Management of Organizational Learning

MANAGEMENT OF ORGANIZATIONAL LEARNING
MASTER COURSE
“We must not believe the many, who say that only free people ought
to be educated, but we should rather believe the philosophers who say
that only the educated are free.”
University Maastricht – Faculty of Economics and Business Administration

Management of Organizational Learning Table of Contents
TABLE OF CONTENTS
1. INTRODUCTION........................................................................................................................ 2
2. LEVEL I - CONCEPTS OF ORGANIZATIONAL LEARNING AND HELICOPTER VIEW ............... 2
2.1. Introduction to organizational learning and change ......................................................... 2
2.1.1. Introducing organizational learning ..................................................................... 2
2.1.2. Accomplishing change ......................................................................................... 4
2.2. Setting the scope for knowledge management towards actionability .............................. 5
2.2.1. Introducing the bigger picture of knowledge management ................................. 5
2.2.2. Defining organizational knowledge and the dynamic character of its creation ... 6
2.3. Organizational design for learning ................................................................................... 8
2.3.1. Developing individual and group expertise in learning ....................................... 8
2.3.2. Designing innovative organizations ................................................................... 11
2.3.3. The importance of perspectives on developing learning organizations ............. 12
3. LEVEL II – THE ROLE OF INDIVIDUALS IN ORGANIZATIONAL LEARNING AND HOW TO

CHALLENGE MENTAL MODELS ................................................................................................... 13
3.1. Theories of action, mental models and double loop learning ........................................ 13
3.2. Communication of knowledge, dialogue, and shift of minds ........................................ 17
3.2.1. Communicating Knowledge .............................................................................. 17
3.2.2. Organizational learning and an action theory of dialogue ................................. 18
3.2.3. A shift of mind and achieving systems thinking ................................................ 20
4. LEVEL III – INTEGRATING THE UNDERSTANDING OF DEEP STRUCTURES, MENTAL

MODELS & LEARNING ................................................................................................................. 23
4.1. The origin of the theories that we hold and how they influence the way we act ........... 23
4.2. How the way we think influences the way we see ......................................................... 25
4.3. Power and learning ......................................................................................................... 28
4.4. Rethinking organizational learning ................................................................................ 32
5. GLOSSARY OF TERMS ........................................................................................................... 34
6. REFERENCES ......................................................................................................................... 35
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Management of Organizational Learning
1. INTRODUCTION
The aim of this course was to gain insight into: (1) ways to design organizations and
processes in such a way that the pluriformity of people, power and knowledge get a place, (2)
what it means to work together in a world where truth is pluriform, where power, knowledge
and truth are intricately interwoven, (3) the effect of how we view the world and ourselves
shapes our actions and outcomes and inhibits actionable learning and (4) how a lack of this
understanding inhibits actionable learning. (Berends, 2008)
2. LEVEL I - CONCEPTS OF ORGANIZATIONAL LEARNING AND HELICOPTER VIEW
2.1. Introduction to organizational learning and change

2.1.1. Introducing organizational learning
Peter Senge argues that knowledge is multi-faceted as all our ideas are the result of other
people‟s direct or indirect influence (Fulmer & Keys, 1998b). He describes learning
organizations as divers, multifaceted, and living communities in which people share
responsibility and jointly work on developing their capabilities in order to accomplish
something that they actually care about instead of simply enhancing their learning
competence. He compares knowledge to a tree whose invisible roots take a long time to
develop, form the basis for the systems health and are like the “deep theory” or “the deepest
timeless insights” (Fulmer & Keys, 1998b, p. 37). The branches are the means to solve
problems and the fruits are people‟s practical know how. For knowledge to be created the
parts of the tree have to form a whole whereby the human spirit is the systems source of
energy and generative drive. For organizational learning Senge stresses the importance of
understanding structure as the distribution of power and change as the struggle for
confronting and redistributing power structures, producing unsettlement before a new order
can establish itself (Fulmer & Keys, 1998b). To truly learn, people need “safe environments”
(Fulmer & Keys, 1998b, p. 37) in which they can see and understand interrelationships as
well as try new things. Leadership should help them to learn and put new realities into being.
In “The Fifth Discipline”, Senge (2006) argues that work must become ever more
“learningful” (p. 4) at all organizational levels since the world becomes increasingly complex
and dynamic. Companies need to align more consistently with people‟s higher ambitions as
material prosperity shifted the view of work as a mere means towards it being an end in itself
with more intrinsic benefits (Senge, 2006). He believes that people intrinsically like to learn
and that all organization could become truly learning and innovative by mastering fife basic
disciplines that stimulate experimentation and organizational development:
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(1) Systems Thinking: Everything should be viewed systemically and understood by looking
at the system as a whole and not just the interrelations of individual parts. However this is
difficult and being an element in the system ourselves we often only focus on sub-parts,
which keeps us from truly solving systemic problems.
(2) Personal Mastery: We should persistently clarify and deepen our personal vision, focus
our energies, develop patience, and see reality objectively. Organizations should encourage
personal growth and striving for higher aspirations as organizational learning cannot be
separated from individual learning capacity.
(3) Mental Models: We need to become aware of and reflect on our (shared) mental models
(deeply embedded assumptions, generalizations or pictures) that we are often not consciously
aware of but that influence our understanding of the world as well as our behavior. Truly
learning means to balance critical questioning and advocating.
(4) Building a Shared Vision: Organizations need to find truly shared images of the future, a
common identity and a sense of fate that fosters genuine commitment, involvement and
triggers people‟s intrinsic motivation to learn and excel instead of mere compliance. Senge
(2006) criticizes that most leaders are unable to translate their visions into shared ones.
(5) Team Learning: This discipline begins with dialog and the ability of individuals to
suspend their mental models, to allow the free flow of meaning, and to engage in genuine
group conversations without unrecognized defensiveness inhibiting learning or leading to
discussions in which ideas are moved back and forth in a rather competitive manner.
According to Senge (2006) these five dimensions are rather artistic disciplines in that they do
not lead to a final state of learning excellence but need to be practiced continuously as more
learning leads to more awareness of ones own ignorance. He believes that systems thinking
integrates the other disciplines to an interrelated whole that exceeds the sum of its parts
whilst it also depends on them.
“Bulding a shared vision fosters a commitment to the long term. Mental models focus
on the openness needed to unearth shortcomings in our present ways of seeing the
world. Team learning develops the skills of groups of people to look for the larger
picture beyond individual perspectives. And personal mastery fosters the personal
motivation to continually learn how our actions affect our world.” (Senge, 2006, p. 12)
Summarized in the term “Metanoia” (Senge, 2006, p. 13), learning organizations realize that
they are part of a system in which their actions create as well as change reality and shift away
from purely adaptive learning and symptomatic problem interventions towards learning that
enables to shape the world.
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Senge (2006) says that learning disabled organizations fail due to their inability of identifying
potential threats, comprehend the implications, and produce alternatives. He identifies seven
to be identified and alleviated learning disabilities: (1) “I am my position” or people only
focusing on their everyday tasks but not the greater purpose, (2) “The enemy is out there” and
not seeing how we contribute to problems with our own actions, (3) The illusion of
proactively taking charge by fighting the enemy out there but actually being reactive due to
not seeing how one self contributed to problems, (4) The fixation on events and their
explanations distracting us from seeing and understanding long term patterns, (5) The
inability to see gradual change processes that slowly threaten us (“the boiled frog”), (6) The
illusion of learning from experience despite of our physical inability to experience all our
actions implications directly time and location wise, and finally (7) “skilled incompetence” of
management teams that function quite well under routine conditions but that are often
learning dysfunctional and self-protective in times of trouble.
Senge (2006) believes that these learning disabilities are due to the management and design
of human systems whereby organizational structure and the subtle interrelationships of
perceptions, goals, rules, and norms influence and control people‟s behavior. Systemic
structures are generative whilst patterns of behavior are often only reactive to events as he
shows in a Beer Game, in which people are unable to remove system instabilities despite of
good intentions because they do not see how their own behavior affects others and creates the
instabilities. “When placed in the same system, people, however different, tend to produce
similar results.” (Senge, p. 42). In order to develop the ability as well as power to alter the
structures that we live in and thereby effectively change our behavior patterns towards a long
term perspective we need to see and understand the complex systemic structures, key
interrelationships and multiple levels of explanations that we are part of and often cause
ourselves (Senge, p. 42).
2.1.2. Accomplishing change
Change is described by Garvey & Williamson (2002) as an uncertain and risky but
nonetheless unavoidable element of our in “„liquid modernity‟” embedded lives. With
everything being fluid, fast moving, temporary, and transitory they say the challenge is to not
be overwhelmed by change but to understand it better in order to influence its speed and
direction. Similar to Senge, Garvey & Williamson (2002) argue that people can influence
change if they are encouraged to think critically and enter into genuine dialogue about the
beliefs and structures that shape their actions. New knowledge is said to be created by making
the tacit explicit whereby people should be critical about the scientific ideas that influence
management practice. According to Garvey & Williamson (2002) change today cannot
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simply be viewed as a rational process that could be planned, managed, and controlled.
Rather it needs learning stimulated by sensitive leadership that encourages people‟s
involvement, enables them to think in novel ways, and allows them to agree on the need for
change as well as on how to go about it. Garvey & Williamson (2002) formulate three
interdependent propositions for knowledge productive change: (1) knowledge productive
leadership encourages people to think, (2) people will risk thinking in new ways only in a
open, positively motivated, and creative climate, and (3) in this context gaps between words
and actions need to be closed as people only learn and grow when they are respected and
valued as ends in themselves and not as pure productive means. Accordingly a rich landscape
for learning is socially constructed by a humane corporate curriculum that pays attention to
“social processes of dialogue, openness, diversity, tolerance, uncertainty, complexity, trust,
relationships, reflection, re-framing, restoration and reflexivity” (Garvey & Williamson,
2002, p. 184).
2.2. Setting the scope for knowledge management towards actionability

