Family life, like organizational life, is filled with challenges and complexity. We begin family life with great hopes of love and warmth. We dream about learning and growing as we build our lives together. Yet for numerous families, and friends living together as families, learning together seems rare. Too often, people are stymied when faced with the complexity and difficulty of actual family living.

Part of the reason for this difficulty is that couples and single parents often lack the perspective, skills, and tools for mastering the increasing rate of life changes. One essential perspective that we often miss is that our families are complex systems and, as such, are more than a group of individuals. Even divorced partners who are now co-parenting find that family dynamics persist. Any kind of shift for one member — such as a new job or a bad grade on an exam — has an impact on the family as a whole.

In the face of life’s inevitable changes and the complexity of our relationships, how can we thrive even when family dynamics become challenging? How can we pay attention to our difficulties in such a way that our relationships grow together, not fall apart? We believe that the five disciplines can help to create a learning family at home as much as they can build a learning organization at work.

Two Essential Capabilities

Family life is one setting where people can become more skillful at navigating life transitions in order to fulfill their aspirations. To do so, they need to feel a sense of safety, believe that what they want is important, and trust that the hard times, including painful feelings and difficult exchanges, can actually be sources of growth and healing. Two essential capabilities help families cultivate these experiences: 1) living in a creative orientation and 2) building a powerful context or “container” for speaking and listening deeply. Let’s take a closer look at these two capabilities.

Living in a Creative Orientation. Many families dwell in what author Robert Fritz calls a “reactive orientation.” They feel overwhelmed by forces that they believe are beyond their control, such as lack of time for family and friends, work and financial pressures, lack of support, and violence in the schools and media. These pressures tend to pull families apart even when members wish to be closer to each other. In addition, family life has its own inherent challenges such as working out differences between spouses, parenting children through different ages, and facing critical life passages such as birth and death. In a reactive mode, people start to blame themselves or others for their difficulties, or they simply feel helpless.

Fritz contrasts this with the concept of a “creative orientation.” In a creative orientation, we deepen our understanding of ourselves, we turn toward the possible, and we look for our own contribution to a current situation. In this way, we restore the sense of purpose and efficacy that we forget when we are in a reactive mode. Through our families, we also have the opportunity to deepen our understanding of others, their values, and their dreams. We learn to give what’s needed and to hold fast to each other’s aspirations, even when despair sets in. Together we learn how to stop blaming each other; clarify the values, aspirations, and talents that unite us; and affirm the kind of contribution we want to make to the outside world.

Building a Container. Building a container involves developing the capacity to listen and speak deeply together. In discussing the concept of a container, Bill Isaacs, author and organizational consultant, suggests the image of a sturdy vessel that holds its bubbling hot contents without cracking, allowing them to transform into something of profound value. Too often, our families are the last people we turn to when we want to be heard, because of the intensity of emotions involved in intimate relationships. However, we can change that through carefully creating this kind of a container. A strong container can help us bring stability and resilience to life’s difficult situations instead of rushing in to fix them prematurely or running away from them. To build a container:

• Develop ground rules for engaging in difficult conversations.
• Establish uninterrupted times and places to explore and resolve tensions.
• Meet the challenges you and others are facing with commitment, courage, and curiosity.
• Slow down and reconnect with your heart.
• Respect other family members’ feelings, and seek to understand the thinking that leads them to feel the way they do.
• Agree on how to behave with each other on a daily basis.
• Trust that difficulties, when handled well, can lead to genuine growth.

The Five Disciplines at Home

We believe that the five disciplines point to actions that families can take to build such a container and to create fulfilling and loving lives together. A virtuous cycle can unfold in which applying the five disciplines enhances our ability to live in a creative orientation and build our containers, which in turn strengthens our ability to practice the five disciplines. Personal Mastery. In the early years of Innovation Associates’ Leadership and Mastery Program, participants’ spouses were encouraged to attend the training in recognition that a leader’s professional vision can be achieved only within the context of his or her personal aspirations. As an individual in a relationship, you have a responsibility to both yourself and your family to fulfill your potential. You also have a responsibility to help your partner and children realize their potential.

We suggest four ways to explore the path of personal mastery within your family:

The five disciplines point to actions that families can take to build such a container and to create fulfilling and loving lives together.

1. Make compromises and avoid sacrifices. Psychologist Nathaniel Branden suggests that compromising means being willing to change what you do in service of another. It is an essential aspect of family life. By contrast, sacrifice means trying to change who you fundamentally are to satisfy another, which is ultimately a disservice to both parties. Learning who you are and knowing what you really care about enable you to make compromises and avoid sacrifices.

2. Appreciate others for what they contribute to you and to the world around them. A relationship counselor we know asks each clients to list 25 things in their lives for which they are grateful. Her premise is that you cannot create joyful intimacy without appreciating all the gifts you already have. Being grateful for your life and for each family member’s place in it helps you reconnect with how unique and valuable they are. For example, we find it helpful to reflect with each other at the end of every day on what has enriched us, and what we appreciate about each other, ourselves, and our relationship.

3. Adopt the perspective that family challenges can help us grow. It’s easy to get distracted by the idea that family members are being a pain in the neck and are keeping us from moving toward our vision. However, psychologist Harville Hendrix observes that we attract a mate who is different from ourselves in precisely the ways in which we need to grow, and that our children’s behavior presents an opportunity for us to parent in just those ways that we were not parented ourselves. The key is to recognize relationship challenges as stemming from our own innate desire to heal and grow, rather than from faults in other people.

4. Remember that we are all more than the sum of our successes and failures. Focusing only on successes can be difficult for everyone in the family. It can be difficult for the successful ones because they may feel that people care about them only when things are going well, and difficult for others because failures then become a source of shame. Supporting a partner or child through failures entails seeing his or her good qualities under all circumstances. A learning family can learn much from failure and can come to celebrate successes in inclusive ways.

Shared Visioning. “What are we about as a family? What do we envision for ourselves this year . . . five years from now? What do we deeply care about?” Our visions and dreams can easily get lost in the everyday pressures of errands, to-do lists, and piles of laundry. It’s hard to envision making a difference when you can’t find a pair of matching socks.

Shared visioning is a conversation that helps people open their hearts to hearing each other’s deepest wishes and loves—their hearts’ desires. As children get older, shared visioning can help a family see what they have in common and how they can inspire each other to pursue their desires and create more of what they want in life. When people open their conversation to visioning, they can recall the hopes, dreams, values, and images that brought them together. Sharing these moments is particularly powerful during difficult times because these memories restore the energy of loving connection:

“Now I remember, that is why we are together!”

In visioning together, we explore what we can do together and how we can be together. We imagine how to spend our time together, how we want to be involved in our community, where we want to live, how we want to socialize, and where we want to travel. We can share our visions yearly, monthly, or daily. For example, Mark and Ellen take a walk together each week, during which each one reflects on the lessons of the past week and identifies a vision for the coming one. They then share their visions with each other, allowing both partners to feel support in the growth and learning they are embarking on. The ritual itself becomes a strong container of trust and respect that increases their ability to create what they want in their lives individually and as a partnership.

Mental Models. The discipline of mental models helps us gain a greater understanding of how our minds work. With careful observation, we begin to see that our beliefs have an impact on our perceptions, which in turn influence our actions, and then our reality. Our mental models serve us when they enable us to focus on what we want. However, they are always simplified, and therefore incomplete, views of reality that can hurt us when we miss something important or when the conditions under which we created them change.

Family life provides a great setting to develop skill in surfacing and testing our beliefs, revising them when necessary (see “Surfacing Mental Models of Family Life”). Not only do families offer ample opportunities to explore differing perceptions, but also the love on which they are based encourages people to take risks in exploring these differences and misunderstandings. Home is a place to experience humility and to learn.

The tools of the discipline of mental models, such as the ladder of inference, balancing advocacy and inquiry, and the left-hand column, can be useful when tried out at home. For example, recognizing that there might be a difference between how you experience your partner’s or child’s behavior and what he or she intends can help you accept that certain actions are not intended to hurt you (or make you mad or jealous), no matter how hurtful they might feel. This assumption can lead you to ask several questions when you are experiencing conflict:

• What pressures is my partner or child facing?
• What might he or she be intending to accomplish?
• How might my behavior appear to him or her?
• How can we share our respective intentions and learn about the impact we have on each other?

As you consider these questions, you might find yourself growing calmer. Then you can raise your frustration in such a way that the other party is more likely to listen to you with interest and speak with compassion. For example, Brad would sometimes leave his breakfast dishes in the sink on his way out the door, assuming that he would just do them later. However, Michelle perceived the dirty dishes as a chore that she was obligated to do. When they discussed the issue, she learned that he did not intend for her to do his dishes. At the same time, he learned that, because her office was at home, the dishes were an imposition on her space. With this new understanding, both were able to change: Brad usually did not leave his dishes in the sink out of respect for Michelle’s work space, and Michelle was more willing to do his dishes occasionally, knowing that she had a choice.

Another helpful tool is to use the ladder of inference to provide feedback. This approach consists of a series of statements. The first describes observable behavior; it begins with “When you do or say [the observable data].” The statement then continues with “I feel [a particular feeling, such as angry, hurt, jealous].” The feedback continues with “I think [or the story I tell myself is],” which explains my assumption based on that observation and feeling. It concludes with “What I want is ____,” and makes a specific request of the other person. Adhering to this structure, however clumsy at first, can open a genuine dialogue.

For example, Larry and Aisha were returning from a party where Aisha had felt ignored by him. Her initial reaction was to want to tell him, “You abandoned me, just like you always do at parties, and I’m sick and tired of being ignored when we go out.” Instead she said, “When you spent an hour looking at Joe’s Australia photos and didn’t invite me to join you [data], I felt hurt and angry [feeling]. I think you were ignoring me [interpretation]. I want to figure out with you a way we can enjoy parties together [request].”

Team Learning. Meaningful conversation takes time, skill, and intention. Weeks, even months, can go by without a family’s carving out the time to sit and simply explore what is going on with its members. If there are tensions between family members, it becomes even easier to postpone “family council” time. Yet, gathering regularly to listen to each other may defuse tensions before they build to a crisis, help the family to identify issues that people are grappling with, or simply offer a time for parents and children to be together and listen to each other’s thoughts and concerns. To create a “learning conversation,” set aside time and find a private space. Then identify some guidelines and a purpose. Even for two people, some of the following guidelines may help shape a surprisingly rich and gratifying conversation:

• Be fully present.
• Be open-minded.
• Listen, listen even more deeply, and then respond.
• Acknowledge the other person’s feelings and reality as true for him or her.
• Speak from your heart instead of from your head. Try breathing slowly, and notice how you are feeling.
• , “Lean into” discomfort. Discomfort is a spark of enlivening energy that is a clue that something can be learned here. “Leaning in” suggests receiving that tension with a quality of alert inquiry.

Team learning offers a way for people to open themselves to learning together. This is a time to practice listening for insight, for something fresh, for a way to reach below our familiar everyday clamor to the surprising wisdom that we carry inside. By practicing team learning, we can listen to one another with a renewed interest and focus.

A learning conversation can be a good time to revisit our vision of family and remind each other of what our family stands for or what we are grateful for. For example, one family gathers after their Thanksgiving meal to ask the question, “What are you thankful for this year?” Each person then has 3-5 minutes of uninterrupted air time as everyone else listens quietly. Then, they reflect together on what they heard.

Bringing the five disciplines home involves identifying and changing well-entrenched patterns of behavior, which can be both rewarding and painful.

Systems Thinking. Systems thinking encourages us to see our family and our role in it in a new light. Every family is a system. When you and other family members fall into typical, ongoing struggles, consider how your behavior is likely to affect theirs and vice versa. After all, you are deeply connected, although in moments of conflict, you might want to deny that fact!

