1. Senge: Chapter 12 THE FIFTH DISCIPLINE
Team Learning
Senge: Chapter 12
THE FIFTH DISCIPLINE

2. 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 me
Like we were playing in slow motion
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Prepared by James R. Burns

3. Prepared by James R. Burns
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”
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Prepared by James R. Burns

4. 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
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Prepared by James R. Burns

5. 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
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Prepared by James R. Burns

6. 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
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Prepared by James R. Burns

7. 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
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Prepared by James R. Burns

8. 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
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Prepared by James R. Burns

9. 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
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Prepared by James R. Burns

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Skills!!
Dialogue
Discussion
Reflection
Inquiry
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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
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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
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13. 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
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Need for Team Learning
Has never been greater
Complexity of today’s problems demands it
Actions of teams must be innovative and coordinated
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15. Skills Underlying Team Learning
Personal
Mastery
Shared
Vision
Systems
Thinking
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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
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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
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18. 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
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19. 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”
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20. 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
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21. Bohm’s contribution, continued
“our thought is incoherent… and the resulting counter-productiveness lies at the root of the world’s problems”
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More Bohm
As electrons, we must look on thought as a systemic phenomena arising from how we interact and discourse with one another
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23. 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
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Prepared by James R. Burns

24. 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
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25. 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
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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”
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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
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28. 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
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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
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Prepared by James R. Burns

30. Suspending Assumptions
[HOLDING THEM IN FRONT OF YOU]
Difficult because thought deludes us into a view that this is the way it is
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31. 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
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32. 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
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33. 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

34. 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”
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35. 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

36. 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
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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
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38. 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???
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39. 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
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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
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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
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Prepared by James R. Burns

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Defensive Routines
Defensive becomes 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
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43. A Shifting the Burden Archetype
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44. 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
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45. 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
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46. Necessary conditions for Dialogue Sessions
Have all members of the team come together
Explain the ground rules of dialogue
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47. 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

48. 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
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49. 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
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50. 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
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Prepared by James R. Burns

51. 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
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Prepared by James R. Burns

52. 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
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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
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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

55. Prepared by James R. Burns
System Archetypes
When used in conversations about complex, conflictual issues, the objectify the conversation
The focus in on the structure, the systemic forces at plan, not on personalities or leadership styles
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Prepared by James R. Burns

56. 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

57. Benefits of using the System Archetypes
Common understanding of possible structural causes
A way to easily communicate structure and behavior
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Prepared by James R. Burns

58. Copyright C 2000 by James R. Burns
All rights reserved world-wide. CLEAR Project Steering Committee members have a right to use these slides in their presentations. However, they do not have the right to remove this copyright or to remove the “prepared by….” footnote that appears at the bottom of each slide.