healthy firms are ones that bring
people together to develop the best
possible MMs for facing any situation
at hand
The Experience at
HANOVER
• Hanover--an insurance carrier (a
property and casualty insurance firm)
• Hanover hired consultant Chris
Argyris. He brought in his “ACTION
SCIENCE”
• Argyris: “Because we insulate our
mental models from examination, we
develop ‘SKILLED INCOMPETENCE..’”
• Recall a conflict with a client--what
did you say--what did you think, what
did you not say
Left-Hand Column
Analysis
– The left-hand column details what you were
thinking
– The right-hand column details what was
actually said
• Sample case: Jim is an R&D project
manager. Jim assumes his supervisor
Todd feels harshly about him. Jim just
had a conversation with Todd. Jim
writes out the conversation with Todd in
the right-hand column and his thoughts
at the time in the left.
• We’re two months late
and I don’t think he
knew. I was hoping we
could catch up
• I need to make it clear
that I’m willing to take
responsibility for this,
but I don’t want to
volunteer for more
work
• He never offers this
help in the planning
stages, when I could
really use it. It’s too
late now to bring that
up.
• The changes he keeps
making are the real
reason we’re late. He
must have another one.
• It’s a shame I can’t tell
him that he’s the cause
of the delays. If I can
• TODD: Jim, I’d like to
come down there next
week. We’re a few
weeks behind, and I
think we might all
benefit from a meeting
at your office.
• ME: I’ve been very
concerned about these
deadlines. As you
know, we’ve had some
tough luck here, and
we’re working around
the clock. But of
course, we’ll squeeze
in a meeting at your
convenience.
• TODD: Well, its
occurred to me that we
could use better
coordination. There
are some ways I could
help.
• ME: Well, I’m happy to
What can you do with
this LHCA?
• You can learn a lot about how your
responses could have been better,
more to the point.
• You can also ask yourself what has
really led me to think and feel this
way?
• What was my intention? What was I
trying to accomplish?
• Did I achieve the results I intended?
• Did my comments contribute to the
difficulties?
When we examine our
mental models…
• Each of us has contributed to a
conflict through our own thinking
• We made sweeping generalizations
about others that determined what
we said and how we behaved
• We are led to see subtle patterns of
reasoning which determines our
behavior and how these continually
got us into trouble
Hanover & Argyris’s
Colleague Lee Bolman
• Bolman further exposed Hanover’s
managers to the ideas and practices
of action science
• Be a good inquirer
• Balance inquiry with advocacy
• Understand that all we ever have are
assumptions, never “truths,” that we
always see the world through our
mental models and that the mental
models are always incomplete and in
Western culture, non-systemic
Hanover Bottom Line
Results
• Over a 15 year period, Hanover got
better and better at its margins and
market share
• Its average return was 21.8% where
the industry average was 15.9
percent
• Today, Hanover continues to build a
foundation of basic skills in
reflection, surfacing and public
examination of mental models
Hanover’s Strategy
• Recognize “leaps of abstraction”
– Jumps from observation to
generalization
• Exposing the “left-hand column”
• Balance inquiry and advocacy
• Facing up to distinctions between
espoused theories (what we say) and
theories in use (what we do as
determined by our MMs)
The Discipline of Mental
Models
• Bring key assumptions about
important business issues to the
surface
– the Goldratt mechanism for doing just
this is called an EVAPORATING CLOUD
• Without surfacing these
assumptions, an organization’s range
of actions are limited to what is
familiar and comfortable
• Develop face-to-face learning skills
The Discipline of MMs,
Continued
• Both sides of the discipline--business
skills and interpersonal issues--are
crucial
• Without interpersonal skills, learning
is still fundamentally adaptive, not
generative
• Generative learning requires
managers with reflection and inquiry
skills, not just consultants and
planners
Planning as Learning and
Internal Boards: Managing
Mental models Throughout
an Organization
• Firms need to put in place
mechanisms that make the practices
of reflection and surfacing mental
models unavoidable
• How? By recasting traditional
planning as learning and establishing
“internal boards of directors” to bring
senior management and local
management together
• How? By using SCENARIOS in the case
More ways to surface
mental models
• Use tools for mapping mental
models--Shell. These include
systems thinking tools like the
archetypes, as well as the computer
simulation capabilities of a tool like
VENSIM
• Microworlds and numerous other
“soft systems” tools are also used
What is the common
denominator of these
tools?