We use two simple tools to help us out of binds: interaction maps and the “Accidental Adversaries” archetype. Interaction maps were developed by Action Design to show how two parties become locked in a vicious cycle by thinking and acting in particular ways. Party A thinks something negative about Party B, which leads Party A to act in either a defensive or an aggressive manner toward Party B. As a result, Party B develops negative thoughts about A, acts out toward A, and reinforces A’s negative thinking. The result is a vicious cycle.

The parties can break this dynamic first by noticing its existence, then by testing the mental models they have of each other, and finally by developing more effective ways of behaving in support of their more complete understanding of the other person’s reality. For example, Rachel thought her partner Carol was too close to her parents and asked her to limit her weekly phone conversations with them. This led Carol to think that Rachel was jealous of her relationship with her parents, prompting her to defend them. Her impassioned defense, in turn, reinforced Rachel’s belief that Carol was too close to her folks. When Rachel and Carol recognized this dynamic, they were able to test their mental models. They discovered that Carol felt pressured by her parents’ insistence on regular weekly contact. When she understood Carol’s position, Rachel was able to relax her own concerns and actually share some of the responsibility for maintaining contact with Carol’s parents.

Many family members become “accidental adversaries”; that is, they possess an enormous potential to cooperate with and serve each other, but tend to end up in conflict because each is subconsciously trying to address a personal hurt, fear, or discomfort. For example, when Bill believes that he will not get something he wants, he becomes aggressive and insists that he has to have it. This behavior gets him what he wants in the short run. However, Joan then becomes concerned that she will not be able to achieve what is important to her. She withdraws from Bill, which makes him feel that he can’t rely on her to support him. For that reason, he finds himself being even more aggressive the next time he thinks he won’t get what he wants. To break out of this negative pattern of behavior, both Bill and Joan need to reaffirm their commitment to supporting each other in achieving their individual and shared visions. Then they can identify their individual needs and reflect together on how they can both help each other meet those needs in ways that don’t make life more difficult for the other person.

Systems thinking also enables us to appreciate some of the challenges in bringing the five disciplines home. For instance, applying the disciplines to family life often means breaking out of a powerful “Success to the Successful” archetypal structure (see “Bringing the Five Disciplines Home”).

Because many of us spend more time at work than with our families, we tend to become more successful in our professional lives than at home (R1, R2, R3). However, using some of our time at work to develop new interpersonal skills can not only lead to more success at work (R4), but can also provide us with tools to support our success at home (B5). It is helpful to realize that, until we experience more success in the family, we might be tempted to convince ourselves that we are too busy at work to apply the skills back home (R6).

First Steps

Bringing the five disciplines home involves identifying and changing well-entrenched patterns of behavior, which can be both rewarding and painful. We suggest that you start small, be patient, and let your new successes at home naturally shift your work/family balance over time. You might begin by reviewing what you are grateful for in your own life. Then continue by looking at your relationship with one family member. Consider the areas of conflict with that person as a systemic issue, rather than as a problem with him or her. Engage in a learning conversation to begin to shift the dynamic. Over time, you might work toward creating a shared vision with your family, one that combines success at work and success at home to shape a life where each domain energizes and enriches the other.

Marilyn Paul is an independent organization consultant in Lexington, MA with a PhD in organization behavior from Yale. Peter Stroh is a founding partner of Innovation Associates and a principal in its parent company, Arthur D. Little. Marilyn and Peter are a married couple interested in supporting learning families. We welcome learning more about your own experiences in applying these tools, or any others you find helpful. Please send us your stories by e-mail to mbpaul@erols.com.

This article is dedicated to the memory of Betty Byfield Paul.

For Further Reading

Branden, Nathaniel and Devers. What Love Asks of Us. Bantam Books, 1987.

Fritz, Robert. The Path of Least Resistance. Ballantine Books, 1989.

Hendrix, Harville. Getting the Love You Want. Henry Holt and Company, 1988.

Hochschild, Arlie Russell. The Time Bind: When Work Becomes Home & Home Becomes Work. Henry Holt and Company, 1997.

The post The Learning Family: Bringing the Five Disciplines Home appeared first on The Systems Thinker.

What worked about the mediation process was that it enabled the adversaries to discuss their areas of disagreement and develop solutions. It was also fast: It took four hours of the VPs’ time. And it was easy to schedule: Only the adversaries and the consultant had to coordinate their calendars.

What didn’t work about the process was that it failed to address the talk underlying interpersonal and organizational structures that had given rise to the conflict. The VPs never explored how their own untested assumptions about each others’ motives escalated the conflict. They also neglected to examine how the organizational structure contributed to the tension. Moreover, other members of the organization were not included in the process and therefore could not examine their own roles in the conflict or participate in a solution. Finally, no one involved had an opportunity to develop the thinking and communication skills necessary to deal effectively with future disagreements. In short, the personal and organizational structures that gave rise to the conflict were ignored, thus virtually ensuring that the antagonism would resurface

Is Conflict Necessary?

Conflict is so commonplace that we usually accept it as a fact of life in organizations. As a result, divisive issues often remain unquestioned and unresolved until they either fade away or escalate. When they intensify, we may find ourselves bringing in an outsider to “resolve” the problem. But allowing conflict to escalate costs money because productivity, creativity, and morale suffer.

Can we avoid this kind of extreme conflict? If it does surface, are there approaches to conflict resolution that have a lasting impact? Can an organization learn to identify and address conflict before it escalates?

The disciplines of systems thinking and mental models offer powerful alternatives to traditional approaches to conflict resolution. By using basic systems thinking methodologies to actively explore and resolve the underlying causes of conflict, a manager can transform nagging problems into significant opportunities for the organization. As a result, interpersonal or interdepartmental tension can become a source of learning and ongoing success rather than a destructive force.

The disciplines of systems thinking and mental models offer powerful alternatives to traditional approaches to conflict resolution

The Pervasiveness of Conflict

We experience conflict in the workplace every day — another department institutes a policy that makes it harder for us to succeed in our jobs; we feel slighted by a colleague’s offhand comment, which makes it a little more difficult to work with him; or our performance numbers are lower than we expected, and we are afraid to break the news to our boss. Though these examples may not be as extreme as the case above, even mild conflict leaves us frustrated, anxious, or angry, inhibiting our ability to think clearly and to do our jobs effectively.

A certain amount of conflict is inevitable. After all, we each have different ways of thinking and seeing based on our cultural, ethnic, and educational backgrounds. In addition, we have diverse jobs, responsibilities, and types of power, which lead to different ways of working and approaching challenges. Finally, some organizational structures inadvertently create conflict by rewarding a functional focus, distributing decision-making ineffectively, or allowing inconsistent — even contradictory — goals and reward systems.

Given the high cost of unexamined conflict, why do we often avoid resolving it until it escalates? There are many reasons: We want to be nice. We don’t want others to see us as a troublemaker. We want to choose our battles. But the most challenging barrier to resolving conflict is when we view a problem as an immutable fact rather than a resolvable conflict. We often attribute the causes of ongoing tension to “hard-wired” characteristics associated with certain professions, positions, divisions, or personalities; for example, “That’s engineers for you” or “What do you expect from a salesperson?” In these cases, because we feel powerless to do anything about the problem, we try to ignore it until it is inescapable.

Traditional Approaches to Conflict Resolution

When conflict between individuals or departments reaches a fevered pitch, many organizations turn to an outsider to defuse the situation. Based on advice from the standard conflict resolution literature, many professional mediators keep the adversaries focused on resolving current issues rather than exploring underlying historical or structural causes for the discord. The rationale for this technique is that the conversation will be much less explosive if it is limited to the current crisis. Delving into history can be seen as “opening old wounds,” a destructive diversion to addressing the conflict at hand. However, staying riveted on the present makes it difficult to identify long-term solutions to fundamental sources of conflict.

Thus, traditional approaches tend to focus only on interpersonal tensions instead of exploring the larger systemic issues. By bounding the discussion in this way, conventional forms of conflict resolution limit the possibilities for organizational learning and the long-term resolution of tensions. In addition, if an outsider mediates the crisis without helping the parties involved improve their communication skills, a dependency on outside intervention can arise — what is known in systems thinking as “Shifting the Burden” (see “Addicted to Outside Solutions” on p. 1). Finally, conflict resolution that focuses on individuals, instead of on the larger context of ongoing team development, can sometimes provoke defensiveness in those individuals.

With these shortcomings of traditional responses to conflict, what are the alternatives?

A Systemic Approach to Conflict

From a systems view, conflict is an opportunity for profound learning. Because learning is central to an organization’s long-term effectiveness, a systemic approach focuses on exploring all kinds of conflict, not just on eliminating severe conflict between two people. The following characteristics distinguish the systems approach from traditional methods of conflict resolution.

• The intention is skill building, not conflict resolution. This focus reduces the pressure on individuals to defend their positions and increases their willingness to be reflective and open.
• Conflict is addressed before it becomes severe. A systemic perspective allows people to explore conflict earlier and to learn from, rather than be blocked by, interpersonal disputes.
• The conflict is explored within the context of the group, moving the spotlight off the adversaries and allowing the group to see its own role in the conflict.
• Systems thinking tools depersonalize the issues. By mapping the causal relationships around the conflict as a group, participants shift the focus from individuals to the larger dynamics of the system as a whole
• The tools of systems thinking enable the group to process complexity. Diagrams of systemic dynamics reduce polarization and oversimplification, making it clear where assumptions differ. This clarity opens the way to deep inquiry and powerful dialogue.
• Group mapping encourages public personal reflection. Mapping the issues reveals that no one individual is at fault, creating a safe space for everyone to explore his or her own role in the conflict.

When addressed from a systemic perspective, interpersonal friction alerts us to hidden opportunities for improvement. Indeed, conflict is to the organization as hunger is to the body: a critical early warning system that tells us that we need to take action to make the body healthy. The systems approach focuses not on eliminating conflict, but on eliminating unexplored conflict.

The SAGE Method

To ensure an organization’s long-term health, getting to the “right” answer is often not as important as having the participants in a conflict safely engage each other, build relationships, develop communication skills, and create innovative solutions together that they will likely support. We have called this methodology SAGE, an acronym for “Step Back,”, “Assess,” “Get Personal,” and “Experiment.”

Through the SAGE approach, participants create shared understanding of the personal and organizational structures that block teams and individuals from working together effectively. The power of SAGE lies in its ability to help team members build the skills necessary for changing personal and organizational structures (see “The SAGE Process” on p. 4).

The process also has the potential to address severe conflicts that have left their mark on the business as a whole. To tap into this possibility, participants must represent a broad cross-section of the organization. Initially, a group of 15 or fewer individuals from different parts of the organization should complete this process with a skilled facilitator over a two-day period. Eventually, they should be able to work through the steps on their own in less time, as needed.

Below is a description of the four steps involved in SAGE.

Step 1. Step Back The first step is to create the space and the intention within the organization to address a known conflict or set of conflicts. The goal of this step is to encourage participants to feel safe in exploring the source of ongoing tension. The facilitator begins the process by holding a series of one-on-one conversations with members of the group. He or she:

• Builds a relationship with participants and identifies the critical issues and the thinking that has led to troublesome patterns of behavior.
• Explores what is working, what is not working, and what is missing in the business (for example, “we have exceptional planning” or “we have weak cross-functional coordination”); the facilitator then develops a hypothesis about the reasons behind each item.
• Designs a meeting with the purpose of increasing the team’s capacity to learn and work together, while focusing on the business challenges previously identified by the group
• Begins to stimulate systemic thinking by asking stakeholders to identify actions they have taken that might have unintentionally caused problems for others.