2.2.1. Introducing the bigger picture of knowledge management
Social and economic changes have always been ahead of what we know about how the world
works but with science, technology and global mass communication we shape(d) a
knowledge economy characterized by unmanageable super-complexity, increased
uncertainty, and even more rapid change. As a dense network of interrelated activities our
knowledge system is essentially open to new ideas and ways of thinking, whereby our ability
to reflect on the limitedness and shortfalls of knowledge is seen as its most valuable
characteristic. Garvey & Williamson (2002) describe this situation as a significant element of
post modernity, the source of our creativeness, but also of instability and argue that only self-
critical, learning organizations, which are able to recognize, communicate, combine and
refine what its members know will be successful in the future. They view organizational
survival as dependent on the cooperation of all parties of society and the move from
bureaucratic management towards treating people as ends in themselves and not just means.
Garvey & Williamson (2002) define learning as a social activity that is made possible via
social discourse and dialogue. It is situated in social settings and circumstances, involves
personal change, and is a continuous activity throughout life. Although only individuals have
the ability to learn, organizations are said to be able to hinder or nurture it. To nurture it they
need to be aware of their past and present way of doing things as well as their anticipations
for the future so that they can reframe their circumstances and develop novel solutions to
complex problems. Further, Garvey & Williamson (2002) point out a moral dimension to
learning and organizational change not only because people learn most effectively when they
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have good reasons to do so and when learning is valued by positive responses but also
because learning environments involve issues of manipulation, control and the use of power.
They conclude that for an effective, efficient and moral learning climate organizations should
build: confidence, competence, collaboration, and communication among their members.
By illustrating opposing social science perspectives (i.e. subjectivist vs objectivist paradigms,
conflict vs order, regulation vs radical) and paradoxes Garvey & Williamson (2002) also
point out the plural nature of knowledge and that individuals as well as groups may adopt
different beliefs on how the world works and act accordingly. They say that organizations
need to understand that their past was created by the owners of power and is manifest in their
culture and that they need to be open to learning as an experience as well as learning from
experience. Further, strategies should be embedded in learning that fosters attentiveness for
scanning, interpreting and understanding the environment whereby training as well as
development must be dynamic and recognize tacit as well as explicit knowledge. Referring to
Bernstein‟s educational curriculum theory, Garvey & Williamson (2002) put forward that it is
important to decide on valid knowledge, pedagogy, evaluation, and realization for learning
environments. In their point of view managers need to become aware that the work place
itself is a potentially rich learning environment and that a situated approach offers greater
depth, understanding, and involvement for learning to be knowledge productive and to
generate new ideas and ways of thinking in contrast to purely formal or informal curriculums.
2.2.2. Defining organizational knowledge and the dynamic character of its creation
Nonaka (1994) defines information as the flow of messages that is necessary for the creation
of knowledge. He views knowledge as subjective to individuals in search for truth and
therefore terms it as justified personal belief. According to his findings organizational
knowledge is created via managing four modes of continuous interaction between tacit
(informal) and explicit (formal) knowledge: (1) socialization - creating tacit knowledge via
sharing tacit knowledge in joint experiences, (2) externalization - conversion of tacit
knowledge into explicit knowledge, (3) combination - creating new explicit knowledge from
explicit knowledge, and (4) internalization - similar to the traditional idea of learning explicit
knowledge is being turned into tacit knowledge. For organizational knowledge creation to
take place he finds that these four modes need to form a continuous cycle as depicted by the
“Spiral of Organizational Knowledge Creation” (Nonaka, 1994, p. 20) below.
Nonaka (1994) conceptualized a looping process that starts at the individual level, moves
knowledge up to the team and later organizational level as well as back down to the
individual. The interaction between experience and reinterpretation of explicit knowledge are
said to enable individuals to develop their own perspective of the world whereby divergence
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of tacit knowledge from as well as its convergence to explicit knowledge have to be balanced
via facilitating dialogue. Here metaphors that compare one thing with another are said to be
important for understanding similarities as well as contradictions of abstract concepts, whilst
analogies harmonize contradictions in showing the commonness of different things.
Broken down, the knowledge

creation process according to
Nonaka (1994) entails: enlarging
individual‟s knowledge through practical experience, sharing tacit knowledge within teams,
knowledge conceptualization by merging different perspectives, crystallizing new and refined
concepts of knowledge, judging or evaluating the truthfulness and quality of these concepts
via self-reflection, and finally integrating legitimized concepts into the organizational
knowledge base. These processes form multilayered loops whereby different stages might
take place concurrently. Managing this process is said to require the management of enabling
conditions, which include: individual commitment (shaped by intention, autonomy, and
fluctuation of environmental conditions), creative chaos, information redundancy, and
accessibility of a variety of information. Based on the above, Nonaka proposes a model of
“middle-up-down management” (1994, p. 29) in contrast to the traditional top down model or
often unrealized bottom up model. According to him middle managers play an important role
in synthesizing the tacit knowledge of line employees/managers and upper management,
make it explicit and integrate it into organizational output (i.e. products). They also have to
close the gap between top managements vision and lower manager‟s reality.
Nonaka (1994) concludes that traditional learning alone has limits when it comes to driving
organizational knowledge creation and that organizations need to create the environment for a
spiral of interactive and joint amplification of tacit and explicit knowledge.
Tsoukas & Vladimirou (2001) also illustrate how individuals acquire and enlarge their
knowledge and how this individual knowledge becomes organizational. Following a
theoretical exploration they define individual knowledge as “the individual capability to
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draw distinctions, within a domain of action, based on an appreciation of context or theory
or both” and organizational knowledge as “the capability members of an organization have
developed to draw distinctions on the process of carrying out their work, in particular
concrete contexts, by enacting sets of generalizations whose application depends on
historically evolved collective understanding” (p. 973).
Tsoukas & Vladimirou (2001) draw on knowledge as entailing individuals making an active
judgment on initially value free data and information within their given context, which then
leads them to specific behavior. Like Nonaka (1994) they view knowledge as something
personal due to variations in experience, understanding, and individual capability, whilst it is
also constructed by practice and socialization processes. When confronted with new
situations, people are said to choose an existing set of agreed upon theories or generalizing
principles and apply them according to their own judgment. According to Tsoukas &
Vladimirou (2001), the more generalizations, rules, and collective understandings become
embedded and reflectively processed by the individual and the group and thereby driven into
the subconscious, the more people are capable of apply them routinely and concentrate on
new experiences and challenges. Tsoukas & Vladimirou (2001) make a distinction between
formal and informal organizational knowledge, whereby the later is created by individuals via
improvising on the incompleteness of abstract generalizations or rules in particular situations.
This informal also called heuristic knowledge may again be made explicit and formalized by
casting it into agreed upon generalizations or propositional statements.
Finally, Tsoukas & Vladimirou (2001) suggest knowledge management to be a process that
illuminates what guides people‟s actions, makes unreflective behavior reflective, facilitates
the emergence of joint understanding and encourages the development of heuristic
knowledge. Accordingly, knowledge management is said to be effective if propositional
knowledge is practically applied and thereby turned into individual tacit knowledge, while
heuristic knowledge is being formalized and made available organization wide.
2.3. Organizational design for learning