• They work to expose
assumptions about important
business issues
• The basic idea is to
institutionalize managing mental
models through the planning
process
Hanover also uses
internal boards
• Composed of two to four senior
managers and local general
managers
• Senior managers are not
allowed to impose their mental
models on local managers
• Hanover developed a Credo on
Mental Models
Hanover’s Credo
• The effectiveness of a leader is related
to the continual improvement of the
leader’s mental models
• Don’t impose a favored mental model on
people
• Self-concluding decisions result in
deeper convictions and more effective
implementation
• Better mental models enable owners to
adjust to change in environment or
circumstance
• Internal board members rarely need to
make direct decisions
Hanover’s Credo,
Continued
• Multiple mental models bring
multiple perspectives
• Groups add dynamics and knowledge
beyond what one person can do
alone
• The goal is not congruency among
the group
• When the process works it leads to
congruency
• The leaders’ worth is measured by
their contribution to others’ MMs
Reflection and Inquiry Skills:
Managing Mental Models at
Personal and Interpersonal
Levels
• Reflection skills concern
becoming more aware of how
we form our mental models and
the ways they influence our
actions
• Inquiry skills concern how we
operate in face-to-face
interactions with others
Reflection Skills
• Recognize leaps of abstraction
• Miller’s 7 plus/minus 2 rule
• Untested models of customer
behavior are often leaps of
abstraction
• To surface leaps of abstraction, ask
“What do I believe about how the
world works?”
• Then ask, “Is this generalization
inaccurate or misleading?”
Reflection Skills
• Where possible test the
generalizations directly
Inquiry skills
• Use left-hand, right-hand column
analysis
• In conflicts, avoid the systems
archetype of escalation
Mental Models and The
Fifth Discipline:
Systems Thinking
• The two disciplines go hand-inhand
• ST without MM is like an
airplane without wing flaps
Shared Vision (SV)
Senge: Chapter 10
THE FIFTH DISCIPLINE
Introduction
• SV is the answer to the question
“What do we want to create?”
• SV creates commitment,
connectedness to those who hold it
• Provides the focus and energy for
learning
• SV is subscribed to because it
reflects the holder’s personal vision
Why Shared Visions
Matter
• Visionaries like Henry Ford, Steve
Jobs, Theodore Vail, Martin Luther
King, John Kennedy were able to
articulate their visions in ways that
galvanized people to join with them
• SV uplifts people’s aspirations
– Making the motorcar affordable by
everyone
– Accelerating learning through use of
PC’s
– Bringing the world into communication
through telecommunication
– Leaving footsteps on the Moon
– Making the world accessible through
travel
Why else do Shared
Visions Matter
• SVs are exhilarating, exciting,
galvanizing
• Allow people who mistrusted each
other to work together
• High-performing teams have a strong
sense of shared vision and purpose
according to Abraham Maslov
• SVs compel courage--doing whatever is
needed in pursuit of the vision
• Learning organizations do not exist
without SV
Learning Organizations
and SV
• Vision establishes the
overarching goal
• SV compels new ways of
thinking and acting
• SV provides a rudder for keeping
the learning process on course
SV fosters risk-taking
and experimentation
• “You know what needs to be
done, but you don’t know how to
do it”
• You are willing to experiment
SV fosters a long-term
view
• Japanese believe building a great
organization is like growing a tree
– It takes 25 to 50 years
• Parents of young children try to lay a
foundation of values and attitude that
will serve an adult 20 years hence
• Strategic planning tends to reflect
more of the “short-term” than “longterm”
– Corporate leaders are more immersed in
the problems of today than the
opportunities of tomorrow
The Discipline of
Building SV
• SV emerges from personal visions
• People with a strong sense of
personal direction can join together
to create a powerful synergy toward
what I/we truly want
• PM is the bedrock for developing
shared visions
Building Shared Visions,
Continued
• We can’t force people to develop
personal visions
• We can create a climate that
encourages personal vision
We have to believe
• We can create a differentiated Bschool and one that is highly
respected
• We can lead with the best ideas, the
best curriculum, the best faculty,
etc..