Step 2. Assess

In the second step, participants build a shared understanding of the conflict through inquiry and the creation of a systems map. The systems map is a graphical representation of the causal relationships that give rise to and maintain the group’s unwanted dynamics. Developed by the group, it derives primarily from participants’ conversations about the conflict. Through this mapping process, the group begins to see how organizational structure creates behavior and, in turn, is created and perpetuated by individual thought and actions. This awareness is particularly useful for taking the edge off what might look like a “personality conflict.”

In this step, the facilitator:

• Guides the group in drawing a rough systems thinking map of the challenges at hand. The goal is not to create “perfect” causal loop diagrams, but to generate open exploration of the relationships among forces that give rise to conflict.
• Introduces the systems archetypes to see whether they can provide additional insight into the situation. The archetypes are especially helpful for showing a group that their problems are not unique.
• Encourages participants to say more about their own perspective than they normally might.
• As the map fills out, looks for places of disagreement about what happens or why; and vicious cycles, where one party’s action or lack of action creates an undesirable reinforcing dynamic. These often point to hidden sources of conflict.
• Introduces organizational learning tools such as the ladder of inference and the advocacy/inquiry matrix. These tools help to break poor communication habits that may be contributing to the conflict.

Step 3. Get Personal In this step, participants practice dialogue skills to directly address sources of interpersonal conflict. They learn that everyone has to assume some personal responsibility for creating and maintaining unwanted structures. Most important, participants begin to understand how they each have unintentionally created the very situations they don’t want.

In this step, the facilitator:

• Shifts the focus from the relationship between structural forces to a “hot spot” that involves active decision-making. This shift highlights the mental models behind the decisions that keep the structural forces in play.
• Asks everyone to work in pairs to write the “left-hand column” of a recent conversation regarding the conflict; that is, to document what they were thinking but didn’t say during the encounter. (For more information on this technique, see Chris Argyris’s On Organizational Learning.)
• Has two volunteers act out their previously unspoken conversation for the rest of the group, showing how the issue between the individuals plays out throughout the group. As the underlying dynamics become clear, people’s defenses come down and compassion emerges.

Step 4. Experiment

In this final step, the group creates an action plan for developing and implementing new ways to work and interact. As part of their ongoing skill development, each participant commits to a personal learning experiment to develop a new skill, and the group as a whole designs an experiment to reshape an organizational structure. An example might be to have a salesperson attend manufacturing’s weekly design meetings and have a representative from manufacturing go to the weekly sales meeting. By framing this plan as an “experiment,” participants can feel free to be innovative in designing new approaches. Also, because the group can later choose to end or alter the experiment, members don’t need to worry about becoming “locked” into a solution that doesn’t work.

Often, the group commitments that arise during this step revolve around improving communication and thinking behaviors; for example, agreeing that when a problem is brought to the group’s attention, members will first understand it before trying to solve it.

In this step, the participants:

• Make agreements for trying new behaviors.
• Give each other “slack” to be awkward in attempting new skills.
• Schedule two one-hour meetings with another person during which they will act as mutual “peer coaches” in practicing and reflecting on their learning experiments.
• Meet as a group one day a month for six months to reflect on the organizational and personal learning experiments and to continue to practice and refine the new skills.

By the end of the first two days, the team members should have a better understanding of how their actions affect one another and how they are linked. They will also have begun to comprehend how their thinking influences the results they get — or don’t get — and how their thinking and actions keep unwanted dynamics in place. Finally, they will have begun practicing new thinking and communication skills, thus creating a strong foundation for future interactions.

SAGE in Action

For example, in one high-tech manufacturing company, as the company grew, management introduced market-focused decision-making requirements into a culture that had previously been driven by technology alone. This change created the need for collaboration between engineering and sales and marketing. However, several areas of conflict arose between these groups, resulting in both personal acrimony and ineffectiveness in new product development and sales. By working through the SAGE process with a consultant, key members of engineering and sales and marketing were able to identify and discuss the structural elements that led to conflict between these departments. As part of this process, they created a causal loop diagram of the dynamics that made it difficult for them to collaborate (see “Conflicting Departmental Goals”). In reality, the map created during the session was quite messy, but as the group began seeing their behavior as part of a system, the dynamics emerged quite clearly and the map was streamlined. Through the mapping exercise, they realized that the two groups had competing reward systems, and they started to see the structural inevitability of their conflicts.

The groups then identified areas where people were making decisions that created or exacerbated conflict. They explored the thinking behind these decisions, leading to an open dialogue about the key drivers that led to different choices. Through this discussion, individuals were able to move beyond personal animosities to understand the motivations of their counterparts.

As a final step, the groups agreed to experiment with collaborating differently in both new product development and in the sales process. For example, for eight weeks, the engineering group would commit resources to explore future product directions with the sales group. After the eight-week experiment concluded, the groups agreed to meet for a half day a month to continue to develop their skills in recognizing, understanding, and moving beyond conflict.

Implications for Managers

Traditional mediation works well for short-term resolution of a specific incidence of conflict. A systems thinking approach, such as the SAGE methodology outlined above, can generate a long-term, structural resolution to ongoing conflict. With learning and skill building as the goals, and with the focus on the organization rather than on the individuals involved, the process opens communication and improves organizational effectiveness.

Through systems thinking mapping, the structural nature of a conflict emerges, shedding light on the underlying dynamics that can unwittingly place two individuals in a confrontational relationship. By using tools such as the left-hand column, participants can see the interplay between personal and organizational structures and can begin to acknowledge their own responsibility in maintaining unwanted dynamics. By working through the issues that have cropped up between them, adversaries develop mutual understanding. Not only do they see the cost of not communicating, they begin to develop skills for dealing with the inevitable future breakdowns. Having the skills and confidence necessary to explore tensions makes employees more willing to address them.

If a manager is willing to explore and resolve mild conflict, he or she can transform nagging problems into significant opportunities for the organization. Conversations become more direct, so problem-solving improves and decisions get better. Innovation rises. Finally, and very importantly, when people express more of themselves at work, they are happier, more creative, and more productive. In these ways, a systems thinking approach can help managers transform conflict into long-term organizational success.

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But chaos, or a period of inherent unpredictability in a system, is a natural process. In living systems, chaos occurs at the beginning of the growth cycle, where it can help organisms achieve higher levels of complexity. In nature, a system that thrives on chaos is dynamic and vital. On the other hand, a “stable” system is closest to entropy, which is closest to death. From this point of view, chaos is actually desirable, and order, lethal. Of course, decay is an integral part of any ecosystem, serving to fuel growth of new forms of life. But most of us prefer to help our companies prosper rather than become spare parts for the next generation of businesses.

The truth is, even if we want to, we can’t avoid, control, or manage chaos. What we can do is learn to recognize our companies as living systems, understand how chaos functions within that context, and work with the process rather than against it. When we support sustainable growth through chaos rather than seek to eliminate it, then we begin to see our organizations and our choices differently. Partnering with chaos in this way can lead to exciting and inspiring new products, processes, and services, as well as a more fulfilled and energized workforce. It’s hard work, but it can pay off over the long run.

So, how can we begin to model our corporations to reflect the success of healthy living organisms that evolve through chaos? How can we leverage the natural forces that operate within our businesses rather than trying to stifle them, at great cost over the long run? First, we need to take a closer look at the traits of living systems that are vital to evolving through chaos.

Key Characteristics of Living Systems

All social systems, including corporations, are living systems. As such, the components that make up an organization, including policies, cultural norms, job descriptions, and traditions, are continually changing. Information flows through this structure on an ongoing basis, feeding and guiding the change process. The enterprise grows and develops based on a certain pattern of organization, such as the company’s purpose, vision, and unique product or service.

Some of the characteristics of healthy living systems that play a key role in surviving and thriving through chaos are:

Constant Learning. A living system seeks information about what is working and what isn’t through feedback loops. New forms of organization emerge as the organism adapts to its changing environment based on that feedback. Because a system learns through constant interaction with its environment, a business that is not constantly learning is dying. An organization that values “the way we have always done it” at the expense of looking beyond its boundaries at best practices may find its old fixes inadequate for solving new problems. For instance, trying to meet an Internet competitor by using traditional advertising schemes will probably result in declining market share.

Closed for Functions, Open for Information. In a healthy living system, boundaries to the outside world are not fixed. They are permeable membranes, through which information continually flows. For instance, look at a healthy cell and a cancer cell. When dye is dropped in the middle of a cluster of healthy cells bordered by a cluster of cancer cells, the dye will travel quickly through all the healthy cells. However, little, if any, dye will cross into the cancer cells. The walls of healthy cells aid communication. The walls of cancer cells are boundaries that block the flow of information. This phenomena has an impact on organizations, too – at The World Bank, for example, the literal and figurative walls of privacy and secrecy between departments had restricted sharing of key financial data, leading to piecemeal spending and waste.

Spontaneous Emergence of New Forms of Behavior. As parts join together to form a system, properties emerge that are not found in those individual elements but that belong only to the whole. For example, when carbon, hydrogen, and oxygen come together, “sweetness” emerges. Sweetness is an emergent property of sugar that cannot be found in any of its components., “The sweetness resides in the relationship,” as Fritjof Capra, physicist and author of The Web of Life, has delightfully elucidated. In the situation mentioned above, the World Bank eventually instituted more open financial systems, making budgetary information readily available to all parties in the organization. When several departments realized that they were purchasing similar services, they were able to negotiate a single contract with a vendor at a significant discount over what they had been paying separately. This discount “emerged” when the parts(the different departments) joined forces into a more cohesive whole.

Balance far from Equilibrium. Of all of the characteristics of living systems that are vital to evolving through chaos, the ability to maintain balance far from equilibrium is perhaps the most crucial. We are used to thinking that being in equilibrium is a desirable state because of its connotations of orderliness and control. However, in nature, a system that remains at equilibrium is closest to entropy, which is closest to death. So a thriving system, rather than staying in a constant state of equilibrium, actually reaches a flowing balance, a balance of the whole. In a balanced system, at any given moment, a single activity seen in isolation may seem erratic, turbulent, or counterproductive to the actions of other participants. However, when seen in the larger context, that behavior is something that brings balance to the whole. In an organization that accepts this principle, for instance, participants trust that the performance of a cutting-edge product that seems like a hit-or-miss proposition will be offset by that of a tried-and-true work horse. On the other hand, in a stable system, such experimental initiatives may be squelched for “rocking the boat” too far in an uncertain direction.

As we’ll see in the following section, all of these characteristics play a key role in determining an organism’s or an organization’s fate as it navigates the stormy waters of chaos.

Chaos in Living Systems

The classical interpretation of the Second Law of Thermodynamics says that energy flows spontaneously only from an object of hotter temperature to a colder one. From this perspective, the world is similar to a mechanical clock hat is slowly winding down, atrophying and dying, as energy dissipates from it into the surrounding environment. In 1977, a scientist named Dr. Ilya Prigogine disproved this hypothesis. With his Theory of Dissipative Structures, he mathematically proved that living systems can actually develop in an upward spiral of ever increasing complexity. Prigogine received the Nobel Prize in Chemistry for proving this observation.

Prigogine’s theory shows that all living systems are involved in a cyclical process (see “The Cycle of Dissipative Structures”). As they receive, “energy-rich input” from the environment, the level of stress within the system rises the system becomes increasingly chaotic. For natural systems, this input may include heat, light, and nutrients. For companies, this input might take the form of new technology, changes in government regulations and legislation, mergers and acquisitions, training, emerging markets, increased customer expectations, litigation, new competition, and so on.

THE CYCLE OF DISSIPATIVE STRUCTURES

As a living system receives energy-rich input from the environment, the system becomes increasingly chaotic. This process of increasing agitation is called “perturbation.” At “the bifurcation point,” the system will either break apart or it will leap to a higher, more complex order now able to handle even more challenges.

