LEARNING

THE QUEST

“These leaders are by no means ordinary people.  They work out there on the frontier where tomorrow is taking shape, and they serve here as guides—guides to things as they are and as they will be.  As diverse as they are in terms of background, age, occupations, and accomplishments, they are in accord on two basic points.

“First, they all agree that leaders are made, not born, and made more by themselves than by any external means.  Second, they agree that no leader sets out to be a leader per se, but rather to express himself freely and fully.”
								
							—Warren Bennis

T
he Quest for learning begins within each of us and it takes only a moment.  But it’s a special moment.  A moment of openness, of inquiry, of spontaneity, of creativity.  A moment where you can say to yourself “I don’t know and that’s all right—I’ll figure it out.”  A moment of LEARNING!!

Work Teams That Work™ is designed to create those moments for each participant.  It is designed to help us see ourselves and our interactions differently.  To understand how we gain a vision of something new, how we build new habits and processes to be competent with new skills, how we come to master a new paradigm.  But each person must take the journey themselves.  Only then, and after the struggle, may we reap the rewards.

	THE MAP—UNDERSTANDING HOW WE LEARN

Learning is a continuous process.  When we are young the new excites us.  The challenge of doing something we see others do is a part of our natural existence.  

Tying shoes is a simple example of this process.  A young child may have watched his mother tie his shoes for him dozens of times during his first few years.  Then suddenly, an awareness creeps into his mind—the awareness that he can tie the shoes himself.  And so, grabbing the laces and winding them together, he tries to simply combine the laces together to look like what his mother did.  But to no avail, they won’t stay together.

With some instruction, the child begins to go through steps with the mother’s help.  Suddenly, the shoe is tied.  With some more coaching, it is tied again, not too well but successfully.  And again, and again, and at once, it seems, the child is capable and no longer needs coaching to tie the shoe properly.  This pattern continues until the child can literally tie the shoe unconsciously, without thinking.  And even begins to change, modify, improve the way he goes about it.  Maybe a double bow, or a special knot, maybe he just changes the lacing pattern.  The Child is becoming the master of the shoe lace.  Later, he will have to rethink how he ties the shoe in order to teach the next generation.

This diagram may be helpful in understanding this learning process.  

Each of us is currently in Quadrant 1 in one or more areas of our life.  We are Unaware of a new technology, a new philosophy, a new tool or method for accomplishing a task.  We are comfortable with that state and may even tend to feel that “the King is in his castle and all’s right with the world.”  This is a safe place, a secure place, but it is blind to the “new,” the exciting, even the devastating which may be around the next corner.  When a new idea, or talent, or methodology is realized, we find ourselves in Quadrant 2.

Quadrant 2 is an uneasy place.  We are now aware of something new, but we are entrenched in habits which were comfortable in Quadrant 1.  We have seen something different, exciting, scary, important, or maybe essential to the survival of our company, and we don’t have the new habits, skills, abilities, or knowledge to take advantage of it.  This is the result of many “Benchmarking” activities.  We have found a way to see something new, a different way to do something, a desirable set of benefits which might be derived from utilizing this method.  But the path for us to integrate this into our lives or our company has not yet been constructed.

This uncomfortableness leads us to Quadrant 3.  Here we must make the knowledge and awareness practice.  Here we identify specific goals to seek, habits to break, habits to learn, and new patterns of living and working to incorporate.  Here we face discouragement.  We try, but fail.  We may 

even decide to take haven back in Quadrant 1 since it is too painful to change.  Here is where we concentrate and build the new skills necessary to be “competent and capable” in the new methods or habits.

Our continued efforts begin to pay off as we begin to be, act, and perform more according to the new methodology than to the past.  We begin to do it without thinking.  We tie the shoes without a thought for the steps in the process.  We are quickly becoming masters of the “new” way.  We are at Quadrant 4 and doing well.  Quadrant 4 feels good again...  and here is the next danger.

PERSONAL LEARNING—TAKING THE JOURNEY YOURSELF

Being a learner is “child’s play” for the young.  They have less fears of the unknown, less responsibility, less at stake if they make a mistake.  As we grow older we cling to the “tried and true” methods of our past.  Being a learner for adults requires giving up some security and  moving outside the “box,” outside the comfortable, outside the familiar, outside of Quadrant 1.