• We have to articulate our vision for
being the best--what else is there?
• Vision does not have to derive from
the highest levels of the organization
What about top-down
vision
• doesn’t need to be communicated in
a dictatorial hierarchy
• Top management goes off to write its
vision statement with the help of
consultants
• What comes back is disappointing,
often a one-shot vision
• Management assumes they have now
discharged their visionary duties
Writing vision
statements
• Rarely makes a vision “come alive”
within an organization
• Does not build on people’s personal
visions
• The new official vision fails to foster
energy and commitment or passion
• Even among the top-management team who
created it
• Vision is not a solution to a problem
The Annual Planning
Ritual
• Creative strategies seldom
emerge
• Fail to nurture genuine vision
• Sometimes shared visions just
bubble up from nowhere
For leaders to build
shared visions….
• Must be willing to continually
articulate their personal visions
• Must be willing to ask “Will you
follow me?”
DEC’s vision to become
electronically integrated
• networks would tie together all
of the functions (areas)
• The process of building shared
vision is not always glamorous
• A visionary leader is not one
who gives inspiring speeches
• He is one who uses his vision to
make decisions every day
Shared visions emerge...
• as a result of the interactions of
individual visions
• individuals feel free to express their
dreams
• individuals will listen to the dreams
of other team members
• Multiple visions must be allowed to
coexist
• Diversity of ideas is welcomed
Spreading Visions:
Enrollment,
Commitment and
Compliance
• Commitment is close to the
heart of contemporary managers
• 90% of the time what passes for
commitment is compliance
• talk of getting subordinates to
“buy into” the vision
Attitudes toward a
vision
•
•
•
•
•
•
•
Commitment
Enrollment
Genuine compliance
Formal compliance
Grudging compliance
Non-compliance
Apathy
Guidelines for Enrollment
and Commitment
• Be enrolled yourself
• Be on the level
• Describe the vision as simply and honestly as
you can
• Let the other person choose
• Your efforts to convince the other person will
be seen as manipulative
• Ultimately, there is nothing you can
do to get another person to enroll or
commit
Anchoring Vision in a
Set of Governing Ideas
• The vision must be consistent with
the governing ideas
• Governing ideas, answer the critical
questions” “What?” “Why?” “How?”
• Vision is the “What?”--the picture of
the future we seek to create
• Purpose or mission is the “Why?”--the
organization’s answer to the question
“Why do we exist?”
Anchoring Vision, Cont’d
• Core values answer the question
“How do we want to act, consistent
with our mission, along the path
toward achieving our vision?”
• An org’s values might include
integrity, openness, honesty,
freedom, equal opportunity,
leanness, merit or loyalty
• ALL THREE GOVERNING IDEAS
ANSWER THE QUESTION “What do
we believe in?”
Relationships between
Purpose, Vision, and
Values
• Visions make the purpose (mission)
more concrete and tangible
• Core values are necessary to help
people with day-to-day decision
making
• Purpose is abstract, vision is long
term
• But core values must be translatable
into concrete behaviors
Positive Vs. Negative
Vision
• “What do we want” is different from
“What do we want to avoid?”