The “entrance” into the system of this new energy or information sets in motion a number of feedback loops that create increasingly dramatic results over time. The news of a new competitor taking a major part of your market share might result in a flurry of emergency planning meetings, the adoption of new strategies, the need for people to work overtime, and employee burnout, absenteeism, and illness. Over a few months, these actions might lead to decreased efficiency, more rework, declining quality, and increased customer dissatisfaction and defection. The cumulative impact of all of these actions amplifies the original fluctuation begun by the news of the new entrant in the industry.

Prigogine labeled this process of increasing agitation “perturbation.” Depending on how the organism – in this case, a corporation, department, or team – handles this perturbation, one of two things will happen. That system or subsystem will either break apart and disintegrate as described above, or it will “snap,” leaping to a higher, more complex order now able to handle even more challenges. This decisive moment is what Prigogine called “the bifurcation point.”

A simple example of disintegration at the bifurcation point is a rock tossed into a fire pit. The rock absorbs the intense heat – the energy-rich input – which sets its molecules into increasingly rapid activity. When the rock’s structure can’t assimilate any more heat, the rock explodes. Shattered pieces land in a heap, with the energy from the heat dissipated in the air.

Rush-hour traffic is an example of transformation to a higher level of organization. During periods of low traffic, cars move seemingly randomly from lane to lane and at varying speeds. As traffic increases, more cars enter the system and jostle for position, leading to temporary backups. At the bifurcation point, a pattern suddenly clicks into place, allowing a larger number of cars to move smoothly along the highway.

For an organization, the explosion at bifurcation may take the form of mass exodus from the corporation as it enters a death spiral, or transformation in the form of reorganization, as groups spin off into new business units or new alliances are formed. But how can a business place itself on the upside of the chaos conundrum? How can we know if we will land on our feet in a higher, more complex order with richer, more fluid networks of relationships, or end up on our derrieres in a heap of spare parts formerly known as a company?

“Stable” vs. “Balanced” Systems

According to Fritjof Capra, “The history of the organism tends to be determinative at bifurcation point.” Thus, the choices that we make when new information first hits the system and then when we find ourselves in the midst of chaos can help determine the future of our corporations.

During the period of chaos, an organism reacts somewhere along a continuum between the two extremes of a system close to equilibrium (a “stable system”) or a system balanced far from equilibrium (a “balanced system”). As shown in the bottom half of, “The Cycle of Dissipative Structures” diagram, a stable system possesses characteristics that limit the amount of new data that enters the system and the distribution of any information that does permeate its boundaries. A corporate culture that focuses primarily on stability will seek to deny, suppress, “interpret,” or control the new information in a way that maintains the company’s status quo. Because this knowledge is distributed on a “need-to-know basis,” most employees are blocked from incorporating the new data in their work.

This behavior can ultimately contribute to disintegration, because responses to changing conditions, new relationships, and out-of-the box brainstorming are suppressed. For instance, an organization that seeks stability by only hiring people who think like current employees will have a narrow range of thinking to draw on when new opportunities emerge. So a company that attempts to enter the global market may make costly mistakes if it fails to include representatives of the new client culture in decision and policy-making. This kind of over-sight may have led to errors like Pepsi’s translation of its “Come alive” tagline into Chinese as “Makes your ancestors rise from the dead.”

Conversely, systems seeking balance are agile, fluid, and responsive. The boundaries of a balanced system are relatively permeable; there is a constant flood of new information coming into the corporation from the outside world. The characteristics shown in the top half of the model – such as resilience, emphasis on process, diversity, dynamism, acceptance of paradox, and spontaneity – sustain growth amid chaos by allowing this new knowledge to circulate through-out the system, where different departments and employees can put it to productive use.

Thus, a corporation may hedge its bets in the direction of transformation by establishing a history of balance-seeking behaviors (see “Balance-Seeking Behaviors”). Part of striking this kind of balance includes not becoming exclusively committed to either extreme. Most companies cling tightly to their existing identity, organizational charts, and rules at the expense of letting in new energy, ideas, and people. As shown in the diagram “Flow of Sustainability in Chaos,” this end of the spectrum results in death from too much rigidity, order, and stagnation.

FLOW OF SUSTAINABILITY IN CHAOS

Most companies tend to cling tightly to their existing identity at the expense of letting in new ideas. This end of the spectrum results in death from too much rigidity, order, and stagnation. But if a corporation fails to develop a strong sense of identity and vision, the business runs the risk of death from anarchy and incoherence. Thus, it’s important to function in the range between the two extremes.

But at the other extreme, if a corporation fails to develop a strong sense of identity and vision, people may not know what to do with new information and how to use it productively. In that case, the business runs the risk of death from anarchy and incoherence. In order to maintain a sustainable organization in the face of chaos, it’s important to function in the range between the two extremes, where the energy of the new information is comfortably accommodated by the organization’s identity.

In this way, in order to build agile, responsive organizations ready to face ever-more complex challenges, we become what Dee Hock calls, “Chaords,” or better yet “Chaordists,” artists at blending chaos and order. Embracing chaos does not mean we become corks bobbing in stormy waters, moving this way and that at the whim of the elements. Instead, it means that we help our organizations become more open to receiving input from the environment, converting this input into learning, and spontaneously emerging into new forms of structure and behavior. But first, we must over-come one major stumbling block that natural systems don’t face our own physiology and psychology.

Opening Our “Filters”

As Bell Labs scientist Frank Clement put it, “Molecules don’t have an attitude.” But humans do. Our brain is actually structured to filter incoming information to prevent sensory overload it only takes in information that agrees with our existing beliefs.

Thus, people within an organization by design reject data that does not fit the prevailing paradigm. They screen out information they think might be harmful to them, their team, and the company. But this natural process is potentially damaging to organizations because when a system doesn’t receive new or accurate information regarding its changing environment, it cannot adjust.

For example, a cancer cell does not receive feedback from the larger system. It operates in isolation, ignorant of the effect it has on the whole, not communicating with or even aware of neighboring cells. A cancer cell takes resources from the larger system to sustain itself, but it does not contribute to that system. Indeed, it can ultimately destroy the system on which it depends. A healthy cell, on the other hand, is in constant communication with other cells. It bases its actions on information it receives from the whole system. It draws resources from the whole, and in turn it produces products that the system needs to grow in order to sustain the whole.

So how can we help our corporations, as living systems, benefit from the information-rich environment in which they operate? We must consciously choose to open our filters to receive all pertinent information, instead of blocking out data that we perceive as threatening to the established way of doing things. This openness gives us a broader perspective on promising opportunities, the market in which we operate, and our client base than we previously had. For instance, instead of rejecting as irrelevant a competitor in Georgia that recycles carpets, a manufacturer in California could explore ways to replicate the process and gain a new market share of environmentally conscious customers. Or it could broach the possibility of partnering with the competitor in a mutually beneficial alliance.

To open those filters, we need to watch for “filter flags,” or signs of those subtle blinders that convince us that we are always right: sour-grape responses, arrogance, and certainty. The best antidotes to this behavior are curiosity, openness, a willingness to explore new options, ongoing bench-marking, research into best practices, and hiring lots of young, iconoclastic thinkers. The growing list of organizational learning tools, such as dialogue, advocacy/inquiry, After Action Reviews, celebration of “learnings,” and café conversations, can help foster this new openness.

Supporting the Flow of Information

In any healthy self-organizing system, the flood of clear, unadulterated feedback is ultimately the source of both new order and greater complexity. Greater complexity literally means more routes for information to travel through the organization and more networks of relationships. It’s like the brain the more dendritic pathways you have, the greater the chance that you will develop new combinations of ideas to form new solutions. A more complex organization has access to more possible solutions to problems and a greater ability to handle change.

These information pathways are even more critical in today’s business climate. With change happening so dramatically, we may not be able to apply yesterday’s solutions to today’s problems. In this brave new world, then, how you achieve a goal is as important as actually reaching it, because it is the how that helps determine what happens at bifurcation. To this end, many organizations are finding success with policies such as job sharing, telecommuting, casual dress, flex time, and “creative” work spaces, in an effort to support the emergence of employees’ innate productivity.

But many managers still feel accountable for making sure that people are productive and don’t waste time. This belief often results in a fundamental lack of trust on the part of management and, over time, even more rigid policies. By focusing on creating the conditions for success rather than on controlling the troops, leaders manage people with a renewed sense of purpose and inspiration. A healthy system ultimately knows what it needs to thrive. This knowledge emerges and manifests itself throughout the organization. Structure, patterns, and processes will spontaneously emerge sooner rather than later if corporations support rather than block efforts to diffuse these learnings.

For that reason, when you have had a breakthrough, such as a successful team effort, recreate the conditions that led to that success (such as the autonomy to make decisions or the use of organizational learning tools) rather than recreating the structure (such as two engineers plus one mechanic plus three IT people). Beware of cook books with recipes for easy solutions to complex issues. There are no user’s manuals for managing living systems. At best, there are guidelines for how to work with a system rather than against it (see “Guidelines for Participating with Chaos”). The goal is to create systems that are fluid and adaptable. The glue is shared excitement rather than assigned tasks.

Learning to Work with Chaos

Accepting chaos as healthy for organizations isn’t a simple cure all or a fad. It is the end of a 300-year blind spot in the way of thinking that began with Newtonian physics and Cartesian worldview. The dominant culture took Newton’s brilliant model of how the world was put together, which was correctly predictive within a limited domain, and reduced all of life to a mechanistic box. This parts-and-pieces thinking is entrenched in every fiber of corporate life. The ensuing fragmentation of departments, teams, projects, programs, markets, and clients will take time and awareness to overcome.

But systems don’t heal through force. Learning to work with chaos means removing barriers, not pushing change to happen. Because it took us three centuries to get here, it is important for us to be patient and compassionate with ourselves as we shift our way of thinking. As over-achievers, it may be challenging for us to let go and trust self-organization. However, the rewards can be great: everything from fewer stress related diseases and heart attacks to the deep relief that leaders feel when they realize that they don’t have to have all the answers. Corporate leaders will burnout less quickly when they understand that their job has more to do with reading the weather and surfing the waves than pushing the river.

As we learn to trust small examples of chaos turning into new structure, we will come to accept intense, large-scale chaos as the harbinger of the next, more complex level of organization and ongoing success. We will watch as the chaos dissolves and new forms emerge, and we will wonder why we fought it so hard for so long.

Phyllis Kirk (pkirk@bcal.com) is a humanist, futurist, “recovering” lawyer, adventurer, speaker, mother-sister-aunt-partner, and the CEO of the Boulder Center of Accelerative Learning.

The author gratefully acknowledges Ilya Prigogine for his review of the Kirk Cycle of Dissipative Structures; Fritjof Capra for his critique of the article; and Pepper Schedin, AMC Cancer Center. Editorial support for this article was provided by Janice Molloy.

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Some researchers have argued against focusing on the CEO in predicting a company’s destiny. But we have found that a leader’s support for and legitimization of change efforts are crucial in sustaining companywide transformational processes until results persuade an increasing proportion of the workforce to commit more fully to the new order. This is especially true when the efforts involve new practices that aren’t widely understood or used, like the tools and concepts of organizational learning. And, conversely, a single CEO incapable of exercising, recognizing, or supporting transformational power can be enough of a bottleneck to undo prior organizational abilities and accomplishments. Thus, regardless of what else is happening within the organization, a CEO can have a major influence on the likelihood of organizational transformation.

Studying Organizational Development Efforts

For 10 years, we participated in and studied 10 organizational development efforts, spending an average of about four years with each business. The organizations included both forprofit and not-for-profit enterprises that ranged from 10 to 1,019 employees, with an average of 485 staff members. The businesses represented numerous industries, including financial services, automobile, consulting, healthcare, oil, and higher education. Based on several criteria, we found that seven of the 10 organizations prospered: They experienced significant improvements and became industry leaders on a number of key indices. On the other hand, despite our best efforts, three of the 10 organizations did not progress and lost personnel, industry standing, and money.