2.3.1. Developing individual and group expertise in learning
Clarifying the nature of knowledge and expertise, Garvey & Williamson (2002) distinguish
between formal and informal knowledge similar to the previous authors. Formal knowledge
is said to evolve by itself within fields of specialization like medicine or engineering and is
driven forward by research and development on a global scale. It is no longer the property of
the individual mind, is complex, and is passed on via educational institutions. Informal
knowledge or expertise on the other hand is personal and reflects the consolidation of
education, experience, and tacit understanding of individuals. According to Garvey &
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Williamson (2002), individual expertise develops through long periods of study, is constantly
altered throughout time, and can either develop or atrophy depending on the context of the
individual. Super complexity is said to intertwine individual expertise with organizational
settings and socioeconomic frameworks. Furthermore, Garvey & Williamson (2002) make a
distinction between the modes of knowledge development and research with “Mode I” being
found as openly accessible in academic environments whereas “Mode II” is described as
interdisciplinary, often applied for solving practical problems, and controlled by commercial
organizations (p. 58). Mode II can turn into commercial secrets and thereby poses a challenge
to the values of open and democratic societies. Acknowledging our environment as being
volatile and knowledge driven; Garvey & Williamson (2002) see systematically exploiting
scientific knowledge, interdisciplinary expert collaboration, transformation of tacit
knowledge into explicit knowledge, reflection on practice and learning from mistakes as key
challenges for organizations. Looking at the debate of required individual qualities as well as
limiting factors for the development of expertise and ability, Garvey & Williamson (2002)
conclude that not the genetic or intellectual make up of individuals, neither the social setting
nor the emotional intelligence alone are determent but that many organizational aspects have
an impact on the development of learning. Organizational culture and working relationships
can either promote or stifle the willingness to learn depending on the attitudes, feelings, and
patterns of motivation that they generate. The structure of organizations (i.e. level of
bureaucracy) is said to be a key influence on peoples‟ character, way of thinking, and range
of action. Further, the value framework within which expertise is nurtured as well as the
exertion of power are both seen as having a considerable impact on the development and
application of expertise.
Garvey & Williamson (2002) question the neutrality of rational approaches (i.e. Tailorism)
that follow scientific cause and effect reasoning in an attempt to predict, control, and
objectively explain problems. They criticize them for potentially driving out creativity and
innovation as well as reducing people as means to an end. Further, Garvey & Williamson
(2002) illustrate the need for variety and changes in problem solving approaches as rational
or imposing management styles may not create obedience or overt aggression but a more
subtle response called “the „shadow-side‟ of an organization” (p. 73). Here activities take
place covertly and informal outside of normal management processes. Drawing on Einstein
saying “„You cannot solve a problem with the thinking that created it‟” (p. 74) and referring
to the super complex nature of social reality and our understanding always being one step
behind, Garvey & Williamson (2002) advocate a more socially centered approach. They
argue that people have to step out of the constraints of their own thinking in order to
understand how they might approach future changes. Super complexity and limits to our
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rationality are seen as evident but also reflexivity as the act of trying to understand the world
and simultaneously changing it. Garvey & Williamson (2002) acknowledge that people may
not be able to alter their given circumstances but that they can change their view on
themselves and their world. The corporate curriculum framework being the sum of ways of
thinking, approaching problems, and asking questions is seen as providing key processes that
may lead to reflexivity and increased awareness of problem solving approaches. These
include intense dialogue focusing on the deep analysis of dominant narratives and reflection
on practice. Seeking a solution by asking „how‟ is said to encourage the thinking that created
the problem in the first place, whereas asking open ended questions like „who‟, „what‟,
„when‟ and „ why‟ would shift thinking away from immediate solutions towards exploration,
deeper understanding, participation, and engagement in dialogue, which would eventually
lead people to reframe problems and take ownership. Garvey & Williamson (2002) find the
corporate curriculum methodology to be a powerful tool for analysis and when it includes the
elements of values and co-creation also a strong method for knowledge productivity.
Garvey & Williamson (2002) argue that a person becomes wise (akin alerted and aware of
possibilities) through the experience of knowledge and that mentoring can be a potentially
helpful way to develop knowledge and wisdom. Their key assumptions for this argument are:
(1) knowledge creation being dependent on taping individuals tacit insights and intuitions and
making these available for testing and use organization wide, (2) using a corporate
curriculum could lead to the production of knowledge, (3) although being central learning
alone does not go far enough and the learner needs to be constructively self aware and
optimally engaged in organizational activities, and (4) people learn with the help of others in
the context of social relationships including how to learn independently. Mentoring is seen as
a potential way of becoming aware of our thinking via discussing encounters with another
person and thereby shifting knowing towards knowledge in action or wisdom. According to
Garvey & Williamson (2002) mentoring is versatile, complex, and often used when change is
necessary. It is not about power or authority but involves iterative, reflective and reflexive
learning and development within a trusting relationship. From a holistic point of view the
main objective is the development of the mentee towards being able to exercise judgment,
make decisions and develop wisdom in its work. Mentoring can be constructive or
destructive, helpful or manipulative, and confirm or change cultures with the mentor being in
a key position between organizational values, culture and practices, and the mentee. Further,
situated learning via legitimate peripheral participation in the work place and mentoring is
seen as a way for individuals to develop a sense of self at work, learning the language of the
organization, and a sense of being valued through active participation in talk. Recognizing
the differences in stable, unstable and complex organizational systems and learning
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environments, Garvey & Williamson (2002) show the importance of understanding oneself
and others as learners, viewing work as a place to learn, appreciating learning as a complex
activity within a complex environment, and accepting rather than fighting complexity for
enabling individuals to continue their development. They view facilitating learning as a core
competency and knowledge productivity requiring change at all organizational levels.
Accordingly, for them a knowledge productive organization is characterized as being
compatible with individual and organizational aspirations, high employee commitment,
focusing on cooperation and team development, supportive practices and relationships,
diversity and an enthusiastic sense of people being learners.
Garvey & Williamson (2002) mean with learning environments the cultural and
psychological contexts that provide the climate and expectations, which motivate or alienate
people from learning and thinking. These contexts are said to provide stimulation and
opportunities for learning, whereby people‟s willingness to learn is shaped by the interaction
of supply and demand as well as content and patterns of learning opportunities. Managers
have to create learning environments that foster professional and personal development. The
importance of communication, openness and the value of all human experience, dialogue, as
well as criticism are highlighted. Further, Garvey & Williamson (2002) argue that the
connection between individual development and organizational growth is only made when
people are enabled to turn their tacit understanding into explicit knowledge.
2.3.2. Designing innovative organizations
Companies are increasingly looking for innovative ideas in order to sustain global
competitiveness and Galbraith (1982) argues that innovation requires a specific
organizational design that combines organizational structure, processes, rewards, and people
in a special way. He distinguishes between invention and innovation with the earlier one
being the creation of a new idea and the later one being the process of applying new ideas to
create novel practices or products that often might not fit directly with the present form of the
organization despite of their general desirability.
Galbraith (1982) says that the innovating organization includes the same basic components
as an operating organization: a task, a structure, processes, reward systems, and people;
which must all fit with each other but in a different way due to differences in innovating and
operating tasks. He identifies successfully combining both operating and innovating
operations and organizations in one firm as the main challenge.
According to Galbraith (1982), the required structure of an innovative organization includes:
(1) people performing the roles of idea generators, sponsors, and orchestrators; (2) a process
that differentiates or separates innovating and operating activities; and (3) so called
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“reservations”, which are the physical, financial, or organizational means by which the
separation may be accomplished. Further, innovation key processes include: sponsors to
make innovation funding decisions and thereby orchestrating short and long run tradeoffs, to
identify ideas that are worth legitimization and match generators with sponsors, to encourage
individuals with the necessary skills or stimulate meshing the skills of various individuals in
order to blend innovative ideas and knowledge of needs and/or technical means, orchestrators
balancing further invention and transferring an idea from a reservation to an operating
organization, and managing programs for idea generators handing the idea over to
product/project/program managers for implementation. Explicitly designing these processes
and allocate resources to them is said to increase the success of innovations. This also
includes a reward system adapted to the, more risky, difficult, and long term focused
innovation task in order to attract, retain, and motivate idea generators as well as sponsors.
Further, he says that these people have to be identified based on for innovation
desirable/necessary attributes such as strong egos, irreverence of the status quo, industry
knowledge, generalist abilities, experience with innovation … etc.
Galbraith (1982) concludes that purposely designing entails recognizing and formalizing the
above elements and that a consistent set of organizational policies for these naturally leads to
innovation. According to him, the consistent combination of idea people, reservations in
which they can work, sponsors to oversee them, funding for their ideas, and rewards for
success creates an innovative organization.
2.3.3. The importance of perspectives on developing learning organizations
Dibella (1995) identifies three different perspectives that are built on different assumption
and carry distinctive practical implications for learning organizations. The normative
perspective (1) is said to be future oriented in that it believes that managers can build learning
organizations if they establish the necessary characteristics. Different conditions that Dibella
(1995) identifies for this include among others Senge‟s five disciplines and Garvin‟s
suggestions of systematic problem solving, practical experimentation, learning from
experience, and transferring knowledge. The developmental perspective (2) is history
oriented in that it views organizations turning into learning ones by evolutionary or
revolutionary means as they reach later stages of their development in terms of their age, size,
experience, industry growth or life cycle. Learning processes and style are said to adapt
according to the development stage whereby the learning organization is sometimes seen as
arriving at a final stage in which maximum adaptability or self-renewal capacity is developed.
Alternatively to the prior two perspectives, which both assume that learning only takes place
under certain conditions, Dibella (1995) mentions the pluralistic capability perspective (3),
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which is said to assume that all organizations are by nature always learning in some way at
several levels just as all mammals breathe in order to live. Here all learning approaches are
regarded as stylistically rather than normatively different and some forms (i.e. double loop
transformative learning) are found to be more appropriate in certain situations than others as
there is no one best way. Learning processes are seen as being embedded in culture and
structure and may differ across as well as within organizations, which is said to require
managers to consider complimenting and conflicting styles.
Dibella (1995) argues that certain perspectives provide a more appropriate framework for
organizational development than others depending on the environmental situation, i.e. the
capability perspective in stable environments or the normative perspective when immediate
action is required, which would make the learning organization a moving target.
3. LEVEL II – THE ROLE OF INDIVIDUALS IN ORGANIZATIONAL LEARNING AND HOW TO

CHALLENGE MENTAL MODELS
3.1. Theories of action, mental models and double loop learning