• Negative visions are limiting because
– negative energy is less motivating
– carry a subtle message of powerlessness
– they are inevitably short term
• Org’s can be motivated by fear or by
aspiration
Creative Tension and
Commitment to the
Truth
• The most effective people are
those who can hold their vision
while remaining committed to
seeing current reality clearly
(the truth)
Shared Vision and the
Fifth Discipline
The Missing Synergy:
Shared Vision and
Systems Thinking
Team Learning
Senge: Chapter 11
THE FIFTH DISCIPLINE
The Potential of Wisdom
Teams
• Bill Russell’s Experience of
Alignment and Synergism
– His play would rise to a new level
– He would be in the white heat of
competition, yet not feel competitive
– Every fake, cut and pass would be
surprising, yet nothing could surprise him
– Like we were playing in slow motion
Alignment
• A necessary condition for
EMPOWERMENT
– Empowering non-aligned
individuals worsens the chaos and
makes managing the team even
more difficult
• For Jazz musicians, it is called
“being in the groove”
Alignment and
Synergism
• Meetings will last for hours, yet
fly by
• No one remembers who said
what, but knowing we had really
come to a shared understanding
• Of never having to vote
(because there is so much
CONSENSUS)
Team Learning: A
definition
• The process of aligning and
developing the capacity of a team to
create the results its members truly
desire
• It builds on the capacity of shared
vision
• It also builds on personal mastery
• Knowing how to play together
• Teams are the key learning unit in
organizations
The Discipline of Team
Learning
• The team’s accomplishments
can set the tone and establish a
standard for learning together
for the larger organization
• Has three critical dimensions
Three critical dimensions
• First, there is a need to think insightfully
about complex issues
– Teams must learn how to tap the potential for
many minds to be more intelligent than one
mind
• Second, there is a need for innovative,
coordinated action
• Third, there is the role of team members
on other teams
– A learning team fosters other learning teams
through inculcating the practices and skills of
team learning
The discipline of team
learning
• Is a collective one
• It is meaningless to say that “I,” as
an individual, am mastering the
discipline of team learning
– In the same sense that it is meaningless
to say “I am mastering the practice of
being a great jazz ensemble.”
• Involves mastering the practices of
dialogue and discussion
Dialogue and Discussion
• Are potentially complementary, but
most teams lack the ability to
distinguish between the two
• Teams must learn how to deal
creatively with the powerful forces
opposing productive dialogue and
discussion
– Argyris: defensive routines--ways of
interacting that protect us from threat or
embarrassment, but which also prevent
us from learning
Skills!!
Dialogue
Inquiry
Discussion
Reflection
Defensive postures
• Systems thinking is especially prone
to evoking defensiveness because of
its central message, that our actions
create our reality
• The problems we perceive are
caused by our actions, not by
external, exogenous forces outside
of us
Practice
• The discipline of team learning
requires practice
• Teams do not practice enough,
generally
• A great play or great orchestra
does not happen without practice
• Neither does a great sports team
• Such teams learn by continual
movement between performance
and practice
The State of Team
Learning
• TL is poorly understood
• We cannot describe the phenomenon
well--no measures
• There are no overarching theories
• We cannot distinguish team learning
from groupthink
• There are few reliable methods for
building team learning
Need for Team Learning
• Has never been greater
• Complexity of today’s problems
demands it
• Actions of teams must be
innovative and coordinated
Skills Underlying Team
Learning
Team Learning
Personal
Mastery
Shared
Vision
Systems
Thinking
Werner Heisenberg
• Science is rooted in
conversations
• Cooperation of different people
may culminate in scientific
results of the utmost importance
• Collectively, we can be more
insightful, more intelligent than
we can possibly be individually
David Bohm
• A leading quantum theorist
• Developed a theory and method
of “dialogue” when a group
“becomes open to the flow of a
larger intelligence”
• Quantum theory implies that the
universe is basically an
indivisible whole
Bohm’s recent research
on dialogue
• A unique synthesis of the two major
intellectual currents
– systems or holistic view of nature
– interactions between our internal models
and our perceptions and actions
• Reminiscent of systems thinking
which calls attention to how
behavior is often the consequence of
our own actions as guided by our
perceptions
Bohm on the PURPOSE
OF SCIENCE
• not the accumulation of knowledge,
since all scientific theories are
eventually proved false
• Rather, the creation of mental maps
that guide and shape our perception
and action, bringing about a constant
“mutual participation between nature
and consciousness”
Bohm’s most distinctive
contribution
• Thought is “largely a
collective phenomenon”
• Analogy between the
collective properties of
electrons vs. way our
thoughts work
• Leads to an understanding of
the general counter
productiveness of thought
Bohm’s contribution,
continued
• “our thought is incoherent… and
the resulting counterproductiveness lies at the root
of the world’s problems”
Prepared by James R. Burns
More Bohm
• As electrons, we must look on
thought as a systemic
phenomena arising from how we
interact and discourse with one
another
Dialogue and Discussion
• Suspending assumptions
• Seeing each other as colleagues
• A Facilitator Who Holds the
Context of Dialogue
• Balancing Dialogue and
Discussion
• Reflection, Inquiry and Dialogue
Dialogue and Discussion
• Their power lies in their synergy
• No synergy without an
understanding of their distinctions
• DISCUSSION--like a ping/pong game
where the topic gets hit around
– subject is analyzed and diagnosed from
many points of view
• Emphasis is on winning--having one’s
view accepted by the group
More Dialogue and
Discussion
• A sustained emphasis on
winning is not compatible with
giving first priority to coherence
and truth
• To bring about a change of
priorities from “winning” to
“pursuit of the truth”, a dialogue
is necessary
Dialogue
• From the Greek, it means “through
the meaning”; “meaning passing or
moving through”
• Through dialogue, a group accesses
a larger “pool of common meaning”
which cannot be accessed
individually.