In examining these cases retrospectively, we noticed that the companies whose CEOs had certain perspectives and values were more likely to achieve favorable outcomes in the organizational transformation process than those that didn’t. We found that the more successful leaders recognized that there are multiple ways of framing reality, and understood that personal and organizational change require mutual, voluntary initiatives, not just top-down, hierarchical guidance. For instance, in one organization, the leader, with her management team and consultant, created a new strategic planning process that enlisted the active and playful involvement of all staff members in designing the organization’s future. In another, the CEO created a series of voluntary learning opportunities for two vice presidents with whom the rest of the senior management team reported having difficulties.

As shown by these examples, this group of CEOs intuitively embodied many of the key elements of the five disciplines. They encouraged shared visioning, team learning, discovery and transformation of mental models, and development of personal mastery. If someone within the organization did not appear to “buy in” to the learning process, the CEOs did not unilaterally fire the person or generate pressure for external conformity “to the program.” Instead, they engaged with the individual to explore the systemic effects of his or her actions on the rest of the organization and presented opportunities for personal and professional growth.

In the organizations that didn’t change, the CEOs actually impeded change efforts, either through benign neglect of existing learning structures or through actions that undermined the transformation process. For instance, one leader eliminated by simple disuse many of the peer learning systems built into the organization when he arrived, gradually turning the operation into a crisis-prone, reactive entity.

Individual and Organizational “Action-Logics”

To aid us in analyzing and comparing the characteristics of the different leaders and organizations, we referred to developmental theory. Developmental theory traces its roots to the philosophies of Plato and then Hegel. It became part of

In the organizations that didn’t change, the CEOs actually impeded change efforts, either through benign neglect of existing learning structures or through actions that undermined the transformation process.

empirical science with Piaget’s studies of children in the early 20th century. Developmental theory is based on a progression of capabilities that an individual or organization may possess. Each stage serves as the foundation for the one that follows; that is, a person or group must master the characteristics of an earlier level before moving to the next one.

During the past quarter century, researchers have increasingly studied and developed measurement systems for evaluating adult development. At the same time, some colleagues and I have articulated a parallel theory of organizational development. The table “Managerial Action-Logics” offers brief impressions of the characteristics of managers at different stages of development; “Organizational ActionLogics” does the same for organizations. We use the term “action-logic” to highlight how, at each developmental stage, the assumptions that people or organizations hold affect their ways of making meaning of themselves and the world, of thinking, of acting, and of interpreting feedback.

How do people and organizations move from one developmental action-logic to the next? The most important point is that there is no way to “make” individuals transform by external force or persuasion alone. Although most children transform from the self-centered Opportunist action-logic to the other-focused Diplomat one as they become teenagers and wish to be liked by peers and rewarded by teachers, a small percentage of managers are measured at the Opportunist level in later adulthood. So, persons and organizations must, in some basic sense, volunteer for transformation.

At the same time, wanting to change isn’t enough to guarantee personal or organizational transformation. The assumptions of one’s current action-logic tend to undercut efforts to operate according to the next, more encompassing action-logic. Consequently, leaders and organizational systems that exercise mutually enhancing power are critical for helping others make the leap to the next action-logic. For instance, in the earlier story about the two vice presidents who were challenged to change their behavior, one undertook a series of learning experiments that increased her coworkers’ level of trust in her. The other resigned after two half-hearted gestures at altering his behavior. Two years later, the second VP called the CEO to thank him for encouraging him to embark on a journey of personal growth. He reported that, after he was fired three months into his next job, he had entered therapy and discovered the degree to which he had previously shunned all well-meant attempts to help him move to the next developmental level.

Nearly 60 percent of the adults studied in organizations operate according to the Opportunist, Diplomat, or Expert action-logics, yet it is only at the Achiever level (where about 30 percent of managers fall) that people reliably use single-loop feedback to improve their performance (see “Barriers to Organizational Change” on p. 4). When we consider that only about 10 percent of managers currently measure as exercising the Strategist action-logic, which is the first level at which a leader explicitly initiates double-loop, transformational learning, we understand why “learning leaders” and “learning organizations” are so rare.

Individuals who develop to the Strategist stage or beyond can appreciate the paradoxes of exercising what we call “vulnerable power.” They understand that only by exercising power in such a way as to make ourselves vulnerable to transformation can we hope to encourage voluntary transformation in others rather than mere conformity, compliance, or resistance. For example, one CEO openly presented his weaknesses and shortcomings as a leader to his senior team during a time of organizational crisis. Based on this openness, the team was able to assign responsibilities so as to eliminate potential blind spots, challenge each other to develop new skills, and provide regular feedback on each other’s performance. In this way, Strategists are true learning leaders. In contrast, leaders at earlier stages of development would reject out of hand the actions of the Strategist CEO described above. A Diplomat CEO, for instance, would feel threatened by the prospective loss of face in publicly describing his or her weaknesses. In fact, the one Diplomat CEO in our sample companies was so unwilling to work constructively with any negative feedback that eventually his entire strategic planning team resigned, the consultants resigned, and the organization continued to lose money and reputation. Expert and Achiever CEOs are increasingly more likely to be able to cope with negative feedback than the conflict-avoiding Diplomat. However, unlike Strategist CEOs, who are generally able to gauge what actions to take based on the specific situation, Experts and Achievers are less open to generating creative solutions.

What does it mean for an organization to progress developmentally, and how is this kind of improvement related to organizational learning? As in human development, each transformation in organizational development represents a fundamental change and increase in the organization’s capacity. In transforming through the first three action-logics (Conception, Investments, and Incorporation), an organization grows from a dream into a functioning, producing social system. If it transforms through the second three action-logics (Experiments, Systematic Productivity, and Collaborative Inquiry), the organization gains the capacity to change its strategies and structures intentionally. Just as few persons today evolve beyond the Achiever actionlogic, few organizations today evolve beyond the analogous Systematic Productivity action-logic. But when they do (as in the case of Alcoholics Anonymous and the Jesuit Order), they become capable of helping their members develop to the point of recognizing and correcting incongruities among their visions, strategies, actual behavior, and outcomes; that is, they become true “learning organizations.” In short, each organizational transformation from one action-logic to the next represents major organizational learning.

Obstacles to Change

In the 10 organizations that we studied, all of the CEOs and many members of the senior management teams completed a diagnostic test. Five of the CEOs measured at the Strategist stage or later, and five measured at pre-Strategist stages. In all five cases in which the CEO was found to be at the Strategist stage, the organization transformed in a positive way—the business grew in size, profitability, quality, strategy, and reputation. Moreover, trained scorers agreed that these CEOs supported a total of 15 organizational transformations. Conversely, in the five cases of organizations with pre-Strategist CEOs, there were no organizational transformations, and, in three cases, the organization experienced crises and highly visible performance blockages.

What happened in the two anomalous cases, where the organization changed for the better but the CEO was evaluated at a pre-Strategist action-logic? When we researched that question, we found something quite interesting: In both instances, the CEO had treated an outside consultant and one or more team members, all of whom measured as Strategists, as close confidantes. For instance, in one of the not-for-profits, the CEO worked unusually closely with a consultant for several years, inviting his influence in all aspects of the operation of the senior management team. This CEO also promoted one Strategist manager to senior management and highlighted the work of another in a way that increased the influence of that work over the whole organization.

By contrast, in the three examples in which the organizations did not transform in a positive direction, the pre-Strategist CEOs had increasingly distanced themselves from the consultant and from senior management team members who measured at the Strategist stage or later. In one case, the CEO alternated between, on the one hand, highly valuing his internal consultant/senior manager and the change process and, on the other hand, trying to displace her from the senior management team altogether while freezing the change process. Not surprisingly, the organization did not transform during this period.

Leverage Points for Organizational Development

So, what do the results of this study mean for other organizations that may be embarking on, or are in the midst of, a transformation process? First of all, they indicate that any business that is serious about organizational transformation should carefully consider the significance of the CEO’s role. Our results challenge common assumptions such as, “Change can start anywhere in the organization” or “Bottom-up change is what we want.” At least initially, the CEO’s informed support is necessary in order to create a culture in which anyone in the organization can initiate change.

Second, if the CEO is unwilling to assume a leadership role in the transformation or is unable to accept feedback from others, our results support raising this issue with him or her as early as possible to highlight the potential impact of this behavior on the change process. Different CEOs are likely to respond as differently as the two vice presidents in the earlier story (and here it is relevant to add that other members of that senior team had incorrectly predicted which VP would choose a learning response and which would resist the change effort).

Third, the results of this study indicate the usefulness of diagnosing the current developmental actionlogic of the organization as a whole in order to understand the challenges it faces and to outline strategies for moving to the next level. Certainly, we as consultants did so in each case and tested our tentative diagnoses and strategic prognoses with members of the organizations. We found that our diagnoses gained us legitimacy and helped focus the transformation process.

Fourth, developmental theory holds that a person operating from a later action-logic can play a positive role in supporting the transformation of a person or organization at an earlier stage of development. Thus, a CEO at the Achiever stage can help an organization at the Experiments stage or earlier to transform. Likewise, as we found in the two organizations that transformed without the guidance of a Strategist CEO, a preStrategist CEO may successfully partner with others from within or outside the company to support organizational learning.

Fifth, members of the senior team can engage in a self-diagnosis process (with the help of the references listed at the end of this article), or they can solicit outside assistance to evaluate the current level of individual and organizational development. At first blush, it may seem unacceptably risky to attempt two change processes — of senior management team members and of the organization — at the same time. Why not work first with the senior management team and later with the wider organization? This may be possible and preferable in some cases, but often the organizational and environmental conditions that call for transformation will brook no delay. Also, staff members’ awareness that the CEO and senior managers are facing the same vulnerabilities, uncertainties, and experiments as

Staff members’ awareness that the CEO and senior managers are facing the same vulnerabilities, uncertainties, and experiments as they are can become a potent force for widespread buy-in.

they are can become a potent force for widespread buy-in.

Finally, the five disciplines, accompanied by mentoring, journal keeping, meditation-in-action, and reflective, multicriteria performance assessments, are all ways of moving from one developmental action-logic to the next. Organizational retreats to engage in “systems experiencing” across the four territories of assessing, performing, strategizing, and visioning can sometimes transform the actionlogic of an organization in a single weekend.

Engaging in Transformation

So far as we know, these are the only 10 cases in which the developmental action-logic of senior managers and its effect on organizational transformation have been studied. Our results suggest that leaders who use power in a mutually transforming manner can help an organization evolve through earlier stages up to the Collaborative Inquiry stage, where organizational learning is likely to flourish.

Developmental theory shows that, rather than defending against change, true learning leaders and learning organizations are continually engaged in the transformation process. In the face of perpetual transition, the great challenge is how to engage in both productive activities and thoughtful inquiry over the short and longterm. This process entails interweaving these two key elements in the organization’s vision (e.g., SAS airlines’ motto “moments of truth”), in its strategies (e.g., 3M’s formula for linking a division’s funding to the percentage of its ROI that comes from recent innovations), in its operations (e.g., meetings that encourage frank inquiry and dialogue as well as decisiveness), and in its assessments (e.g., 360-degree feedback).

This transformational learning challenge is at least as great as the struggle to gain unilateral political, economic, and technological control over nature and society that has preoccupied us for the past 500 years. As more and more of us become aware of the dignity of mutual, transformational partnerships, rather than unilateral, exploitative relationships, within organizations and polities, between men and women, and between society and nature, we will become increasingly inspired to devote our daily lives to these means and these ends.