There seems to be a high wall between Quadrant 1 and Quadrant 2.  As high, it seems, as we have been willing to build it.  It’s made of brick, much like the house of the third little pig, and ready to protect us from the outside.

Learners don’t have to tear down the wall, but they have to be willing to climb up on it, to look beyond and to “see” what lies on the other side.  Learners move themselves from Quadrant 1 to Quadrant 2 by exploring, and opening their minds to something new.  They do not betray their box, but do not need to defend it either.  They recognize that their Quadrant 1 point of view may not be entirely accurate, current, or, at least, is not the only point of view and they are willing to see the new view.  Once they’ve seen it, they are no longer completely comfortable in their box.  One songwriter recognized this during the big war when he wrote: “How ya gonna keep ‘em down on the farm...After they’ve seen Paris?”

Learners, in moving from Quadrant 1 to Quadrant 2 now have a quandary.  Is it better to keep what I was doing, or to incorporate some or all of this new information into my life and activities.  Learners make a choice, and when the choice is that the new information is worth pursuing, they take on the challenge to move from Quadrant 2 to Quadrant 3.  This move involves the gaining of skills and abilities/competencies/knowledge (rather than just awareness).

They get specific.  What does this new paradigm look like?  Why is this new approach better?  Why should I quit doing it this way?  What results can and do I expect?  And after the questions, they take a stand, set their hand to the plow, and try to make it work.  There is no brick wall between Quadrant 2 and Quadrant 3.  But there are hazards.  The ground is unstable and may tip as you step across.  It may rise up suddenly and roll you back to the protection of Quadrant 1.  A wave of discouragement may strike without warning from the side and you retreat.  Gusts of wind may make it hard to see your way clearly.

If you persist, concentrate, practice, fail, err, and try again... you build the skills.  If you recognize that you are not “perfect” yet, you may avoid the hazard of hypocrisy.  If you associate yourself with others who are making the same journey, you will find support and strength in numbers.  “When the going gets tough,  the tough get going.”  This is where the challenge is. The victory and rewards go to the persistent and new skills to the disciplined.  Integrity is renewed  through aligning how you act with how you have decided to be.

Learners master their new habits.  They move consciously, from Quadrant 3 to Quadrant 4 through this alignment of skills and abilities to desires and beliefs.  There is no wall here, no hazardous terrain, but the slope is upward.  The learner can always roll backward and have to repeat the struggle, the uncertainty, the pain.  Not the struggle of learning the skills, but the struggle of leaving the old patterns.  

The learner meets this challenge by looking quickly toward the next awareness.  Quadrant 4 becomes Quadrant 1 without a struggle, without a wall, without even an upward grade.  It becomes Quadrant 1 when we have built our new box, and “rest” within it.  The new becomes our present, it becomes comfortable.  As William Wordsworth put it:

“The glory and the dream fade, the prison-house closes in after childhood,
and custom lies on us ‘heavy as frost’.”

We have grown; we have struggled; the world should recognize our effort, and how easy it is for us to feel we’ve made it.  Eugene O’Neill struck hard at this cord with the following challenge:

“Those who succeed and do not push on to greater failure are the spiritual middle classers.  Their stopping at success is the proof of their compromising insignificance.  How petty their dreams must have been!  Only through the unattainable does man achieve a hope worth living and dying for and so attain himself.”

	FOUR KEYS TO LEARNING

YOU ARE YOUR OWN BEST TEACHER

No one can teach you how to become yourself, to take charge, to express yourself, except you.  No one outside of you can decide that you will be teachable and open to the new, the changing, the growing.  No one can help you learn until you give permission.

YOU ARE RESPONSIBLE FOR YOUR OWN LEARNING

Create your own university.  Take the tough path.  The path where you learn how “you” learn, the path where you decide how to learn better.  It’s easy to blame others for your inability to grow; it’s much harder to hold yourself accountable for your own development.  Openness to learning starts from within.