With his interest in producing actionable knowledge, Chris Argyris focuses especially on
how to overcome defensive routines that develop when people interact with each other and
prevent learning as well as actionability (Fulmer & Keys, 1998a). Argyris (2002b) claims that
most people actually do not really know how to learn well, especially “the well-educated,
high powered, high-commitment professionals who occupy key leadership positions” (p. 4)
and are assumed to be the best at it. He sees learning not simply as identifying and correcting
errors in the environment but argues that people need to become aware and reflect on their
own behavior; how it contributes to the problems they are trying to solve, and then change
how they act. He distinguishes between single-loop and double-loop learning. Single-loop
learning occurs “when errors are corrected without altering the underlying governing
values” and double-loop learning when “errors are corrected by changing the governing
values and then the actions” (Argyris, 2002a, S. 206). An analogy he gives for single loop
learning is a thermostat automatically regulating a heating system in order to keep up a
certain prescribed temperature, whereas in double-loop learning the thermostat would ask
itself why it is set at that temperature.
According to Agyris (2002b), highly skilled people are very good at single-loop learning,
which is why they rarely fail and neither learn how to deal with it nor how to learn from it.
Therefore defensive reasoning sets in when their single-loop learning strategies go wrong and
blocks learning despite of high dedication. Double-loop learning on the other hand is said to
be effective in breaking down these defensive routines as it is about people reflecting on how
they think and the reasoning that guides their behavior. Argyris (2002b) explains the
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development of defensive routines with the fact that it is impossible for us to reason anew in
every situation, which is why people develop theories of action (sets of rules) early in live for
crafting their own behavior as well as to understand the behavior of others. These theories of
action become taken for granted and are used unconsciously to produce skilled action.
Paradoxically, peoples‟ “„espoused‟ theory of action‟” (Argyris, 2002b, p. 7) often does not
match their actual “„theory-in-use‟” (p. 7) making them act consistently inconsistent and
because they are not consciously aware of their theory-in-use they do not see the
contradiction between the way they act and the ways they believe to act. Argyris calls the
result “skilled lack of awareness and skilled incompetence” (2002a, S. 212).
Agyris (2002b) finds beliefs or espoused theories to vary widely in contrast to only two
dominant theories-in-use: Model I and Model II. Model I theory-in-use is said to be the most
prevalent one with the purpose of avoiding embarrassment, threat, feeling vulnerable, and/or
feeling incompetent, which leads to the development of defensive routines. It is said to be
based on four ruling values: (1) remaining in unilateral control, (2) maximizing winning and
minimizing loosing, (3) suppressing negative feelings, and (4) acting as rational as possible.
Model I is said to be consistent regardless of gender, race, culture, education, wealth, and
type of organization as peoples high ambitions for success often come with equally high fear
and tendency to feel shame and guilt for failure, which is why defensive reasoning as a
normal human tendency sets in. It leads people to keep to themselves the reasoning that
shapes their behavior and to avoid testing it independently and objectively. Defensive
routines or action strategies for Model I are said to include: advocating ones own position in
order to exert control, to win, and to save one‟s own or other people‟s face. The core logic of
all organizational defensive routines leads to a self-reinforcing, circular process which
follows: “(1) send a message that is inconsistent, (2) act as if it is not inconsistent, (3) make
Steps 1 and 2 undiscussable, and (4) make the undiscussability undiscussable.” (Argyris,
2002a, S. 213/14). Despite of certain social virtues, Model I‟s consequences are said to
include misunderstandings, self-fulfilling prophecies and blocked learning. The governing
values of Model II theory-in-use on the other hand are: (1) valid information, (2) informed
choice, and (3) monitoring of the implementation of that choice in order to detect and correct
error. These values are said to turn into action strategies of: advocating one‟s position,
combined with inquiry and public testing, and minimized unilateral face saving. According to
Agyris (2002b), Model II theory-in-use minimizes defensive routines and facilitates genuine
double-loop learning since embarrassment and threat are engaged and not avoided or
disguised. Most executives espouse Model II but as it asks to be strong and criticize
constructively they often opt for Model I due to its social virtues (Fulmer & Keys, 1998b).
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Despite the strength of defensive reasoning, Argyris (2002b) argues that people genuinely
value acting competently, consistently, and effectively when it comes to realizing their goals.
He advises companies to use these human tendencies for moving towards Model II theories-
in-use and thereby helping people to identify inconsistencies among their action theories, to
teach them to reason differently, and to change their action theories and behavior. The
achievement of this is said to start with collecting and carefully analyzing valid data and
continually testing the conclusion drawn. Change, says Argyris (2002b), has to start at the top
before moving down organizational layers because defensive managers would otherwise
reject subordinates changed reasoning patterns. He suggests using a problem that managers
want to solve or unsuccessfully tried to solve as the focal point of analysis so that they start to
see how they can make a direct difference in their own performance and in that of the
organization. He describes the approach of having a group of participants produce a simple
case study of the problem and analyze it. On the right-hand side of a paper they should write
the scenario/situation like a script for a movie or a role play describing how they (would
have) acted, what would be said, and probable responses to each other. On the left-hand side
they should write down the thoughts and feelings that would not be expressed for fear of
derailing the situation. Another method for this two column exercise could be to analyze the
physical transcripts of problem solving meetings. According to Argyris (2002b) these
exercises of reflexive double-loop thinking can induce people to talk about matters that they
where unable to deal with before. Further these exercises could be emotional and painful, but
also enable teams to work in a more open, effective, and flexible manner.
Tsoukas (in Argyris 2002b) argues that Argyris‟s message is not about how exactly
productive reasoning could be achieved but rather shows the importance of constantly
challenging one‟s horizons, being open to criticism, willing to test one‟s claims publicly
against evidence, accept partial responsibility for problems and get to know oneself.
According to Argyris (2002a) these learning experiences do not eliminate Model I theories-
in-use permanently but rather they give people the freedom to choose from two different
kinds for acting. Model I may be favored for learning single-loop skills like internalizing
routines, whereas Model II may be used more for solving non-routine or potentially
embarrassing issues. Argyris believes that single- and double-loop learning aren‟t
complicated but that they need practice and that organizations have the responsibility plus
ability to create the contexts for single- or double-loop learning and enabled actionability
(Fulmer & Keys, 1998a).
Senge broadened the context for learning in that he included systems dynamics and
experimental learning methods (Fulmer & Keys, 1998a). According to Senge a lot of the best
ideas and new insights fail to be put into practice not because of people having “weak
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intentions, wavering will, or even nonsystemic understanding, but from [their] mental
models” (2006, p. 163), which are essentially the same as Argyris‟s theories of action. For
Senge (2006) managing mental models - surfacing, testing, influencing and developing them
- would be a breakthrough towards creating learning organizations as these internal
generalizations, complex theories or simply pictures of how the world works are inhibiting
people to familiar ways of thinking and acting. They are said to be powerful because “„our
theories determine what we measure‟” (p. 164) and this selective observation affects how we
interpret events around us (Senge, 2006). Problematic is seen the fact that people are often
unaware of this, which is why mental models remain unscrutinized and lead to
counterproductive actions. Refering to Argyris, Senge (2006) identifies three interconnected
aspects to managing mental models: “tools that promote personal awareness and reflective
skills, „infrastructures‟ that try to institutionalize regular practice with mental models, and a
culture that promotes inquiry and challenging our thinking” (p. 171). He says that suitable
training would help people to become aware of mental models and to discover that they are
always incomplete and in western culture often non-systemic assumptions and never an
ultimate truth. Senge (2006) agrees with Argyris on that there are different approaches to
working with mental models, whereby developing skills of reflection (slowing down thinking
processes) and inquiry (the nature of interaction in complex conflict situations) are seen as
crucial. The core is said to entail increasing awareness of gaps between espoused and enacted
theories as well as leaps from observation to untested generalization, the articulation of what
is normally not outspoken and balancing inquiry with advocacy in order to learn effectively
and collaboratively. For conflict situations Senge (2006) also proposes the two column
exercise in combination with inquiry and advocacy. Such an investigation into the basis for
others‟ reasoning and assumptions as well as allowing others to inquire into how one self
arrived at ones‟ own points creates not only a genuinely vulnerable atmosphere, the exposure
to the limitations of one‟s own thinking and the willingness to be wrong but also generative
learning (Senge, 2006). The goal is not necessarily agreement or convergence but to help
people to come to the best mental model possible by holding up different ones in order to
make the most excellent decisions. Senge (2006) believes that integrating the management of
mental models with system thinking not only improves peoples‟ mental models but also leads
to shift from mental models being dominated by events to recognizing long-term patterns and
underlying structures of change.
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3.2. Communication of knowledge, dialogue, and shift of minds
3.2.1. Communicating Knowledge
Communication, as the active and dynamic aspect of any social context, plays a vital role for
acquiring, developing, and embedding knowledge (Garvey & Williamson, 2002). According
to Garvey & Williamson (2002) the interplay of communication intention and outcome is
shaped by the complex interaction of “language, meanings, emotions, histories, assumptions,
values, agendas, power, status, systems and structures” (p. 142). They see communication as
keeping organizations together, linking the elements of the landscape of a corporate
curriculum, and helping to create new discourse plus organizational narratives.
Many aspects influence the communication process making it difficult to develop
communication especially in knowledge generative environments (Garvey & Williamson,
2002). Garvey & Williamson (2002) say that communication can be improved by enhancing
people‟s self-knowledge for which mentoring could be suitable so that the individual
recognizes how perception is affected by personal values, beliefs, and attitudes. For all forms
of communication they see the creation of shared meaning as a crucial task for the
communication sender as well as receiver. Both are said to have to be aware and understand
each others past and agenda and respectfully adapt communication accordingly. Further,
Garvey & Williamson (2002) identify vocal tone, linguistic repertoire, and non-verbal aspects
such as mimic, gesture and body language as important elements of the communication
process. All these elements combined are said to make a vital contribution to building shared
meanings and are shaped spontaneously depending on the situation and context. These
elements are largely developed through participation and socialization, which is why they are
said to be difficult to train in a formal way. According to Garvey & Williamson (2002)‟s own
experience, “„status‟ and „power‟” differences influence peoples‟ perception on how well
organizational communication is working, leading to possible communication distortions and
to suspicious interpretations of meaning. They say that the ideal situation in which “genuine
dialogue is nurtured between people who possess the same information on a topic, the same
skills to debate it and who agree before they discuss the matter to follow the precepts of logic
and reason and to respect each other” (p. 152) is rarely existent. Still they argue that
knowledge generative communication calls for open dialogue, respect, equally distributed
information, and people being equally allowed to hold different views. Meaningful dialogue
is said to be essential for people to make sense and develop their own perspective because it
helps to sort out thoughts and make the tacit explicit. Further, communication would be
effective in the presence of “openness, trust, respect for people and an overarching moral
commitment to truthfulness” (Garvey & Williamson, 2002, p. 158).
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Garvey & Williamson (2002) encourage organizations to look at communication as a journey
of discovery and joint knowledge production whereby the function of debate and dialogue is
to challenge and test information in order for it to become knowledge. They argue that
organizations should take on this perspective instead of being obsessed with arriving at a final
destination because knowledge is transitory and not a fixed point.
3.2.2. Organizational learning and an action theory of dialogue
In order to understand the micro processes of dialogue and to make it an actionable skill,
Isaacs (2001) developed a theoretical model and a provisional map. He argues that
conversations often move away from true dialogue as people approach each other with non-
negotiable positions despite of their genuine desire for dialogue. Discussions are said to often
be characterized by break downs in quality, a trading of views and standpoints, and breaking
apart manifest in winning and loosing. People are unaware of their mutual impact onto each
other, which prevents the most imperative aspect of dialogue (Isaacs, 2001): “the free flow of
meaning” (p. 711). In genuine dialogue the usual processes of thought and meaning are said
to be suppressed and true inquiry along with reflection on interpersonal reasoning alters the
quality of tacit thinking. As much of our thinking is argued to be collectively created and
nurtured, dialogue is seen as a way of changing self-created limitations.
Isaacs (2001) identifies and addresses four reasons for dialogue being widely mentioned but
rarely experienced: (1) difficulty with effectively linking dialogue to action or behavioral
change, (2) political constraints on freedom of speech within modern bureaucracies structured
to prevent de-stabilization, (3) difficulty in operationalizing dialogue in emotional face-to-
face situations, and (4) vague, non-systemic, and specificity lacking descriptions of the
processes that cause the I-You realm (states).
For Isaacs (2001), quantum theory suggests that reality is dependent on chance (probabilistic)
and never absolutely knowable because we co-create it by being active participants and
personal abilities and measures shaping individual experiences. Further, we are said to
perceive the world in fragmented ways as science and specialization have lead us to split our
experiences into disconnected pieces. Fragmented contemplation and thought, however, is
said to give only incomplete views of reality and hinders the ability to talk across
specializations. Quantum theory is said to imply “the need to look at the world as an
undivided whole” [in which all parts united generate a particular phenomenon], including the
observer and his instruments” (Isaacs, 2001, p. 722).
According to Isaacs (2001) dialogue requires us to be both observer and participant at the
same time in order to gain insight and change “the formative „ground‟ out of which
experience emerges” (p. 722f), like for instance specific group patterns, so that collective
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intelligence and learning from each other can emerge. The central elements of Isaacs (2001)
action theory of dialogue include: (1) “face to face factors” - people must find ways to lower
defensiveness, (2) “„field‟ factors” - people must find ways to suspend tacit assumptions
about each other and to inquire into the background or field conditions that lead to further
assumptions, (3) the description of a “developmental sequence” of inquiry and action patterns
unfolding over time, and (4) the outline of a “strategic map for intervention” (p. 729).
Referring to Argyris theories of action, Isaacs (2001) agrees that interpersonal defensiveness
could be reduced by increasing the level of self-reflection, psychological safety, quality of
collective attention and conflict; however, he argues that these would not create inquiry into
the sources and limits to learning. For him the “„field‟ domain [made up of tacit cultural
norms and movement of thought in it] is the ultimate intervention focus of dialogue work” as
it also has to do with: the character and quality of group attention and listening, the tone and
texture of communication, the patterns of joint reasoning, and the ways in which people
unconsciously represent conversation contents within the process of conversation. Isaacs
(2001) argues that people unknowingly construct reality as we see the world through memory
and reoccurring mechanistic thinking processes but act as if our experience of reality was
literal. What he describes as peoples‟ experience being dominated by “idols” (p. 733)
matches the notion of mental models and theories of action. He proposes to alter these and
the thinking patterns or fields that maintain them via: suspending assumptions, providing a
“„container‟” in which dialogue can take place, and using “proprioceptive attention” (p. 733).
Suspending assumptions is said to be achieved by people displaying their assumptions or
conclusions plus the information and thinking processes that lead them to these. It also
includes suppressing the defining and correcting of problems without prior exploration.
Providing a container for dialogue means to create a setting and a collective atmosphere in
which people can safely expose their views and inquire systematically into habits of
(collective) projection and reaction and reflect on them. Using proprioceptive attention is said
to enable insight by applying careful self-reflection to slow down thinking and induce self-
awareness of what one is doing or thinking whilst one is actually doing or thinking it.
For Isaacs (2001) dialogue intervention means to transform the dynamics of the social field
and its factors over time. Cool inquiry would take place instead of hot inquiry (discussion
focusing on fragments and their relationships) and instead of polarization an effort would be
made to find order in conflicts. Isaacs (1993) (2001) proposes dialogue to evolve through the
four phases depicted below:
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(1) “Instability of the container”: People are concerned with safety and trust in the dialogue
context and experience a initiatory “crisis of emptiness” as dialogue cannot be forced and
there are no decisions, purpose, leader or agenda. Moving through leads to:
(2) “Instability in the container”: People struggle with polarization, conflicts that emerge
from the collision of fragmented individual assumptions and beliefs and a “crisis of
suspension” that leads to first attempts of suspending personal assumptions publicly and to:
(3) “Inquiry in the container”: People inquire into polarization and different ideas, without
taking divisive action on their fragmented knowledge; Due to these new skills and the
collective activity, the group experiences a "crisis of collective pain" as it recognizes the
profundity of its disconnection. This releases the opportunity for:
(4) “Creativity in the container”: People begin to think generatively and new understandings
emerge based on shared insight.
The stages as depicted above should be seen as enfolded in each other in that although one
may be dominant they are all present at the same time and the group may move back and
forth (Isaacs, 1993). According to Isaacs (2001), a dialogue facilitator is essential for
skillfully navigating different forces and the group through the crises. He has to understand
how the structures of perception and experience change within the process while he also has
to be aware of his own structures of perception.
3.2.3. A shift of mind and achieving systems thinking
Senge (2006) offers guidelines for seeing patterns of change and interrelationships in order to
overcome our inability to see the world as a whole. He argues that most analyzing,
forecasting, and planning tools are well designed for dealing with detailed complexity but not
dynamic complexity, which is characterized by actions having different and at times non-
obvious consequences in the short and long run as well as in different parts of the system.
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He identifies 11 tenets for system thinking: (1) past solutions are often the cause for present
problems if they merely shifted a problem to another part of the system instead of solving it,
(2) simply pushing harder leads to the system pushing back harder as well offsetting the
benefits of well-intended interventions, (3) “low-leverage interventions” (p. 60) lead to short-
term gains followed by delayed compensating feedback of the system and a worsening of the
problem, (4) simply pushing harder on easy and familiar solutions is a sign of non-systemic
thinking often called the “„we need a bigger hammer‟ syndrome” (p. 61), (5) non-systemic
solutions can be worse than the initial problem as short-term improvements and delayed
worsening can lead to dependency and growing power of the solution i.e. a drug or intervenor
instead of internal system strength, (6) all natural systems have optimal growth rates and
excessive growth will be compensated by the system forcing itself to slowdown or demise,
(7) cause and effect of a problem are often not directly linked time and space wise, (8) often
small changes can produce the highest leverage but unfortunately they are non-obvious until
the structures and forces of a system are understood, (9) many dilemmas are the result of
static thinking because we imagine what is possible in the short-term instead of seeing how
improvement of two seemingly opposing choices or trade offs could both be realized in the
long run thereby leading to true leverage, and (10) rigid internal division of a system leads to
inhibited cross-divisional inquiry, nobody assuming responsibility, and difficulties in finding
the leverage to complicated problems, which lies in the interactions that cannot be sees by
merely looking at system parts. Finally, Senge (2006) argues that (11) it makes no sense to
blame others because we are all part of the same system, which means that solving our
problems rests in understanding the relationships with others and dynamic complexity.
According to Senge (2006), system thinking begins with moving away from linear cause-and-
effect thinking and seeing towards understanding how actions can fortify or counterbalance
each other. The key for perceiving reality systemically is said to lay in identifying circles or
loops of causality instead of linear description to understand the concept of feedback in terms
of influences being both cause and effect. Circle diagrams are said to help identify repeat
patterns, which after time make a situation better or worse, and how they could be influenced.
“From the systems perspective, the human actor is part of the feedback process, not
standing apart from it. (…) a profound shift in awareness (…) allows us to see how we
are continually both influenced by and influencing our reality.” (Senge, 2006, p. 77f)
For Senge (2006) it follows that there is never only one responsible agent but that everybody
shares accountability for troubles generated by a system. He identifies “reinforcing
feedback”, “balancing or stabilizing feedback”, and “delays in consequences” as the main
ideas within system thinking (p. 79). Reinforcing feedback processes are said to drive growth
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and/or decline whilst balancing feedback takes place in goal oriented behavior. Reinforcing
feedback is found in virtuous and vicious circles, self fulfilling prophecies, and snowball
effects. Here, small changes amplify and build on themselves and every movement
strengthens a shift towards the same direction until natural limits are faced, which slow down,
halt, redirect, or reverse the development. In all natural systems some sort of optimal balance
exists that forms a limit to growth and is being maintained by stabilizing feedback processes
to ensure survival. According to Senge (2006), balancing processes can be implicit as well as
explicit and if they are not recognized as such, these system self-correction processes can
lead to unexpected and problematic behavior. Further, system thinking is said to require a
long-term perspective as all feedback processes have some form of delay that is often not
understood or not recognized. They are found to be problematical as they can lead to overly
aggressive balancing actions, system instability, and even breakdown. As said by Senge
(2006), resistance to change is a (hidden) balancing process that undermines transformations
until the implicit goals of the system itself are recognized and changed, which are often the
implicit norms and values embedded in organizational power structures.
According to Senge (2006), our unawareness of systemic structures restrains us in our
actions; however, he also argues that we do have the ability to liberate ourselves, step outside
of the system, and change and work with the system forces once we learn to see the
underlying structures. He says that certain structural patterns are generic and reoccur in
diverse fields or areas of life; however, they are difficult to see because they are often subtle.
He identifies the following “system archetype” structures as being common to a lot of
management situations: (1) Balancing process with delay, (2) Limits to growth, (3) Shifting
the burden of which (4) Shifting the burden to the intervenor and (5) Eroding goals are
special cases, (6) Escalation, (7) Success to the successful, (8) Tragedy of the commons, (9)
Fixes that fail, and (10) Growth and underinvestment (Senge, 2006, pp. 389-400). All of
these are said to entail reinforcing processes, balancing processes and delays and suggest
high- and low-leverage change.
For instance in the “Limits to Growth Archetype” an amplifying or reinforcing process
creates a spiraling process producing Reinforcing loop Balancing loop
growth or improvement until secondary Limiting
condition
affects or balancing processes slowdown the Growing Slowing
development after a delay and maybe even action Condition action
reverse it. Here high-leverage lies in the