David Rooke is a partner of Harthill Group Consultants in England. William R. Torbert currently serves as professor of management at the Carroll School of Management, Boston College (torbert@bc.edu). A detailed description of the methods and statistical results of the study described in this article can be found in D. Rooke and W. R. Torbert, “Organizational Transformation as a Function of CEOs’ Developmental Stage,” Organizational Development Journal, Vol. 16 No. 1, Spring 1998.

For Further Reading

Fisher, D., and W. R. Torbert. Personal and Organizational Transformation: The True Challenge of Continual Quality Improvement. McGraw-Hill, 1995.

Kegan, R. In Over Our Heads: The Mental Demands of Modern Life. Harvard University Press, 1994.

Miller, M., and S. Cook-Greuter. Transcendence and Mature Thought in Adulthood: The Further Reaches of Adult Development. Rowman & Littlefield, 1994.

Torbert, W. R. The Power of Balance: Transforming Self, Society, and Scientific Inquiry. Sage, 1991.

Wilber, K. Sex, Ecology, Spirituality: The Spirit of Evolution. Shambala, 1995.

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What does all this mean for the companies that support golf, particularly the manufacturers and wholesalers that develop golf equipment and accessories? Given the recent positive trends – along with other advantages such as broader distribution channels and use of inexpensive overseas labor – golf-equipment manufacturers should be posting record earnings (see “The Growth of Golf “).

This figure shows the common mental model of how the golf business “growth engine” works. As interest in golf increases, retailer demand for golf equipment also rises. As the demand for equipment increases, the golf manufacturers who supply the products see an increase in their market value and revenues. Manufacturers are thus able to invest in R&D and production, and thereby deliver more innovative products to market. The increase in products enhanced by easy-to-use features and new, aesthetically pleasing designs then stimulates further interest in the game.

However, this model does not reflect the complete picture of the golf-industry marketplace. A quick financial “reality check” reveals a surprisingly different view. Let’s take a look at these “low-lights”:

• The world’s largest golf manufacturing company, Calloway Golf, lost 75 percent of its stock value from mid-1997 to late 1998. Calloway’s purchase of Odyssey Putter failed to bolster profit margins and revenue, and the company scheduled a staff reduction of 700 for the first quarter of 1999.
• Fortune Brands, owner of Titleist, Footjoy, and Cobra, has seen its stock-trading drop to near all-time lows. When Fortune purchased Cobra in 1997 for $700 million, observers gushed about a “third jewel in the crown.” Yet as with Calloway, the acquisition has not led to the expected boost in revenues.
• The industry has endured multiple mergers, and the new entities arising from this are struggling. For example, RAM merged with Tommy Armour to create a company called Tear Drop, whose stock price also lost more than 50 percent of its value from fall 1997 to fall 1998.
• Despite a $34 million capital infusion in July 1996, and assets totaling $30 million in July 1997, Lynx Golf, Inc. filed for Chapter 11 bankruptcy protection in July 1998.

What’s going on? If we analyze the situation from a systemic perspective, the forces behind the industry’s difficulties – and some insights into how these companies might recover – become markedly clear.

Questions for Reflection

• What could have caused market valuation to drop even though overall demand for golf equipment has been rising?
• Given the expanding customer base, we might expect demand for golf equipment to start rising exponentially. If equipment manufacturers wait until they’re certain that the unmet demand is “for real,” what might happen?
• If sales increase, how do the associated customer-service levels have to change if growth is to be sustained? As the customer base grows, the golf industry may become a commodity business. If this were to happen, what features would distinguish the various competitors?
• If production demands increase, how will management of internal staff need to change so as to attract and retain the best performers?

A Closer Look at the Golf-Equipment Business

To grasp why the golf-equipment industry is in trouble and spot possible leverage points for change, let’s take a closer look at the current system. One place to start is to explore how the golf industry’s plight might resemble a “Growth and Underinvestment” archetypal story (see “Underinvestment in the Golf Business”). Loop R1, as we saw above, represents the growth engine that is prompting the rise in retailer demand for golf equipment. Yet because most equipment manufacturers will wait until they’re sure that the unmet demand is “for real” before investing in R&D and production capacity, they fail to keep pace with the rise in demand. Even though some companies, in response to the jump in backlog, may hurry to boost production and R&D capacity (B3), these investments take time and money. The effects of any increase in capacity may not be felt for quite a while. In the meantime, backlogs have continued to worsen, frustrating customers and in turn reducing demand and eventually backlog (B2).

The tricky thing about this situation is that, when companies finally notice the eventual drop in demand and backlog, many of them respond by reducing investments in production capacity (and resorting to other cost-cutting measures, such as layoffs) at the exact moment when they should be boosting capacity. This dynamic can result in a steady downward slide for the company, as reductions in capacity prevent it from addressing the original source of backlog: the rise in demand.

What kinds of data would indicate that this dynamic is indeed happening in the golf industry? Check out these noteworthy trends:

• Product design and development. This function started out as a kind of cottage industry, featuring high levels of craftsmanship and tooling. Now, owing to recent technical advances, most golf clubs have very similar characteristics. And the associated product life cycle has shortened from three to four years to two to three years.
• Manufacturing and production. To decrease unit costs, a company has to produce large quantities of similar products. Therefore, forecasting accurate sales volumes becomes increasingly important. In addition, because most golf-equipment manufacturing is now performed overseas, product-development lead times have stretched to six to nine months. These factors have created delays in manufacturing and production. Last, with more production now automated, most golf clubs are no longer created by skilled artisans. Instead, different components are made by different companies, in different parts of the world, and the clubs are “assembled” by low-wage workers.
• Marketing and distribution. These functions have mandated payment of large sums of endorsement money to a few marquee players. In addition, the advancement of golf retail outlets has hurt “on-course” shop sales, blurring distribution channels. With the advent of the Internet, distribution channels are further “cannibalizing” each other.
• Order fulfillment and customer service. Product delivery times have deteriorated. Even though a set of golf clubs can be assembled in less than one day, orders for a customized set require six to eight weeks to deliver. And once standard club sets that are primarily sold in retail outlets are depleted, replenishment takes more than a month. Unfortunately, customer service staff are required to deliver the bad news about order-fulfillment delays to retail customers. The resulting strain leads to high turnover rates and low morale among customer service representatives. Last, internal information systems lack adequate tracking of orders, repair and warranty items, receivable balances, etc. – further eroding service quality.

Unintended Consequences and Financial Ramifications

How do the above conditions play out in the context of the “Growth and Underinvestment” systems archetype? The situation unfolds along these lines: As equipment manufacturers decide that backlogs are “for real,” many of them overproduce so as to compensate for the unmet demand. This effort requires manufacturing staff to work long hours. Once the inevitable drop in sales and corresponding build-up of inventory that are common to a “Growth and Underinvestment” situation begin, companies also heavily discount products to generate at least some revenue. This practice renders products obsolete and dampens prices even more.

As these unhappy events unfold, cash flow decreases, causing manufacturers to cut costs quickly, which usually translates into massive layoffs. Such cuts corrode morale even further, culminating in even lower levels of service quality. Also, any planned investments for research and development, production capacity, or staff training are all but eliminated, making it increasingly difficult for firms to rebound. Companies caught in this dynamic may find themselves struggling for their very survival.

Proposing a Systemic Makeover

As Barry Richmond has explained, many organizational problems stem from “straight-line thinking,” in which an emphasis on linear cause-and-effect on the part of the industry leaders themselves strangles the business (see “Closed-Loop Thinking,” V9N4). Straight-line thinking makes it difficult to see how our actions might actually be worsening our original problem through unintentional dynamic feedback.

To see how this works, notice how many of the unintended results in the discussion above compound each other. For example, mandating overtime to produce more golf clubs that later are left unsold eventually leads to layoffs of the production staff and “blow-out” sales. Unsold product “ages” and becomes obsolete, which in turn makes it hard to sell. Clearly, the failure of industry leaders to perceive these dynamic structures and to understand the role of delays is playing a major role in the industry’s declining profitability.

Now let’s contrast straight-line thinking with a more systemic perspective. In a “Growth and Under-investment” situation, companies respond to backlogs too slowly, creating new capacity just as frustrated customers abandon ship. Or, companies over-estimate how much capacity is needed because of the long backlog of orders. To avoid these traps, golf manufacturers should think first about how to invest to keep capacity ahead of demand, but without incurring too much risk. Rising demand is good, but companies need to keep in mind that it can spark a “Growth and Underinvestment” situation if demand exceeds capacity.

To sustain jumps in demand, companies need to provide an available product at an acceptable price, delivered in a timely manner. Manufacturers have to be able to respond quickly to fluctuations in sales volume and to the need for certain product changes. How can companies achieve this flexibility? One possibility is to redesign the entire golf club into interchangeable parts. For example, companies could design a steel shaft that fits more than one type of head, or a head that fits more than one type of shaft. Either design strategy would at least double the number of club combinations available from the same number of components. In this way, manufacturers could quickly satisfy shifts in preferences from the market.

Once a set of clubs is assembled, decomposing the club back into its original parts is costly. To leverage the investment in the component and allow for fast, flexible incorporation of component design improvements into the product line – manufacturers could avoid assembling components until they are ready to fulfill an actual order.

Clearly, this level of product customization would require a whole new information infrastructure. Detailed knowledge by salespeople about the golf-club component mix, and about what is and isn’t selling at what price, would be paramount. Real-time sales numbers and product-mix configurations would need to be available immediately to the manufacturing shop floor, which in turn would use the information to smooth out production-flow peaks and valleys. With an increase in information accuracy, quality of customer service would also improve. Also, any actions taken to address oscillations in the production flow would be much more timely. The manufacturer would be assembling only those products that had already been sold (in the case of customized sets of clubs), or that would soon be sold (to retail outlets).

These changes would help to align production flows with sales flows, thus addressing the inventory-backup problem that delay can cause in a “Growth and Underinvestment” situation. As a result, revenue streams might stabilize, which would allow for appropriate investments in staff development, production capacity, and product enhancements.

The Future of Golf

Golf, as a sport, has a long tradition of integrity and honor – a tradition that in turn depends heavily on the standards set in the golf industry. By taking a systemic view of how they operate, golf-equipment manufacturers have an opportunity to both support this vital, growing sport and pull themselves out of the sand trap in which they’re currently mired.

Dominic Bosque (dbosque@sonic.net) is a senior manager at CAST Management Consultants, a consulting firm that specializes in creating human, natural, and financial capital wealth through the application of system dynamics, computer simulation, and sustainability principles. Lauren Keller Johnson is publications editor at Pegasus Communications.

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Breakdowns in human interaction and communication play a pivotal role in organizational life. In the case of Monsanto and American Home Products, the CEOs of the two companies had very different approaches to leadership. One spent his lunch hour playing basketball with employees. The other refused to move to the company’s new headquarters, preferring to stay in touch with key employees by email. The two leaders gradually began to question each other’s motives and moves. For instance, when one of the chairmen recommended a candidate for CFO, the other circulated a memo asserting that this man would never fill the role. Each felt that the other was undermining him and the company. They eventually proved unable to work together, and the merger fell through.

Sometimes apparently successful mergers also quickly show signs of strain. Eight months into their venture, Citigroup, the new amalgamation of Travelers Group and Citicorp, fired James Dimon, the man who acted as peacemaker between, and was assumed to be the heir apparent to, this firm’s two co-chief executives. Dimon was widely respected; his departure came not as a result of poor performance but, as one manager put it, “corporate politics.”

Executives interviewed later said that the collapsed Monsanto and American Home Products deal was “not in the best interests of the shareholders” and that Dimon’s surprising exit “was the best thing for the business.” Yet this kind of talk covers up more honest accounts about what happened. According to reports, the leaders in each of these situations hit awkward conflicts about a range of substantive issues: ultimate control in a “co-CEO” scenario, membership of important executive teams, and the timing of integrating disparate cultures and businesses. In the end, these people failed to find a way to talk and think together effectively to resolve these difficult issues.

