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Please visit and bookmark now. The new URL is easy to remember: 

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What is a “Learning Organization” & Why do You or Your Business Even Care?

Let’s start with the second part, because that’s what’s really important…

Why do You Care?
Learning organization methodology looks at interactions and connections that surround issues, not just individual issues. This allows your business to expand it’s scope & produce results faster. That means less time & less money spent to produce better results. Great.
Learning organizations inherently have awareness of the dynamics of change & the ability of people & organizations to transform. This gives a competitive advantage. The company that learns as it goes can handle change because it sees it coming & is prepared for it. That’s good for investors; its easier on management & great for the bottom line.

So, What is a Learning Organization?
A learning organization is not a college or university, as its name suggests. It is not a group of people studying the best techniques or the proper way to educate. Instead it is, well, jargon. It is a business management term given to a company that continually transforms through facilitating knowledge & awareness in its personnel.
The company does this to maintain fluidity, to address the fact that the frameworks of industry, markets & methods change. Companies are involved in continually expanding global & cultural parameters & increasing competition. Encouraging evolution of this framework allows for more efficient adaptation.

Doesn’t that sound good? A group of people growing, increasing their value which is increasing the company’s value, which is in turn growing. It’s a beautiful thing, in theory and in practice. And, theoretically, it contains 5 features.

5 Key Components:
1. Systems Thinking: Seeing how things interrelate and interconnect and are part of a common process.
2. Personal Mastery: Education for each individual to help them to develop.
3. Mental Models: Assumptions that must be challenged because they shape and limit our thinking.
4. Shared Vision: Common goals and desired end-state that motivate teams and groups to learn and act in concert.
5. Team Learning: Learning how to learn and develop potential collectively.

Peter Senge developed it. [See The Fifth Discipline Fieldbook by Senge, Kleiner, et al] The business management world adored it. And you should know about it!

3 Tips to Maximize Team Learning

Part 5 of 5 on the Power of Asking Questions

Bernice Moore-Valdez

If teams learn more effectively, they can get more done, and they make better decisions. Here are 3 tips to help the team maximize what they learn:

1. Pay attention inside
2. Pay attention outside
3. Take action

Tip #1: Pay attention to what is going on inside you
Paying attention inside is listening to your own thinking; are you tracking what’s being said, are you resisting, opposing? Paying attention to your inner discourse is useful to help you be present. Your presence helps others be more awake and attentive.

• Where is your mind? Are you wandering outside in the sunshine, thinking about your shopping list, wishing you were back at your office? If you catch yourself drifting, bring yourself back to the room and to what’s going on right where you are.

• Notice your emotions. Emotions help us connect with others, and if we are aware of your emotions, it helps us relate and connect. Understand why you have an emotion: knowing when and why you feel anxiety, pressure, pain, or light-heartedness can help you be more present with yourself and others.

• Know and identify your triggers and reactions. When you know your triggers and don’t act on them you have a bit of wisdom. Knowing and speaking about triggers and reactions honestly and openly without attacking anyone takes real skill. When you are triggered, being able to identify it is half the battle.

• Understand what you want to say and why. If you have something to say, want to say something, or can ask a question to help the group learn, is something holding you back? Helping ourselves be in the flow of conversation enables us to contribute in ways that are helpful and needed.

Tip #2. Pay attention to what’s going on outside and around you

When you notice what is going on, it helps you and others have more opportunities to engage and support the group to maximize their learning. When the team is learning and interacting better, they make better decisions and create better results.

• Attend to what the group is saying and talking about. Notice if the group is talking about the topic they are supposed to be talking about or not. If the group is off-topic, sometimes it is helpful to lead them to get back on track. Other times it may be a worthwhile conversation. Discerning the difference is useful to the whole group.

• Pay attention to how the energy of the group is moving. Is there a “stuckness” in the group’s conversation? “Stuckness” means a repeated pattern that takes over and limits the openness and flow of conversation.If the group is going around and around a topic, it helps to notice and name it for the group, and this can help break the repetitive pattern. If people are stuck, you can help to guide the group back on track.

• Are one or two people talking rapidly; are some people turned off and not talking? If only a few people are talking, you can help include more people in the conversation. Sometimes a silent person has a great deal to contribute and is struggling to make an entry.

Tip #3. Take action that supports the team’s learning.

It is helpful to make the best move you can to help the group and yourself. Here are some different kinds of moves & examples:

• Suspend, which means to hang something out there, for the group to look at
  
  -tell the group what you’re thinking or feeling
  -if you are reacting and it feels right to tell the group, do so
  -if you see a stuck pattern, name it to help the group see how stuck they are. When the group can identify when they get stuck, this helps groups work with collective patterns of stuckness and limit constraints on team effectiveness

• Ask questions to deepen the group’s learning and improve their collective thinking. Ask about assumptions, data, barriers, and success factors. Explore themes and agreements and identify disagreements.
  