• “The whole organizes the parts”
More Dialogue
• Purpose is not to win, but to go
beyond any one individual’s
understanding
• In dialogue, individuals gain
insights that simply could not be
gained individually
• In dialogue, individuals explore
difficult, complex issues from many
points of view
• Dialogue reveals the incoherence
in our thought
The Purpose of Dialogue
• To reveal the incoherence in our
thought--three types of incoherence
• Thought denies that it is
participative
• Thought stops tracking reality and
just goes, like a program
• We misperceive the thoughts as our own,
because we fail to see the stream of
collective thinking from which they arise
• Thought establishes its own
standard of reference for fixing
problems
Incoherent thought
• Thought stands in front of us and
pretends that it does not represent
• We become trapped in the theater
of our thoughts
• Dialogue is a way of helping people
to “see the representative and
participative nature of thought”
• In dialogue, people become
observers of their own thinking
Suspending
Assumptions
• [HOLDING THEM IN FRONT OF YOU]
• Difficult because thought
deludes us into a view that this
is the way it is
Seeing each other as
Colleagues
• Necessary because thought is
participative
• Necessary to establish a
positive tone and offset the
vulnerability that dialogue
brings
• Does not mean that you need to
agree or share the same views
Dialogue, Colleagues,
and Hierarchy
• Choosing to view “adversaries”
as “colleagues with different
views” has the greatest benefits
• Hierarchy is antithetical to
dialogue, yet is difficult to
escape in organizations
Dialogue, Colleagues,
and Hierarchy
• People who are used to holding
the prevailing view because of
their senior position, must
surrender that privilege in
dialogue, AND CONVERSELY
• Dialogue must be playful-playing with the ideas,
evaluating and testing them
Prepared by James R. Burns
A Facilitator Who “Holds
the Context” of Dialogue
• In the absence of a skilled
facilitator, our habits pull us
toward discussion and away
from dialogue
• Carries out many of the basic
duties of a good “process
facilitator”
A Facilitator, Continued
• But the facilitator is allowed to
influence the flow of
development simply through
participating
• As teams develop skill in
dialogue, the role of the
facilitator becomes less crucial
Prepared by James R. Burns
Balancing Dialogue and
Discussion
• Discussion is the necessary
counterpart of dialogue
• In discussion different views are
presented and defended, which may
provide a useful analysis of the
whole situation
• In dialogue, different views are
presented as a means toward
discovering a new view
Dialog Vs. Discussion
• Dialogue established the view
that leads to courses of action
• Discussion leads to new courses
of action without establishing
that new view
• Teams that dialogue regularly
develop a deep trust that cannot
help but carry over to discussion
Dealing with “Current
Reality”: Conflict, and
Defensive Routines
• An overbearing, charismatic, and
intimidating posture
• Craig Bean: his experiences at TI
and why TI does not today own any
share in the huge personal computer
business
• Is there a conflict between alignment
and being open to dialogue???
Great Teams vs.
Mediocre Teams
• A team that is continually learning is
the visible conflict of ideas
• In great teams, conflict becomes
productive, inducing the need for
ongoing dialogue
• Argyris: the difference between
great teams and mediocre teams lies
in how they face conflict and deal
with the defensiveness that
invariably surrounds conflict
Defensive Routines
• Entrenched habits we use to protect
ourselves from the embarrassment
and threat that come with exposing
our thinking.