Although we all may not be dealing with strained or failing multibillion dollar corporate mergers, we are probably quite familiar with such difficulties in communication and trust and the way these can dramatically affect organizational performance. So how do we create environments that can transform these difficulties into successes?

This article explores how “dialogic leadership,” an approach that has evolved from the core principles from the field of “dialogue,” can lead to the creation of environments that can dissolve fragmentation and bring out people’s collective wisdom.

The Concept of Dialogue

In the new knowledge-based, networked economy, the ability to talk and think together well is a vital source of competitive advantage and organizational effectiveness. This is because human beings create, refine, and share knowledge through conversation. In a world where technology has led to the erosion of traditional hierarchical boundaries, and where former competitors (such as Exxon and Mobil) contemplate becoming bedfellows, the glue that holds things together is no longer “telling” but “conversing.”

The term “dialogue” comes from Greek and signifies a “flow of meaning.” The essence of dialogue is an inquiry that surfaces ideas, perceptions, and understanding that people do not already have. This is not the norm: We typically try to come to important conversations well prepared. A hallmark for many of us is that there are “no surprises” in our meetings. Yet this is the antithesis of dialogue. You have a dialogue when you explore the uncertainties and questions that no one has answers to. In this way you begin to think together – not simply report out old thoughts. In dialogue people learn to use the energy of their differences to enhance their collective wisdom.

Dialogue can be contrasted with “discussion,” a word whose roots mean “to break apart.” Discussions are conversations where people hold onto and defend their differences. The hope is that the clash of opinion will illuminate productive pathways for action and insight. Yet in practice, discussion often devolves into rigid debate, where people view one another as positions to agree with or refute, not as partners in a vital, living relationship. Such exchanges represent a series of one-way streets, and the end results are often not what people wish for: polarized arguments where people withhold vital information and shut down creative options.

Although it may make logical sense to have dialogue in our repertoire, it can seem illusive and even a little quaint. Yet the fact remains that every significant strategic and organizational endeavor requires people at some stage to sit and talk together. In the end, nothing can substitute for this interpersonal contact. Unfortunately, much of our talk merely reinforces the problems we seek to resolve. What is needed is a new approach to conversation, one that can enable leaders to bring out people’s untapped wisdom and collective insights.

Human beings create, refine, and share knowledge through conversation.

“Dialogic leadership” is the term I have given to a way of leading that consistently uncovers, through conversation, the hidden creative potential in any situation. Four distinct qualities support this process: the abilities (1) to evoke people’s genuine voices, (2) to listen deeply, (3) to hold space for and respect as legitimate other people’s views, and (4) to broaden awareness and perspective. Put differently, a dialogic leader is balanced, and evokes balance, because he can embody all four of these qualities and can activate them in others.

An old story about Gandhi illustrates this concept well. A man came to Gandhi with his young son, complaining that he was eating too much sugar. The man asked for advice. Gandhi thought for a moment and then said, “Go away, and come back in three days.” The man did as he was asked and returned three days later. Now Gandhi said to the boy, “You must stop eating so much sugar.” The boy’s father, mystified, inquired, “Why did you need three days to say that?” Gandhi replied, “First, I had to stop eating sugar.” Similarly, dialogic leadership implies being a living example of what you speak about – that is, demonstrating these qualities in your daily life.

Four Action Capabilities for Dialogic Leaders

The four qualities for a dialogic leader mentioned above are mirrored in four distinct kinds of actions that a person may take in any conversation. These actions were identified by David Kantor, a well-known family systems therapist (see “Four-Player Model”). Kantor suggests that some people move – they initiate ideas and offer direction. Other people follow- they complete what is said, help others clarify their thoughts, and support what is happening. Still others oppose – they challenge what is being said and question its validity. And others bystand – they actively notice what is going on and provide perspective on what is happening.

Watching the actions people take can give you enormous information about the quality of their interactions and can indicate if they are moving in the direction of dialogue or discussion. For instance, in a dialogic system, any person may take any of the four actions at any time. Although people may have a preferred position, each individual is able to move and initiate, to follow and complete things, to oppose, and to observe and provide perspective. None of these roles is better or worse than the others. They are all necessary for the system to function properly. As people recognize these different roles and can act on this recognition, they begin to create a sequence of interactions that keeps the conversation moving toward balance.

In a system that is moving away from dialogue, people generally get stuck in one of the four positions. For instance, some people are “stuck movers”: They express one idea, and before that idea is established or acted upon, they give another, and another, making it difficult to know what to focus on. But perhaps most revealing of non-dialogic interactions are the ritualized and repetitive interactions that people fall into that systematically exclude one or more of the positions.

In the Monsanto merger process, for instance, the two CEOs became locked in a dynamic where one would initiate an action, and the other would oppose and neutralize it, leading the other to push back even harder. The conflict eventually escalated to the point where it sabotaged the deal.

An intense move-oppose cycle between two high-powered players like this one often prevents others from fulfilling their roles as “bystanders” and “followers.” The bystanders, who can see the ineffective exchange, often become “disabled,” imagining that no one wants them to identify what is happening. So the knowledge they carry is lost. At the same time, people who might otherwise be inclined to follow one side or the other to help complete what is being said tend to stay on the sidelines, for fear of getting caught in the cross-fire. The result is that the interaction remains unbalanced.

The quality and nature of the specific roles can often cause difficulties. For example, opposers are generally branded as troublemakers because they question the prevailing wisdom when people would prefer to have agreement. For this reason, others often tune them out. This failure to acknowledge the value of the opposer’s perspective leads them to raise their voices and sometimes increase the critical tone of their comments. In such cases, people hear the criticism, but not the underlying intent, which is almost always to clarify, correct, or bring balance and integrity to the situation.

A dialogic leader will often look for ways to restore balance in people’s interactions. For instance, she might strengthen the opposers if they are weak or reinforce the bystanders if they have information but have withheld it. Genuinely making room for someone who wants to challenge typically causes them to soften the stridency of their tone and makes it more possible for others to hear what they have to say. Reinforcing and standing with those who have delicate but vital information can enable them to reveal it. The simple rule here is: Pay attention to the actions that are missing and provide them yourself, or encourage others to do so.

Balancing Advocacy and Inquiry

One central dimension in a dialogue is the emergence of a particular balance between the positions people advocate and their willingness to inquire into their own and other’s views. Professors Chris Argyris and Don Schön first proposed the concepts of “advocacy” and “inquiry” to foster conversations that promote learning (see their book Organizational Learning, Addison-Wesley, 1978 for a fuller explanation). In the vast majority of situations, advocacy rules: People are trained to express their views as fast as possible. As it is sometimes put, “People do not listen, they reload.” They attribute meaning and impute motives, often without inquiring into what others really meant or intended. This was evidently the case in the merger situations described above. Bellicose advocacy stifles inquiry and learning.

The four-player model further reveals the relationship between advocacy and inquiry (see “Balancing Advocacy and Inquiry”). To advocate well, you must move and oppose well; to inquire, you must bystand and follow. Yet again, the absence of any of the elements hinders interaction. For instance, someone who opposes, but fails to also say what he wants (i.e., moves) is likely to be less effective as an advocate. Similarly, someone who follows what others say (“tell me more”) but never provides perspective may draw out more information but never deepen the inquiry. Thus, the figure “Balancing Advocacy and Inquiry” reveals another way to track the action in a conversation and offer balance into it.

Four Practices for Dialogic Leadership

Balanced action, in the sense named here, is an essential and necessary precondition for dialogue. But it is not sufficient. Dialogue is a qualitatively different kind of exchange. Dialogic leaders have an ear for this difference in quality and are constantly seeking to produce it in themselves and others. I have found that there are four distinct practices that can enhance the quality of conversation. These four correspond well to the four positions named above.

For instance, you can choose to move in different ways: by expressing your true voice and encouraging others to do the same, or by imposing your views on others. You can oppose with a belief that you know better than everyone else, or from a stance of respect, in which you acknowledge that your colleagues have wisdom that you may not see. Similarly, you can follow by listening selectively, imposing your interpretation of what the speaker is presenting. Or you can listen as a compassionate participant, grounding your understanding of what is said in directly observable experience. Finally, you can bystand by taking the view that only you can see things as they are, or you can suspend your certainties and accept that others may see things that you miss. In order to make conscious choices about our behavior, we need to become aware of our own intentions and of the impact of our actions on others.

There are four practices implied here — speaking your true voice, and encouraging others to do the same; listening as a participant; respecting the coherence of others’ views; and suspending your certainties. Each requires deliberate cultivation and development (see “Four Practices for Dialogic Leadership”).

Listening. Recently, a manager in a program I was leading said, “You know, I have always prepared myself to speak. But I have never prepared myself to listen.” This is because we take listening for granted, although it is actually very hard to do. Following well requires us to cultivate the capacity to listen – rather than simply impose meaning on what other people are saying. To follow deeply is to blend with someone to the point where we begin to participate fully in understanding how they understand. When we do not listen, all we have is our own interpretation.

Equally important is the ability to listen together. To listen together is to learn to be a part of a larger whole – the voice and meaning emerging not only from me, but from all of us. Dialogues often have a quality of shared emergence, where in speaking together, people realize that they have been thinking about the same things. They are struck when they begin to hear their own thoughts coming out of the mouths of others. Often decisions do not need to be made; the right next step simply becomes obvious to everyone. This kind of flow, while rare, is made possible when we relax our grip on what we think and listen for what others might be thinking. In this situation, we begin to follow not only one another, but the emerging flow of meaning itself.

Respecting. Respect is the practice that shifts the quality of our opposing. To respect is to see people, as Humberto Maturana puts it, as “legitimate others.” An atmosphere of respect encourages people to look for the sense in what others are saying and thinking. To respect is to listen for the coherence in their views, even when we find what they are saying unacceptable.

Peter Garrett, a colleague of mine, has run dialogues in maximum security prisons in England for four years. He deals with the most serious, violent offenders in that country on a weekly basis. Together, they have produced some remarkable results. For instance, prisoners who will not attend any other sessions come to the dialogue. Offenders who start off speaking incomprehensibly and who carry deep emotional wounds gradually learn to speak their voice and to listen. Peter carries an unusual ability to respect, which reassures and strengthens the genuineness in others. This stance enables him to challenge and oppose what they say, without evoking reaction. I asked him to share the most important lesson that he has learned in his work. He said, “Inquiry and violence cannot coexist.” True respect enables genuine inquiry.

Suspending. When we listen to someone speak, we face a critical choice. On the one hand, we can resist the speaker’s point of view. We can try to get the other person to understand and accept the “right” way to see things. We can look for evidence to support our view that they are mistaken and discount evidence that may point to flaws in our own logic. This behavior produces what one New York Times editorial writer called “serial monologues,” rather than dialogue.

On the other hand, we can learn to suspend our opinion and the certainty that lies behind it. Suspension means that we neither suppress what we think nor advocate it with unilateral conviction. Rather, we display our thinking in a way that lets us and others see and understand it. We simply acknowledge and observe our thoughts and feelings as they arise without feeling compelled to act on them. This practice can release a tremendous amount of creative energy. To suspend is to bystand with awareness, which makes it is possible for us to see what is happening more objectively.

For instance, in one of our dialogues with steelworkers and managers, a union leader said, “We need to suspend this word union. When you hear it you say ‘Ugh.’ When we hear it we say ‘Ah.’ Why is that?” This statement prompted an unprecedented level of reflection between managers and union people. Our research suggests that suspension is one of several practices essential to bringing about genuine dialogue.

