Page 84 - text

SeCtion tWo Change approaches & management tools
reinforced. In contrast Mode II learning is based on continuous assessment, resulting in low defensiveness, personal mastery and collaboration with others, and the public testing of understandings. It is related to double-loop, or ‘generative’, learning in which theories in use are changed openly, and ‘deuterolearning’, in which learning processes are themselves challenged and improved routinely.
Stages in Organisational Learning interventions
1. Discover theories in use and their consequences: this initial phase involves establishing the mental models (‘theories in use’) of organisational members, and the consequences which follow from their application. As such models are usually not clearly articulated or understood, members need to infer them by generating and analysing data in open dialogue, inquiring into their own beliefs and those of colleagues and reflecting on the assumptions on which they are based. This enables faulty assumptions which lead to ineffective behaviours being uncovered. Alternatively, theories in use may be explored by constructing an ‘action map’ out of interviews with members concerning recurrent problems, actions taken to resolve them, and the results of such actions. These are fed back to members for them to identify functional and dysfunctional learning within the organisation.
2. Invent more effective theories in use: drawing on the results above, members produce alternative theories in use associates with model II learning, involving double-loop learning to create and enact new theories (‘learning by doing’). Practitioners support this though facilitation of open disclosure about the effects of habitual approaches on development of more efficient processes, and exposure to insights from systems thinking (inter- relatedness, holistic processes; processes of change), with the result of supporting efforts to change.
3. Continually monitor and improve learning processes: this is the ‘deuterolearning’ element – learning how to learn. This involves periodic assessment of the structures and processes which support single- and double-loop learning, and is reliant upon members’ skills in Model II learning.
(Adapted from Cummings and Worley, 2008, pp. 444–47)
Strengths and limitations
While increasingly popular as a means of fostering innovation, full implementation of Model II systems remains elusive and difficult, if not impossible, to achieve in practice
81