• Form a protective shell around our
deepest assumptions
• Forceful, articulate, intimidating
CEO’s
• Cannot be seen
Defensive Routines
• In some organizations, to have
incomplete or faulty understanding
is a sign of weakness or
incompetence
• IT IS SIMPLY UNACCEPTABLE FOR
MANAGERS TO ACT AS THOUGH
THEY DO NOT KNOW WHAT IS
CAUSING A PROBLEM
• To protect their belief, managers
must close themselves to alternative
views and make themselves
uninfluenceable
Defensive Routines
• Defensive routines become an
accepted part of organizational
culture
• We are the carriers of defensive
routines and organizations are the
hosts
• Defensive routines block the flow of
energy in a team that might
otherwise contribute toward a
common vision
A Shifting the Burden
Archetype
Defensive Routines
P erceived need for n ew understanding an d behavior
T HREAT
Learning Gap
Need for Inquiry and change
Current Un derstanding and beh avior
Delay
The Missing Link:
Practice
• Team learning is a team skill
• A group of talented learners will not
necessarily produce a learning team
• Learning teams learn how to learn
together
• Team skills are more challenging to
develop than individual skills
• Learning teams need practice fields
Learning How to
Practice
• Two distinct practice fields are
developing
• 1) Practicing dialogue
• so that a team can begin to develop its joint
skill in fostering a team IQ
• 2) Creating learning laboratories and
microworlds
• computer supported environments where
team learning confronts the dynamics of
complex business realities
Necessary conditions
for Dialogue Sessions
• Have all members of the team
come together
• Explain the ground rules of
dialogue
Necessary conditions,
cont’d
• Enforce those ground rules
– if anyone is not able to suspend his
assumptions, the team acknowledges
that is now discussing and not dialoguing
• Make it possible for team members
to raise the most difficult, subtle and
conflictual issues essential to the
team’s work
Prepared by James R. Burns
John MacCarthy’s
Example Memo
• Session is the first in a series of
DIALOGUES
– to help clarify assumptions,
programs, responsibilities
– not to make decisions as much as
to examine directions and the
assumptions underlying them
– to be together as colleagues
The conflict between
R&D and Marketing
• New Product Development
• Two different strategies--make
or buy
– R&D took the MAKE view
– Marketing took the BUY view
– No meeting of the minds
Results of the
DataQuest Dialogue
• A 30-year first was healed
• The end-run that marketing had
been doing to augment product
lines was no longer necessary
• R&D and Marketing learned that
they really wanted to work
together, under one coordinated
new-product development plan
Team Learning and the
Fifth Discipline
• All of the tasks of management
teams involve wrestling with
enormous complexity
– developing strategy, shaping visions,
designing policy and organizational
structures
• Too often, however, teams confront
this dynamic complexity with a
language designed for simple, static
problems
Team Learning and the
FD, Continued
• This accounts for why managers
are so drawn to low-leverage
interventions
• We see the world in simple
obvious terms and implement
simple, obvious solutions
Prepared by James R. Burns
Solution
• A new language for describing
complexity
• Traditional languages--financial
accounting, competitive
analysis, total quality, and
Shell’s scenario methods
– None of these deals with dynamic
complexity very well at all
Solution, continued
• Instead, consider the systems
archetypes
– These offer a potentially powerful
basis for a language by which
management teams can deal
productively with complexity
Prepared by James R. Burns
System Archetypes
• When used in conversations
about complex, conflictual
issues, they objectify the
conversation
• The focus in on the structure,
the systemic forces at plan, not
on personalities or leadership
styles
System Archetypes,
Continued
• Makes it easier to discuss
complex issues objectively and
dispassionately
• Without a shared language for
dealing with complexity, team
learning is limited
Prepared by James R. Burns
Benefits of using the
System Archetypes
• Common understanding of
possible structural causes
• A way to easily communicate
structure and behavior
Copyright C 2000 by
James R. Burns
• All rights reserved world-wide.
CLEAR Project Steering Committee
members have a right to use these
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