balancing loop and can be achieved from
removing the limiting factor(s) instead of simply pushing harder on the amplifying process in
the reinforcing loop. When the limiting factor is removed growth continues until a new one
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comes up. An example would be increased crop productivity through the use of fertilizer until
growth cannot be sustained anymore by the amount of rainfall.
In the “Shifting the Burden Archetype” an underlying problem produces warning signs. But
dealing with the problem is difficult as it is
Side effect
hard to understand or solve, which is why
people fix it by shifting the problems burden
Symptomatic Fundamental
to easy and seemingly efficient solutions. The solution Problem solution
symptom
symptomatic solutions, however, only make
the symptoms disappear instead of the true
Reinforcing loop Balancing loop
cause of the problem. It reduces the perceived
need to find a fundamental solution so that after some time the problem reappears even worse
along with side effects from the symptomatic solution and it becomes more difficult to
reverse the situation. The subtle reinforcing loop often leads to dependency on the
symptomatic solution, which are the fundamental dynamics of addictions. In this archetype
leverage comes from strengthening the fundamental response (solution) and weakening the
symptomatic one, which requires a long term orientation.
For most people the leverage in real-life systems is said to be non-obvious because we do not
see the basic structures of our own actions, which is why we often focus on low-leverage
changes. According to Senge (2006), discovering “Archetypes” around us could help to better
understand circular causality, to arrive at more elaborate systemic descriptions, to organize
detail complexity, and to natural system thinking and acting. Only by seeing broad as well as
detailed patterns we are said to be able to effectively deal with complexity and change.
4. LEVEL III – INTEGRATING THE UNDERSTANDING OF DEEP STRUCTURES, MENTAL