  -What are the group’s assumptions? If you help a group or team notice assumptions, usually it will have a big payoff in increased understanding and coherence
  -Is someone out on a limb without any data to support them? Helping the group clarify the data that they are working with and that they agree on will ground the group in something real
  -Explore barriers by asking, “What could get in our way?”
  - Identify some success factors by asking, “What do we need to do to ensure we are successful?
  -Notice themes and help the group reflect on what they’re talking about and learning.
  -Clarify themes and agreements to the team will be more successful

Jack Mezirow, the father of transformative learning, said that without reflection there is no learning. Without learning, we just repeat the same mistakes over and over—isn’t that a definition of insanity?

4 Things NOT to Say in a Meeting: False Questions & their Consequences

Part 4 of 5 on the Power of Asking Questions

Bernice Moore-Valdez

The last three blogs have been a serious look at the power of questions to get better results. In this blog we are working with the flip side—the power of questions to derail and harm.

Questions are powerful: they can open or they can close; they can invite or they can shut down. It is important to recognize 4 types of questions that can shut down the conversation. These destructive questions are known as “false questions,” as they are not actually asking anything but are instead used to express distaste often in the guise of humor.

4 Examples of False Questions, What NOT to Say in Meetings:

• Cheap Shot: Cheap shots are a fun banter for the 2 or 3 people involved. For the rest of the group, it is boring and uninviting. A cheap shot is a cutting comment, like a verbal spitball. “What idiot dreamed this up?” “Is English your second language?”

• Sarcastic Rejoinder: Sarcasm has its place—mostly outside a meeting. “You think anyone cares about this?” or “Who dreamed this up?” are sure ways to shut people down. Maybe a few people will keep talking, but the best ideas are often behind a buttoned lip.

• Disbelief: Just registering a question of disbelief criticizes the person speaking. “Are you kidding?” when obviously someone is NOT kidding is a clear put down. “Did you say what I think you said?” After a couple of these questions, who will be brave enough to bring an important issue forward?

• The Barb: Like the cheap shot, the barb is demeaning. “How many drinks did you have before you designed this?” “Who died and made you boss?” are questions that stop everyone from bringing anything new or innovative forward. Asking: “What were you thinking?” is just plain unproductive.

Though meant as a form of humor these questions actually harm more than uplift. Everyone has different ways to respond to cheap shots, sarcasm, disbelief, and barbs. If a shy or sensitive person is the brunt of these kinds of questions, they may never express their great ideas or share their thoughts to help solve tough problems, open new markets, or come up with an innovative way of doing things.

For the most part, these things don’t all show up in the same meeting. Destructive or false questions are posed every now and then. When they are present, false questions distort the quality of the conversation, preventing the team or group from thinking well together. False questions shut down divergent thinking, preventing creativity and innovation from emerging. The only good response to a false question is to say, “Ouch!”

Please don’t take my word for it. Just pay attention. What happens when people are using cheap shots and barbs, disbelief and sarcasm?

Inviting Other Opinions & Supporting the Team through Two Types of Questions

Part 3 of 5 on the Power of Asking Questions

Bernice Moore-Valdez

Our last blog looked at clarifying questions and questions that seek information. This time we’re looking at 2 additional kinds of questions:

• Questions that invite other perspectives
• Questions that enable collective learning and understanding

Questions that Invite Other Perspectives

Why?
Questions that invite different perspectives help us understand complexity. Questions that invite other perspectives are extremely valuable in helping groups make good decisions, understand complex issues, and create collaborative action. When we invite other people to give their ideas, we are able to see more of any complex system or issue. Our own perspective is limited, and we need to broaden our view to get a sense of what is really going on.

Examples.
We can invite other perspectives to enhance our thinking. Here are some ideas:

• What are your thoughts?
• What have I missed?
• How else can we do this?
• Who sees this differently? How do you see it?

How?
Reach out to others with an invitation for them to share their perspective. Martha has an opinion about how things need to be done. She says, “We have to include our assumptions in our budgets. If we don’t we won’t be able to align them. How do you see it, Bill?”

Bill is invited into the conversation to think through how to include assumptions in the budgeting process. Everyone in the room listens and participates in the conversation. People collaboratively align their actions in a meaningful budgeting process.

Questions that Enable Collective Learning and Understanding

Why?
Understanding things better leads to better decision making. The idea is to look at things together. Questions that seek to enhance collective learning help us engage collectively so that there is meaning among us. And, because we understand things better, we make better decisions and act more effectively.

Examples.
Helping a group learn together with good questions is the apex of inquiry. It helps to be in a conversation that has a level of openness and trust. Here are some possible questions:

• What have we decided in this meeting?
  
• What have we learned here?
  
• What is most important for us to remember about what we talked about today?
• What do we understand differently after our conversation?
• How will we hold ourselves accountable for the agreements we have made here today?
• What was different about today’s meeting? What worked for us? What didn’t work so well?

How?
Listen to what people say in response to a good question. Inviting other perspectives is not a hollow exercise; when we listen to peoples views with a willingness to be influenced, we see a bigger picture and broader horizon.

Welcome Dissent. If someone disagrees with you, say, “That’s a different perspective,” and ask, “Can you tell me more about what you are thinking?”