YOU CAN LEARN WHATEVER YOU WANT TO LEARN

You have the choice.  Do you want to learn?  What do you want to learn?  Where do you go to learn?  When you decide, then go for it!!  Want it!!  Embrace it!!  Absorb it!!  Then you will learn it.  Unless you have the appetite and determination to absorb new and unsettling things, you won’t learn.

YOU CHOOSE HOW TO USE THE LEARNING

Learning helps you move from ignorance to understanding.  By opening yourself to the new, you let go of the old.  By reflecting on your experiences and challenging paradigms, you build new and real understandings and nothing is truly yours until you understand it—not even yourself.    	

	LEARNING CYCLE

The hardest part of the individual learning process is moving from Quadrant 2 to Quadrant 3.  This is where you build new skills and competencies based on your new understanding and it is only accomplished through doing and experiencing.  WTTW is designed based on the following experiential learning model.  Giving each participant a very real opportunity to do more than just hear or see how to build a high performance team.  Everyone is here to build a high performance, high output, highly successful “Learning Organization.”

EXPERIENCING
Learning begins with experiencing.  Become involved in an activity; acting, behaving, performing, observing, seeing.  Take action—do something.  Experience is the basis for learning.

SHARING
Following the experience itself, it is vital for individuals to share their reaction and observations with others who have either experienced or observed the same activity.

DISCUSSING
Individuals often share, yet the critical and often neglected part of the cycle is processing the experience.  Working through the dynamics and the learning that emerges in the activity, through integration of sharing, we can explore, discuss, and evaluate the experience with others, determining what happened and why.

ADAPTING
Flowing naturally from the discussing step is the need to develop principles or extract generalizations from the experience.  Here, we state learning in a way that helps all of us further define, clarify, and elaborate them.

APPLYING
The final step in the cycle is the application of the principles and learnings derived from the experience.  The process is not complete until the new learning or discovery is used and tested behaviorally.  Applying, of course, becomes an “experience” in itself, and with new experiences, the cycle begins again.

	WHY TRAINING
DOESN’T WORK

TRAINING
VALUES

Closed
Firm/Fixed	
Static/Rigid
Memorizing
Passive
Rote
Answers
Surface
Content (What)
Tactic Driven
Dogma
Job
Rules
Short Term
Thesis
Deductive
Facts
Narrow
Goals
Predictions
Left Brain

THE TRAINING PARADIGMS

If the list of descriptive learning terms on the right look strange, it’s because we usually are not taught that way.  Our educational system is really better at training than they are at real learning.  And that’s unfortunate.  Training is good for dogs, because we require obedience from them.  The training terms listed on the left are what our existing organizations encourage, opt for short-term, least-costly, microeconomic bottom line.  Bottom lines have nothing to do with developing people who can think and act independently and interdependently.  We need people who can think and find problems not just solve problems, because the ones we face today are not always clearly defined, and they aren’t linear—they are ambiguous!

LEARNING
VALUES

Open
Tentative/Flexible
Dynamic
Understanding
Active
Experiential
Questions
Depth
Process(How)
Strategy
Discovery
Life
Risk
Long Term
Synthesis
Inductive
Ideas
Broad
Alternative
Exploration
Whole Brain

				—Adapted from Warren Bennis

KEY LEARNING VALUES

ORGANIZATIONAL

	PROTECTIVE VALUES	vs.	GROWTH VALUES

	Safety				Spontaneity (Risk & Freedom)
	Feeling Superior to Others				Feeling Connected to Others
	Ego Defenses				Vulnerability
	Self-Control				Self-Knowledge
	Knowledge (Facts)				Wisdom (Truth)
	Role-Playing (Gamesmanship)				Authenticity (Realness)
	Comfort at all Costs (Avoid Pain)				Truth at any Cost (Accept Pain)
	Control of Others				Open Communication with Others
	Permanence				Potential & Continuous Changes

		PERSONAL

	FROM				TO

	Feel you’ve learned it all				Learning never stops
	Reductionist thinking				Systems thinking
	Depending on Procedures				Focus on Results
	“They” are 		Personal Accountability
	to Blame				(Search within)
	Certainty				Doubt (“I may be wrong”)
	Stability				Change/Growth 
	(If it’s not broken, don’t fix it)		  		(Continuous Improvement)