MODELS & LEARNING
4.1. The origin of the theories that we hold and how they influence the way we act
Many authors among which Stacey (2007) agree that people become who they are through
interacting with others and jointly constructing their identities. He identifies certain
assumptions upon which we base our thinking, sense making and acting. He also says that the
dynamic patterns of human interaction and interconnection can be examined from different
perspectives, which will influence our perception and the choices we make. For instance, we
can look at a phenomenon from the perspective of systems thinking or linear responsive
processes, micro or macro view, different ontological stances and different ways of dealing
with contradiction. Stacey (2007) sees realism, relativism, idealism, constructionism and
social constructionism simply as different ways of how people make sense of the world and
create knowledge, whereby neither is better or truer than the other due to the difference in
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perspective. The same accounts for how we look at causality (linear and unidirectional,
mutual/circular or non-linear) and the nature of paradox (polarization, dilemma, duality or
self-contradiction). So, to understand each others thinking and behavior, Stacey (2007) argues
that we need to understand each others perspective and the underlying assumptions. He
focuses on strategy and organizational change but his line of reasoning is also adoptable to
organizational learning (Berends & v.d. Elst, 2008), meaning that one could ask the same
questions as he does for looking at different theories, assumptions and reasoning processes:
1. How does the theory understand the nature of human interacting and relating?
2. What theory of human psychology, that is ways of knowing and behaving, does
each theory (…) assume?
3. What methodology underlies each theory (…)?
4. How does each theory (…) deal with the paradoxical nature of the population of
organisations and groupings of people?
Stacey (2007) argues that the dominant discourse and its critiques both share the assumption
that organizations are systems of some kind, whether mechanistic or organic. He believes that
it is important to understand the history of “taken-for-granted assumptions” (p. 27) as ways
of thinking develop over time. In the Middle Ages the western world was dominated by the
church and the belief in God as the creator. The Scientific Revolution then brought changes
in social and political structures as it gradually led to the Age of Reason in which different
lines of thinking developed and people began to debate the nature of human knowledge (i.e.
scientists claim that reality is a reliably observable truth, whereas others argue for a
constructed, relative or plural nature of reality) and freedom of choice (Stacey, 2007).
According to Stacey (2007), systems thinking has its origins in how Kant resolved
contradictions between the realist and relativist view of human knowledge by joining them in
“„both …and‟” (p. 30) dualism. He says that Kant agreed with the realist idea of knowledge
not simply being relative but also with the idea of relativists that we can only know the
appearance of reality in the form of our sensations as they come from the real world. Besides
giving a philosophical justification for scientific methods and knowledge, Kant also
developed a system theory of formative causality that explains how natural organisms
develop through the interaction of parts within the organism as a system in a self-generating
way (Stacey, 2007). Parts emerge as a result of interaction in the whole but also serve it as
they are necessary for the production of the whole. However, Kant also argues that this could
not be applied to human action because humans have the ability to reason and to choose their
actions autonomously (Stacey, 2007). This is in contrast to the ideas of later forms of systems
thinking which, according to Stacey (2007), do not see individuals and their actions as being
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free but as a parts or subsystems of larger social systems (i.e. groups) that again form supra
systems (i.e. organizations).
According to Stacey (2007), the development of the scientific method from reductionist
towards systemic thinking is also reflected in organizational management, which shifted from
reductionist “„if…then‟” (p. 37) ideas of Tailor and Fayol towards the incorporation of ethical
aspects and relatively recently towards more holistic and systemic theories. In early systems
thinking managers where still analogous to the rational scientist or objective observer,
however, the organization was now understood as a self-regulating whole that is more than
the sum of its parts and that moves towards enfolded archetypes, which the objective
managers could alter via specific leverage points (Stacey, 2007). Later theories of systems
thinking recognize that the manager is also a part of the system and incorporate elements of
participation and ethics (Stacey, 2007). Attempts of enfolding management determined
purposes in organizational systems, however, are contrary to Kant‟s advice of regarding
humans as autonomous individuals and critical systems thinkers regard organizational
systems only as mental “„as…if‟”(p. 41) structures (Stacey, 2007). Stacey (2007) identifies
the main problem of to human action applied systems thinking as how it understands human
participation, freedom and change.
Reviewing recent employment relations, Adler (2001) found evidence for a trend in
management towards more reliance on modern, reflective trust in comparison to
traditionalistic, blind trust due to the growing knowledge intensity of work. As said by Adler
(2001) this trend stimulates resistance from currently dominant social actors because it
threatens their privileges but it also seems to be self-reinforcing and may lead to a new post-
capitalist form of society.
4.2. How the way we think influences the way we see

Ghoshal (2005) argues academic business and management research to negatively influence
management practice because it mainly adopted scientific methods in its attempts to discover
objective patterns, laws and theories, which excludes human choice as well as moral or
ethical considerations. He sees scientific methods as generally beneficial for research and
education but criticizes management science for its failure to realize that the partial and
reductionist nature of scientific analysis as well as its causal and functional modes of
explanation and theorizing are fundamentally inappropriate since human beings, which are
guided by intention, are the unit of analysis. He also criticizes the convergence of academic
disciplines such as psychology, sociology, and economics towards the negative view of
people being self-interested and imperfect, which is reflected in the focus on solving
“„negative problems‟” (S. 86) and the persistence of for instance agency theory and
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transaction cost economics. Ghoshal (2005) agrees on the practical value of a good theory but
he also believes in the converse and in the double hermeneutic nature of social science
leading to self-fulfilling prophecies in contrast to the single hermeneutic nature of physical
sciences. If a theory in physics is wrong, the truth is and still stays the same, whereas a
management theory that assumes people to act in a bad way could change managers‟
behavior and induce actions, which are actually likely to enhance instead of prevent the bad
behavior (Ghoshal, 2005). The “pathological spiraling relationship” of pessimism becoming
a self-fulfilling prophecy has been described by Enzle &Anderson (1993 in Ghoshal, 2005) as
follows:
“Surveillants come to distrust their targets as a result of their own surveillance and targets in
fact become unmotivated and untrustworthy. The target is now demonstrably untrustworthy
and requires more intensive surveillance, and the increased surveillance further damages the
target. Trust and trustworthiness both deteriorate.”
With his analysis, Ghoshal (2005) does not suggest abandoning the development of
systematic management theory or the study of negative problems but rather he wants to
emphasize social scientists‟ social and moral responsibility in that they could cause a lot of
harm with excessive truth claims based on assumptions or partial analysis of complex issues.
He advocates treating premises as basic assumptions only instead of testable propositions in
order to exempt ideological biases and to make knowledge advancements in regard to both
negative and positive problems. He concludes that academic institutions have to play a
crucial role for such a change to take place.
Ken Wilber (1998) describes humanity as being torn apart by value-free objective science
telling us what “is” (truth) and religion providing meaning, guidelines of good or bad, and
wisdom. According to him, science became the new religion of modernity, as it claims to be
the only valid way of knowing and thereby denying significance and reality to religion, which
in return answered this threat with fundamentalism and denial of even basic scientific facts
like the evolution. In an attempt of integration, Wilber Spirit
(1998) shows the compatibility of the two by synthesizing Soul
the common features of science and all religions or Mind

A
Life
wisdom traditions in a “Great Nest of Being” (p. 8). It +
B
A
+ A
+ B + A
Matter
shows reality as a series of spheres or nests enfolding C + B + A 1 2 3 4 5
+ C + B
Physics
everything in the world and how the “Great Chain of D
+
+
D
C
Biology
E
Being (…) reaching from matter to body to soul to spirit” Psychology
(p. 6) as the core of all pre-modern religious world views Theology
Mysticism
corresponds to the differentiated value spheres and
Page 26 of 37
epistemological views of modernity and science. Each higher sphere includes but also
transcends the core features of a lower one and therefore each level of reality associates with
a particular type of knowledge (Wilber, 1998). According to Wilber (1998), Modernity (the
Age of Reason) brought the differentiation of art, morals, and science, which allowed for
good things such as advancement in these spheres (i.e. democracy, freedom, justice,
inventions) due to their gained independence but also negative ones like the widespread loss
of meaning, alienation, and fragmentation as the value spheres not only became differentiated
but even disassociated. He says that modern science denied validity to religion because its
methods cannot register anything spiritual like a God and therefore it declared the core of
religion the Great Chain of Being as non-existent. This included the rejection of
epistemological pluralism and the different modes of knowing (“material prehension, bodily
emotion, mental ideas, the soul‟s archetypical cognition and spiritual gnosis” (p. 18)), which
corresponded to the elements of the Great Chain of Being and its at least three basic “eyes of
knowing” (p. 18): the empirical eye of the flesh, the rational eye of the mind, and the
contemplative eye of mysticism (Wilber, 1998). For Wilber (1998), the difficulty is not to
show how empiricism, rationalism and mysticism could fit together but rather that science
only accepts reason linked to empirical evidence delivered by our physical senses (and their
extensions) and that it sees no need for integration with religion in spite of its ability to
deliver arguments for the existence of a Spirit or a non-material, creation governing Logos.
Wilber (1998) comes to this conclusion because science attempts to use the eye of mind to
see what he argues can only bee seen by the eye of contemplation and thereby fails to
generate spiritual knowledge. He explains the eye of flesh being “Monological” (p. 36) in that
science chooses research objects that it does not have to talk to, the eye of mind being
“Dialogical” (p. 37) in that it aims to understand through different forms of dialogue and
interpretation, and the eye of contemplation being “Translogical” (p. 37) in that it goes past
empiricism and interpretation and is open to spiritual gnosis. He further believes that the
modernity criticizing, interpretive science paradigms of post-modernity are inadequate for
integrating science and religion as they are essentially part of the disease they try to cure and
fail to grasp modernity as a whole. Following Wilber (1998), science and religion could only
be united by showing how the sensory, mental, and spiritual levels of the Great Chain of
Being could also be divided according to modernity‟s differentiation into art, morals and
science; thus into the art, morals and science of the sensory, the mental, and the spiritual
realms respectively and thereby showing that differentiation equals the dignity of modernity
and should not be confused with its disease. According to Wilber (1998, pp. 49-50), art refers
to “Beauty”, which is really a personal judgment made by each individual, morals refers to
“The good” like justness in human interaction, and science refers to “The True” in the sense
Page 27 of 37
of a specialization delivering important types of truth through objective standards. He further
shows that modernity‟s differentiation of the value spheres (expressive art, legal-morals, and
empirical-science) also means a differentiation of the “I, WE, and IT” (p. 52) realms, which
correspond to “self, culture, and nature” (p. 52). Resulting he argues that differentiation is a
healthy way of growth and nature creating “higher unities and deeper integrations” (p. 53)
(i.e, from acorn to oak) and should not be confused with dissociation or pathological disease,
which is basically differentiation that went too far and failed to reintegrate the specialized
subsystems. Wilber (1998), concludes that integrating science and religion does not mean to
erase differentiation because the scientific world view was holistic from the start but to
address its pathological outcomes in order to comprehend what happened to spirit in the
modern world.
4.3. Power and learning