		HUMAN CHARACTERISTICS

Integrity
Embrace Error
Encourage Dissent
Positive Self-Image
Personal Efficacy
Empathetic Listening
Belief in People & Teamwork

—Adapted from Warren Bennis

LEADERS AND THE LEARNING PROCESS

L
eaders are always moving from Quadrant 1 to Quadrant 2.  They are challenging themselves to look at things in new and different ways.  They want to see both the new inventions and the new de-ventions (the things that have always been done, but we have found ways to do more with less).  They don’t have to create the new paradigm, but they are always searching to  understand how it applies to themselves, their company, family, and  community.

Once they are aware of the new paradigm, they plan ways to incorporate it into their activities.  More than that they push themselves to move into Quadrant 3 and “DO IT.”  

Leaders move from Quadrant 3 to Quadrant 4 and become Masters over and over again.  By taking their awareness, moving it to action, and then practicing it they integrate it in their style and being.  They strengthen their understanding and grasp of it by learning to see the new paradigm and their fit within the paradigm through the eyes of their followers.  They get feedback and continue to 

fine-tune.  The way of mastery is continual self-improvement, building deeper integrity between actions and beliefs, between what they say and what they do.  

Inexperienced or ineffective leaders may try to “sell” everyone on the new paradigm before trying to live it themselves.  They are still acting in the old paradigm and can only be seen as hypocritical in the eyes of their followers.  They function like “Sheepherders” who push their followers into the unknown.  They hide their struggle from others, wanting to seem adept, capable—even perfect—in the new paradigm.  

Better leaders know that they must begin to try and demonstrate the new before they attempt to convince others.  They function like a “Shepherd” who leads the way and experiences the unknown with the followers.  They trust their own instincts before they ask others to trust them.  They recognize and reveal their own struggle to change.  They talk openly about the struggle and encourage others to struggle and win.  They enlist others in helping them change and allow themselves to be coached.

LEADERS MASTER THE PRINCIPLES OF LEARNING

Masters demonstrate patience with their followers, but do not sanction incompetence.  They realize that they cannot improve in themselves what they do not see, and they depend on others to help them see it.  They provide this service to their followers by giving them direct, clear, supportive, and honest feedback.  They all share responsibility with their follower for understanding and learning to function in the new paradigm.  

To the leader, there are no problem people. There are teams with problems and people with problems.  Leaders build an open environment which supports both the team and the individual to resolve their problems if they choose to do so.  When they choose not to solve the problems, the leaders allow them to face the consequences of such decisions.  They do not solve the problems for them and they do not overlook the problems.  

	SUMMARY POINTS IN LEADING LEARNING

Leading Learning is:	There are no final answers.
				All solutions are provisional.
				That worked well—how can we do better?
				That failed, how can we repair the damage and move on?
				That was a great mistake!!  We sure learned a lot from it.
				Let’s try it together?
		We will win in the long haul, if we continue to try and change.
				Green and growing.  Vital and changing.
 
Leading Learning is not:	I’ve got it!!!
				When will they get it?
				We had it, how did we loose it?
				You try it.
				If you succeed—we will share the glory; if you fail—you are accountable.
				Ripe and Rotting.  Stale and stalled.

GROWTH VALUES

	The Six Dimensions of Inner Development

EMPATHY

Actively participating in the feelings and ideas of others.  Embracing differing views and opinions, knowing they are essential to understanding and synergy.  The acceptance of others just as they are, unique and marvelous creations in their own right.

AUTHENTICITY

The capacity to be at peace with yourself, know who you are, what you feel—to simply be yourself.  You’ll only be as good as you are capable of being real.  Owning up to your own weaknesses, failures and mistakes lets others know you’re human.  Playing a game or hanging on to old pre-assigned roles and responsibilities in a changing environment only inhibits growth and authenticity.

SPONTANEITY

The capacity to think out loud and act naturally without external constraints or being held within established lines.  It’s the ability to self-act or react in a real and natural way as events occur.

COURAGE

The ability to do what is right for the larger whole, knowing at times it is not a popular choice.  Confronting others when it’s needed and being able to withstand the backlash.  It’s the mental or moral strength to venture where angels fear to tread while resisting opposition or strain or threat.

OPEN-MINDEDNESS

The ability to act and make decisions provisionally, recognizing there may be a better way introduced tomorrow.  This flexibility and open-mindedness allows us to deal with individuals and teams as they are, and at their own pace.  This increases our receptivity to others’ arguments, ideas, and thoughts.

INTUITION

The ability to react with confidence on limited data or information.  Willingness to trust your gut, knowing something is different, but not being able to put a finger on it.  At times it can be those immediate insights gained that need to be shared, regardless of how hard they could be to substantiate.

LESSONS LEARNED

What We Can Learn from Successes and Failures

!	The way a company is organized determines how well it functions and serves its customers.

!	If we want to improve it, we need to change it.  If we want substantial improvement, we must be willing to make substantial change.

!	Change is systemic and all parts of the culture must be aligned in the same direction.  Changes in individual parts are difficult to sustain.

!	Change causes stress, misdirected energy, and perceived loss of control.  Some may even view it as confusing and chaotic.

!	Change needs to be collaborative in its design, implementation, and renewal processes.  It must be tied to genuine, real business outcomes, not viewed as something extra, kinder, or gentler.

!	Cultural change is more effective when it occurs at the same time that other significant change is going on, i.e., new product, services, or new technology.

!	Staff members and consultants cannot be the leaders of a change effort.  Support resources, yes.  Change only works when line managers, responsible for making it work, drive and lead the effort.

!	Training, recipes, tools, and copying don’t work.  We need to understand and build our own processes and methods based on an understanding of STS principles and concepts.

!	Most employees really want to do the best job possible.  However, most organizational structures and managers do not build on this underlying assumption.

!	If we want employees to do a good job, we must design a meaningful job for them to do.

!	Employees need to be involved in the decisions that really matter.

!	When people have all they need (information, knowledge, skills, and abilities) to do a good job, quality, quantity, and cost effectiveness always improve.

!	You get better results by working on improving peoples’ thinking than by working on improving their behavior.

!	Teams that manage their own group processes get far better results than those managed or facilitated externally.

!	Without a clearly defined and understood mission/vision developed by all employees, they will pursue the wrong purpose, their own purpose, or cross purposes.

!	Conventional approaches to organizational effectiveness (i.e. Team-building, Participative-Management, Employee-Involvement) tend to produce limited results because they are partial solutions based on partial truths.

!	Organizations that tend to pursue such themes as harmony, connections, improving relationships, job satisfaction, etc. for their own sake, generally uses a management led process focused on tasks and activities not on product or purpose.

!	Significant improvement requires comprehensive, systematic, integrated changes in structure, systems, and processes.

PERSONAL LEARNING 
JOURNALS

		“Keep a Journal.  Pay at least so much attention to the visits of truth to your mind as to record them.”
—Ralph Waldo Emerson         

A
s part of our learning process, most of us tend to mull over and reflect on what happens to us in an effort to analyze and understand our experiences.  We often lose some of the potential learning in our experiences because we pay less attention to the details and the complexities of our experiences than might seem to be worthwhile.  One way to enhance a person’s learning rate and quality is to keep a journal.  A page in each section of your notebook, called LEARNING JOURNAL has been provided for that purpose.  Times have been set aside in the schedule for writing in your journal.

This journal also gives you an opportunity to chart your growth in two critical areas of individual and team development which are:

 		* 	Growth Values (expanding the ability for continual personal growth)
		* 	Team Skills (building group skills toward synergy and effectiveness)

In general, your journal will be most helpful to you if you record the following kinds of thoughts when they seem intriguing or worthwhile:

-	surprises/speculations/curiosities
-	things I have learned about:
		Conflict
		Feedback
		Effective Meetings
-	things I want to learn more about or pay attention to
-	progress toward my learning goals
-	dilemmas/confusions/problems/questions
-	what’s happening to me, in me
-	what are the leadership requirements for change and growth

The journals for each Section have some memory joggers to get you thinking and reflecting.  These journals, in conjunction with the Learning Processes discussed, should be excellent tools to enhance your individual learning about Work Teams That Work.