To certain extend the writings of Ghoshal (2005) and Wilber (1998) already show a
connection between knowledge and power. Haugaard (2003) reflects on seven specific ways
of how social power can be created and argues that power generated by the “reproduction of
social order” (p. 87) is more important in complex societies than physical coercion. He
defines power as “the capacity to do things” (p. 89), which can either be derived from nature
or society. “Natural power” (p. 89) comes from the physical body and human ability to
exploit the laws and causal regularities of nature, whereas “social power” (p. 89) is based on
knowledge of order and predictability in social life (Haugaard, 2003). Haugaard (2003)
theorizes that power based on social order is created in the following ways:
(1) Social order: The reproduction of meaning creates social structure, order and causal
predictability in that actions become interpretable as having the same meaning independent of
the time, the location, and the actor by which the same kind of action is executed. Consensus
on meaning is created through “structuring and confirm-structuring” (p. 93). An example is
the meaning of value that has been attached to a piece of paper looking like a Euro note. By
paying with the originally valueless piece of paper people are structuring, by accepting it as a
legitimate form of payment people reciprocally confirm the structure and so a conceptual
space for the use of power is created.
(2) System bias: An established social order also imposes constraints on people since it means
that they cannot freely act the way they want as this would threaten systemic stability (i.e.
effective communication would not be possible if language had no reliable patterns). Thus
order precludes certain actions. A change of structure again requests actors‟ collaboration and
consensus on new meaning. Non-confirm-structuring or de-structuring results in
powerlessness of those who want to change things, whereas consensus on new interpretations
Page 28 of 37
leads to the capacity to do something and empowers. Bureaucracy is an example of power
created via disconfirming-structuration, whereas the shift from traditional to modern society
happened through (struggle for) confirming-structuration possibilities.
(3) Systems of thought: Certain meanings agree with certain systems of thought, which makes
particular confirm-structuration likely and rules others out leading to a converged interpretive
horizon. Thus social consciousness sustains structural practices as new meanings that do not
match the current system of thought will be de-structured and over powered. In this sense,
when the thought system of science was confirm-structured the system of thought of religion
and its order within the Great Chain of Being became arbitrary and reduced to superstition.
(4) Tacit knowledge: Power creation also involves a link between “tacit and discursive
thought [or consciousness]” (p. 100). Social knowledge can be categorized into practical
consciousness, which is tacit knowledge that enables us to function in society, and discursive
consciousness, which is explicit knowledge that we can put into words. Learning a language
in school, for instance, involves discursively learning something that is practical conscious
knowledge for a native speaker (following language rules subconsciously) and only over time
and through usage this discursive knowledge might turn into practical conscious knowledge.
Most human interaction assumes “a convergence of practical consciousness interpretive
horizons” (p. 101) through structuration and confirm-structuration based on practical
consciousness knowledge. Even though this confirmed structured practical consciousness
might be negative for the confirm-structuring person, it will be reproduced reflex like if the
confirm-structuration has never been made discursively and never entered the discursive
consciousness of that person. Only when confirm-structuration becomes discursive, people
become aware of it, may evaluate it, and reject it if it contradicts their system of thought (i.e.
the values of modernity and feminism). Thus the powerful are empowered by using practical
consciousness knowledge to induce collaboration for reproducing a certain order, however,
the less powerful can empower themselves by making believes and interpretations discursive
so that they become aware of and may reject them.
(5) Reification: Reification stabilizes the reproduction of structure through making it appear
as more than mere social constructs, at least for the confirm-structurer. These structures, then,
do not appear arbitrary and turning practical to discursive knowledge will not undermine
existing modes of power creation. By making the “„artificial appear natural, and what is
contingent and arbitrary, absolute and intrinsically valid‟” (Poggi, 2001 in (Haugaard, 2003,
p. 103)) truth is established, which shows that truth may not necessarily be an absolute or
self-evident given but is created. Truth established through reification also makes meanings
that are commensurable with it more likely to be confirmed and vice versa as this would
Page 29 of 37
otherwise mean the denial of truth. The reification of knowledge through science can be seen
as the modern bid-for-power-equivalent of God or tradition in pre-modern societies and
although power produced by linking meaning to truth may not necessarily be fraudulent it is
still difficult to separate truth from interests. It follows thus that the transfer of practical
consciousness or routine into discursive consciousness can be blocked by deliberate
socialization because routine can be internalized through automatic confirm-structuration
triggered by socialization.
(6) Discipline: Discipline is a power creation mode that uses enforced routine and thereby
physical power to ensure predictable structuration and confirm-structuration. Routinized
behavior leads to desired, correct or normal regarded (re)actions becoming reflex like,
because enforced routine creates a behavior determining knowledge base that is purely
practical consciousness. It is not the physicality that lends its effect to discipline but the
extent to which routines are internalized or reified. As a mass phenomenon of modernity,
disciplinary power is the result of the alteration of interpretive horizon towards the idea that
socialization can lead to standardized results, which is manifest in mass-education and
certification systems for human capability such as diplomas and school grades. However,
limits of disciplinary effectiveness are evident in for instance disobedience levels often being
higher in strict boarding school than in liberal ones.
(7) Coercion: If none of the earlier mechanisms work and some people still cannot be relied
on to confirm to a certain structure then physical power exercised through violence is often
used. This actually represents the failure of social power and in its rawest form it only leads
to injury and death. Examples are war or any situation where different socializations and thus
collective horizons clash as they try to gain power over the other party.
However, in most complex social orders the first six mechanisms are combined with
violence, which results in coercion. Despite this not being an effective source of permanent or
stable control, more powerful actors use it as a threat to induce less powerful actors to
confirm structures, which the later ones consciously do not want.
The seven ways of power creation as theorized by Haugaard (2003) show that power through
social order or physicality can lead to both the “„power to‟” (p. 90) do things but also to
“„power over‟” (p. 90) others and as Ghoshal (2005) says this brings responsibility for the
powerful. In Gordon & Grant (2004)‟s review of the power literature this is also discussed.
They argue that people interested in knowledge management should read Foucault as his
writing on the inseparability of knowledge and power supplies a foundation from which it can
be shown that “knowledge is power” (p. 27) as well as “power is knowledge” (p. 27).
According to Gordon & Grant (2004), Foucault challenges the normative idea of power
Page 30 of 37
aspiring to ideals of how things should be as well as knowledge bringing truth and a power-
free state by his argumentation that truth and knowledge are deliberately shaped by the results
of power struggles. If the possession of knowledge implies the possession of power and if it
is believed that ones gets closer to truth through having more knowledge then power is also
knowledge because “it is power that enables, drives and shapes new „truths‟ and [thereby
also] constitutes (new) knowledge” (Gordon & Grant, 2004, p. 33). Following Gordon &
Grant (2004), people are thus able of strategically representing their intentions and interests
within a given context so that others seen these as rational and consistent with truth (Gordon
& Grant, 2004). As an outcome of their theorization, Gordon & Grant (2004) argue that the
design and management of organizational knowledge management systems should take this
perspective of power into account; thus “„what government rationalities are at work when
those that govern, govern‟” (p. 35).
Pfeffer (1992) criticizes that the aspect of power is largely being ignored in organizations. He
sees the development of social skills, which involve the exertion of power, and the
willingness to exercise power as vital and critical for effective managerial behavior. Not at
least because organizational change and innovation always requires interdependent action by
people with varying interests. According to Pfeffer (1992), the biggest problem in today‟s
organization is not a lack of insight or the exercise of too much power by too many people
but rather passivity and, except for the highest-level managers, an almost trained incapacity
for taking action and accomplishing something, which is seen in people simply waiting for
directives. He claims that people have developed ambivalence towards the development and
use of power because: (1) the same measures (means) can lead to good as well as bad things
(ends), (2) schools endorse individual achievement instead of group effort and ability plus the
idea that there are right (or more correct) and wrong answers hinders the appreciation of
power, and (3) our perspective from which we judge organizational decisions often does not
do justice to social realities. In Pfeffer (1992)‟s opinion it is important that people learn not to
ignore the processes of power, that they are trained well enough to recognize them and take
countermeasures if necessary, and that they develop strong morals. Further, he says that
people need to realize individual and organizational success as being a matter of coordinating
activities and working with and through other people. Furthermore, he argues that not
decision making but the management of consequences should be the focus. People cannot
know whether a decision is actually good or bad anyways because it is not simply a matter of
choice but influenced by many factors, which makes blame redundant. He also points out that
we file decisions in a shorter period that we live with the consequences. To manage with
power, Pfeffer (1992) advices people to recognize: the varying interests and perspectives
around them, why they exist, where power comes from, how these power sources could be
Page 31 of 37
developed, and how power is developed and employed by others in order to consider the
range of available approaches and effectively employ them. Finally, Pfeffer (1992) concludes
that the use of power and influence should not be viewed as the only way of getting things
done but that it is an important way next to the use of traditional/formal authority and the
development of a shared vision and culture.
4.4. Rethinking organizational learning

To evade naïve applications of learning and knowledge management, Stacey (2007) argues
for comprehending the underlying thinking and the limitations of different theories. He
reflects on the concepts of the learning organization of Senge (five disciplines), Argyris
(single- and double loop learning) and Nonaka (Knowledge management) as being build on
systems thinking and the engineers notion of control in that people are thought of being able
to step out and rationally influence the systems they are part of via effective dialogue and
teamwork. Here, according to Stacey (2007), humanistic psychology along with cognitivist
and constructivist theories form the basis for understanding how people learn. Cognitivism
holds that the human mind creates representations of reality, which it then turns into mental
models and acts upon; in other words people construct their world through interpreting it
more or less accurately (Stacey, 2007). Thus, thought comes before action in cognitivism;
whereas constructivism holds that the mind creates the reality into which it acts through
selective attention, meaning that reality is first created in action and then understood (Stacey,
2007). Generally, Stacey (2007) views the idea that one is able to step out and design learning
processes (meaning negotiation) like participation and reification, while others are subject to
the design, as problematic because everyone is part of and effected by these macro processes.
He also sees it as problematic to make a distinction between organizations that learn and
individuals who learn in organizations, because it would imply that organizations exist at
another level than people, whereas knowledge is socially constructed and is learning an
activity of interdependent people. As Stacey (2007) says, learning organization theories place
a certain amount of emphasis on emotion, relationships, and the authoritarian use of power
but they also assume individuals to be average with homogeneous intentions and that
“„good‟, selfless people submerge themselves” (p. 94) into a system without any notion of
possibly deviant or eccentric behavior. Although personally recognizing elements of
Argyris‟s and Senge‟s theories, Stacey (2007) doubts the practicality of their prescriptions as
he questions his and other‟s ability to identify what makes them think the way they do and
change it.
As an answer to largely idealistic views in learning organization theories, Stacey (2007)
draws attention to unconscious, irrational, and neurotic aspects as well as open systems
Page 32 of 37
theory in order to shed light on obstacles to learning coming from unconscious group
processes. Open system theory sees individuals, groups, and organizations as systems that are
interrelated and open to the environment in that they import, transform, and export distinctive
elements across their boundaries and affect each other (Stacey, 2007). Leaders/managers
need to regulate the insulation and permeability of organizational boundaries in order to
ensure survival. Or In other words, as system balances change over time leadership needs to
manage both maintaining and adapting processes whereby the interdependence of technical
and social systems needs to be taken into account (Stacey, 2007). According to Stacey
(2007), groups of individuals unconsciously engage in processes such as regression to
“infantile mechanism of dependence, idealization, denial, splitting, projection and
fantasizing” (p. 115) when they are confronted with high levels of anxiety due to task
unfamiliarity or lack of leadership. He finds that a group is always characterized by a task
and an emotional atmosphere it operates in, which is shaped by the members‟ basic
assumption of either dependence on a leader, fighting or fleeing from some self-invented
enemy, or unrealistic hope of an expert delivering all the answers. Stacey (2007) says that a
group may become incapable of performing its primary task if it gets abandoned by the leader
in times of great uncertainty and that it consequently becomes dominated by a process of
switching from one basic assumption to another. However, dysfunctional leaders that are
neurotically aggressive, paranoid, histrionic, detached, controlling, or narcissistic can also
inhibit task performance and drive neurotic defenses that block learning (Stacey, 2007).
Actually, the interaction of leader and follower style is said to determine the group behavior
and the shared environment (Stacey, 2007). For Stacey (2007), open systems theory
combined with psychoanalytic perspectives pays more attention to micro processes within
individuals and how these can disrupt rational processes. As he says, it makes the capacity to
change mental models and to learn look very fragile and rational as well as altruistic behavior
appear highly problematic because we are all born with inherited drives and fantasies, which
are constrained by social forces.
Page 33 of 37
5. GLOSSARY OF TERMS
Term Description
The growth of new ideas, knowledge and understanding driven forward by
Complexity
science and scholarship
A setting in which the intensity of human thoughts and feelings could emerge
Container
under control and allow something to be forged
The organizational framework of order and values within which learning takes
Corporate curriculum
place. It entails valid knowledge, pedagogy, evaluation and realization.
A sustained inquiry into the processes, assumptions, and certainties of every
Dialogue
day experience
Discussion The roots of the word discussion mean to 'break apart'
Is tranmittable in formal, systemic language and captured in records of the
Explicit knowledge
past, and assessed on a sequential basis
Factors that shape an indivisible pattern of action (i.e. content of thought,
Field' factors
defensive behavior) emerging all at once over a paticular space
Idol A collective representation that is not noticed as such
Self-concious reordering, rearranging and redesigning of what one knows and
Judgement
thus creating new angles of vision or knowledge
Deeply embedded assumptions, generalizations or ideas of how the world
Mental Models
works
The capacity to do things; the capacity to bring about certain intended
Power
consequences in the behavior of others
Self-perceiving attention and awareness of one self that is not memory based
Proprioceptive attention
i.e. we still know where our arm is when we close our eyes
New knowledge reflecting back into how human societies are organized and
Reflexivity
change
Rules Prescriptive, guiding, and propositional statements in the form of if X then Y
All the frameworks of thinking and understanding that shape our actions and
Super complexity
institutions are themselves being contested and challenged
Is the sum total of an individual's experience, fully internalized and more than
they can express, a combination and comming together of the technical and
Tacit knowledge rational and the personal, emotional and intuitive; Is rooted in individual
understanding of how the world works and in individuals action, commitment
and involvement within a specif context;
Theory A set of generalizing principles or abstract instructions
Page 34 of 37
6. REFERENCES
Adler, P. S. (2001). Market, Hierachy, and Trust: The Knowledge Economy and the Future of
Capitalism. Organization Science , 12 (2), 215-234.
Argyris, C. (2002a). Double loop learning, teaching, and research. Academy of management
learning and education , 1 (2), 206-218.
Argyris, C. (2002b). Teaching smart people how to learn. Reflections , 4 (2), 4-15.
Berends, P. (2008, December 03). Integration Lecture. Managing organizational learning

and transformation . Maastricht: Maastricht University.
Berends, P., & v.d. Elst, N. (2008). Blockbook. Maastricht: Maastricht University.
Dibella, A. (1995). Developing learning organizations: A matter of perspective. AOM

proceedings.
Fulmer, R. M., & Keys, J. B. (1998a). A conversation with Chris Argyris: The father of
organizational learning. Organizational Dynamics , Autumn: 21-32.
Fulmer, R. M., & Keys, J. B. (1998b). A conversation with Peter Senge: New developments
in organizational learning. Organizational Dynamics , Autumn: 33-42.
Galbraith, J. (1982). Designing the innovative organization. Organizational dynamics , 5-25.
Garvey, B., & Williamson, B. (2002). Beyond knowledge management: Dialogue, creativity
and the corporate curriculum. Harlow: Prentice Hall.
Ghoshal, S. (2005). Bad Management Theories Are Destroying Good Management Practices.
Academy of Management Learning & Education , 4 (1), 75-91.
Isaacs, W. N. (1993). Taking flight: Dialogue, collective thinking, and organizational

learning. Organizational Dynamics , 24, 24-39.
Isaacs, W. N. (2001). Toward an action theory of dialogue. International Journal of Public

Administration , 24, 709-746.
Nonaka, I. (1994). A dynamic theory of organizational knowledge creation. Organization

science , 5 (1), 14-37.
Page 35 of 37
Senge, P. (2006). The fifth discipline: The art and practice of the learning organization.
NewYork: Doubleday Currency.
Stacey, R. D. (2007). Strategic management and organisational dynamics: The challenge of

complexity. Harlow: Prentice Hall.
Tsoukas, H., & Vladimirou, E. (2001). What is organizational knowledge? Journal of

management studies , 38 (7), 973-993.
Wilber, K. (1998). The marriage of sense and soul: integrating science and religion. New
York: Broadway books.
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Management of Organizational Learning

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MANAGEMENT OF ORGANIZATIONAL LEARNING

University Maastricht – Faculty of Economics and Business Administration

2. LEVEL I - CONCEPTS OF ORGANIZATIONAL LEARNING AND HELICOPTER VIEW ............... 2

2.1. Introduction to organizational learning and change ......................................................... 2

2.1.1. Introducing organizational learning ..................................................................... 2

2.1.2. Accomplishing change ......................................................................................... 4

2.2.1. Introducing the bigger picture of knowledge management ................................. 5

2.3. Organizational design for learning ................................................................................... 8

2.3.1. Developing individual and group expertise in learning ....................................... 8

2.3.2. Designing innovative organizations ................................................................... 11

2.3.3. The importance of perspectives on developing learning organizations ............. 12

3. LEVEL II – THE ROLE OF INDIVIDUALS IN ORGANIZATIONAL LEARNING AND HOW TO

3.2. Communication of knowledge, dialogue, and shift of minds ........................................ 17

3.2.1. Communicating Knowledge .............................................................................. 17

3.2.2. Organizational learning and an action theory of dialogue ................................. 18

3.2.3. A shift of mind and achieving systems thinking ................................................ 20

4. LEVEL III – INTEGRATING THE UNDERSTANDING OF DEEP STRUCTURES, MENTAL

4.3. Power and learning ......................................................................................................... 28

4.4. Rethinking organizational learning ................................................................................ 32

5. GLOSSARY OF TERMS ........................................................................................................... 34

2. LEVEL I - CONCEPTS OF ORGANIZATIONAL LEARNING AND HELICOPTER VIEW

2.1. Introduction to organizational learning and change

2.2. Setting the scope for knowledge management towards actionability

Broken down, the knowledge

2.3. Organizational design for learning

3. LEVEL II – THE ROLE OF INDIVIDUALS IN ORGANIZATIONAL LEARNING AND HOW TO

3.1. Theories of action, mental models and double loop learning

reverse it. Here high-leverage lies in the

4. LEVEL III – INTEGRATING THE UNDERSTANDING OF DEEP STRUCTURES, MENTAL

4.2. How the way we think influences the way we see

the common features of science and all religions or Mind

4.3. Power and learning

4.4. Rethinking organizational learning

Berends, P. (2008, December 03). Integration Lecture. Managing organizational learning

Dibella, A. (1995). Developing learning organizations: A matter of perspective. AOM

Galbraith, J. (1982). Designing the innovative organization. Organizational dynamics , 5-25.

Isaacs, W. N. (1993). Taking flight: Dialogue, collective thinking, and organizational

Isaacs, W. N. (2001). Toward an action theory of dialogue. International Journal of Public

Nonaka, I. (1994). A dynamic theory of organizational knowledge creation. Organization

Stacey, R. D. (2007). Strategic management and organisational dynamics: The challenge of

Tsoukas, H., & Vladimirou, E. (2001). What is organizational knowledge? Journal of

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