Voicing. Finally, to speak our voice is perhaps one of the most challenging aspects of dialogic leadership. “Courageous speech,” says poet David Whyte in his book The Heart Aroused, “has always held us in awe.” It does so, he suggests, because it is so revealing of our inner lives. Speaking our voice has to do with revealing what is true for each of us, regardless of all the other influences that might be brought to bear on us.

In December 1997, around a crowded table in the Presidential Palace in Tatarstan, Russia, a group of senior Russian and Chechen officials and their guests were in the middle of dinner. Things had been tense earlier in the day. Chechnya had recently asserted its independence through guerrilla warfare and attacks on the Russians. They had shocked the world by forcing the Russian military to withdraw and accede to their demands for recognition as an independent state. The Chechens were deeply suspicious of the academics and Western politicians who had gathered everyone in that room; the Chechens feared that they were Russian pawns intent on derailing Chechen independence. The Russians, for their part, were fearful of adding further legitimacy to what they considered a deeply troubling situation.

And yet, despite all this suspicion, after a few hours people began to relax. At the first toast of the evening, the negotiator/facilitator of the session stood up and said, “Up until a few days ago, I had been with my mother in New Mexico in the States. She is dying of cancer. I debated whether to come here at all to participate in this gathering. But when I told her that I was coming to help facilitate a dialogue among all of you, in this important place on the earth, she ordered me to come. There was no debate. So here I am. I raise my glass to mothers.” There followed a long moment of silence in the room.

Dialogic leaders cultivate listening, suspending, respecting, and voicing

It is in courageous moments like these that one’s genuine voice is heard. Displays of such profound directness can lift us out of ourselves. They show us a broader horizon and put things in perspective. Such moments also remind us of our resilience and invite us to look harder for a way through whatever difficulties we are facing. When we “move” by speaking our authentic voice, we set up a new order of things, open new possibilities, and create.

Changing the Quality of Action

Dialogic leaders cultivate these four dimensions – listening, suspending, respecting, and voicing — within themselves and in the conversations they have with others. Doing so shifts the quality of interaction in noticeable ways and, in turn, transforms the results that people produce. Failing to do so narrows our view and blinds us to alternatives that might serve everyone.

For instance, in the Monsanto merger story, the CEOs did not seem to respect the coherence of each other’s views. Each one found the other more and more unacceptable. Although we do not know for sure, it seems likely that they did not reflect on perspectives different from their own in such a way that enabled them to see new possibilities. The paradox here is that suspending one’s views and making room for the possibility that the other person’s perspectives may have some validity could open a door that would be otherwise shut. By becoming locked into a rigid set of actions, these leaders ruled out a qualitatively different approach — one that they could have made if they had applied the four dialogic practices described above.

Dialogic leadership focuses attention on two levels at once: the nature of the actions people take during an interaction and the quality of those interactions. Kantor’s model is a potent aid in helping diagnose the lack of balance in actions in any conversation. By noticing which perspective is missing, you can begin to reflect on why this is so and quickly gain valuable information about the situation as a whole.

Dialogic leadership can appear anywhere, at any level of an organization. As people apply the principles outlined above, they are learning to think together, and so greatly increase the odds that they will build the expansive relationships required to build success in the new economy.

William N. Isaacs is the president of Dialogos, a Cambridge, Massachusetts-based consulting firm, and is a lecturer at MIT’s Sloan School of Management. This article is drawn from his new book, Dialogue and the Art of Thinking Together, to be published in May 1999 by Doubleday.

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• There is one team member who always seems to be “the problem.”
• You find yourself thinking, “Why are we having this argument again?
• You have a sense of déjà vu when team members say they will do something that you know will never happen.
• You find yourself becoming increasingly passive in the face of the group’s growing inertia.
• No one seems to have the courage or energy to initiate a discussion about obvious process problems.

These are just a few of the symptoms displayed by teams that are trapped in a predictable dynamic of rising interpersonal turmoil and falling productivity.

The vast majority of us have experienced one or more of these, “Team Traps”; that is, vicious cycles of unproductive behavior that undermines group performance. The affected team can be a family system, a small work group, or any kind of business team from an executive-level task force to a product development group. In such situations, team members often feel frustrated and helpless. These feelings can lead people to take drastic actions, such as giving up on the project or even sabotaging it, which further escalates the group’s level of tension and inability to take effective action.

There is no shortage of books on teams or team problems. Yet most of the descriptions of, and proposed solutions to, dysfunctional team behavior focus on the task or event level of team performance. These resources offer little insight into the underlying structure of relationships that is driving the complex human interactions. For instance, much of the literature stresses the need for teams to agree on a charter and to clarify roles that the members will play. However, the same books offer little analysis of the dynamics that may prevent groups from reaching these kinds of agreements. Even books on conflict resolution tend to focus on the “how tos of negotiation” rather than on the emotional dynamics that can undermine the negotiation process.

Because teams are complex systems, any attempt to “fix” them without understanding the structural causes of their problems runs the risk of becoming a “Fix That Fails.” In such a case, the intervention may be unsuccessful or may create unintended consequences that are even more challenging than the original dilemma. This article describes how the application of systems thinking and human systems concepts can yield a robust “picture” of a team’s underlying structure and pattern of interpersonal dynamics. This perspective can help us to effectively predict and correct or better yet, avoid common Team Traps.

Structure in Social Systems

The structure of any complex system is made up of the relationships among its various components. In the case of a business, which is a kind of social system, these elements include flows of people, money, information, and material, as well as employees’ goals, performance, and emotions.

The only effective way to change a team’s behavior is to identify and modify this web of relationships and interconnections. To do so, we can approach surfacing the root causes of a team’s dysfunction the way a physician diagnoses a patient’s illness by analyzing symptoms and drawing conclusions about the underlying disease or condition causing those symptoms. Ina person an individual “human system” the doctor might intervene by prescribing medication to help the body overcome the ailment, recommend dietary changes to eliminate nutritional elements that have negative effects, or recommend new habitssuch as regular exercise to set into motion reinforcing loops for health.

In a social system, the dimension of the human mind adds another layer of complexity. Individuals’ perceptions, assumptions, beliefs, and emotions all play a role in team dynamics by affecting the actions that people take and the results that they achieve. For this reason, no diagnosis of the “disease” plaguing a human system is complete without an understanding of the emotional drivers at work. But in business organizations especially, we often disregard these important factors. Exploring feelings in a work setting can be threatening and frightening to those of us steeped in a work ethic that calls on us to “suck it up” when things go wrong. When a team fails to fulfill its mission, we focus on refining the task or adjusting the team’s make-up, not on surfacing the interpersonal dynamics that disabled the group’s performance. Nevertheless, it is precisely those situations where emotions remain unexplored that devolve into intractable and disheartening team experiences what we call “Team Traps.”

Team Traps: “Archetypes” of Social Systems

In our study of team performance, we have identified 12 common structural dynamics that teams easily fall into and that interfere with a group’s ability to achieve their purpose. Each of these Team Traps tends to stop groups from doing productive work (see, “Team Traps” on p. 1). These dynamics occur often enough to be considered “archetypal”; in some cases, they are variations of the classic systems thinking archetypes. Most dysfunctional teams tend to get mired in two or three of these Team Traps at any given moment.

Individuals’ perceptions, assumptions, beliefs, and emotions all play a role in team dynamics by affecting the actions that people take and the results that they achieve.

The Team Traps were identified and tested based on empirical research over a 30-year period. They have been cross-referenced with other human system models, such as stages of group development and Kantor’s system types, which are explained below. Teams generally fall into these traps while deciding on a common purpose, managing internal and external boundaries, resolving conflicts, making decisions, assigning accountability, and other important process steps. The Team Traps concept highlights how these process issues affect task issues, and vice versa. For example, a team stuck in escalating conflict between two key members either grinds to a halt on its deliverables or develops an elaborate “work-around” that limits the amount of interaction the combatants have, also slowing down the task at hand.

At a moderate level, the symptoms of the Team Trap dynamics include frustration by group members, or frantic but unproductive efforts to achieve the stated goal. At a severe level, teams caught in these traps become disabled; that is, they are no longer able to work together as a group to fulfill their common mission. The long-term effects of these dysfunctional patterns of behavior can prove even more destructive than merely undermining the current project they can corrode or even destroy team members’ confidence and level of trust well into the future.

So, how can we escape from or, even better, avoid, these quagmires? Because each Team Trap involves both task and relationship issues, we have found that using a combination of tools from the fields of systems thinking and human systems can be a potent force for altering these common structures.

Integrating System Dynamics and Human Systems

Although they share a common ancestry, the fields of human systems and system dynamics have remained relatively separate since the 1950s. The major work in human systems has been carried out in anthropology, psychology, and family therapy. System dynamics has its origins in the “hard” sciences of physics, mathematics, biology, and later computer science. The systems thinking movement has begun the process of integrating the two fields through the five-disciplines model introduced by Peter Senge. By analyzing team behavior on a structural level with causal loop diagrams and using human systems tools and concepts to frame and explain those loops, we hope to carry that integration one step further.

Using causal loop diagrams, we can map the interplay of task and emotional processes. For example, in the Inability to Reach Closure Team Trap, as the amount of work the team completes (task) goes down, frustration (emotion) increases (see “Inability to Reach Closure Loop”). As frustration increases, the number of actions that individuals take outside of the team framework (task) grows, which interferes with focused team action (task), and further decreases the amount of work being accomplished. Causal loop diagrams provide a richer understanding of human systems than an event level analysis that focuses only on tasks, and can help us uncover the role that emotional factors play in perpetuating the system.

Causal loop diagrams also provide a testing ground for potential solutions. Using an agreed-upon representation of the dynamics, managers, team-leaders, and facilitators can explore why intuitive solutions don’t work, and test exactly what approaches might be successful and why. For instance, a common reaction to the Unresolved Overt Conflict Team Trap is for one team member to plead with the two adversaries to “be reasonable,” to notice how their behavior is destroying the team’s ability to accomplish anything, and to compromise. Although this intervention may seem appropriate, it seldom works, because it does not address the emotions underpinning the harmful behavior.

Causal loop diagrams let us identify the high-leverage areas for successful intervention. For instance, in our example of Unresolved Overt Conflict, the first step might be to acknowledge the disagreeing parties’ underlying fears which are usually that they are not being heard and try reversing the process that evolved to make them feel disrespected to begin with. Only after each team member feels that the others hear and value his or her perspective and experience can the group resume its original work.

In system dynamics, possible structural interventions include adding a link, breaking a link, and changing a delay. An example of adding a link to a social system like a business would be to create a measurement system to track work completed. Another new link might be to develop a forum for talking about underlying fears that maybe fueling conflict. An example of changing a delay would be to establish periodic status meetings to decrease the gap between actual project progress and perceived project progress. Finally, instituting meeting rules that disallow overt challenges to ideas might constitute breaking a link. The knowledge generated by these kinds of systemic interventions can powerfully advance team learning.

Part of the challenge for intervening in social systems lies in identifying the kinds of structural changes that might be effective. It’s easier to simply react to the situation as an individual than to figure out what is causing the collective team behavior. It’s also much easier to talk about the work to be done than to honestly explore pivotal emotional issues that are holding up progress. As mentioned above, we have found that applying human system tools in tandem with systems thinking tools creates tremendous synergy. The human system approaches provide an additional framework for diagramming social systems and for identifying possible high-leverage actions. Two human system tools by the family systems therapist David Kantor are particularly valuable: The Four-Player Model and System Types.

Four Player Model: Intervening Systemically

In this context, we call Kantor’s Four-Player Model the Four Team Roles (for more detail on this model, see, “Dialogic Leadership” by William N. Isaacs in V10N1). According to this model, every sequence of interactions can be described as the interplay of people filling four roles: Mover, Opposer (or what we call Challenger), Follower (or Supporter), and Bystander (or Mirror). A meeting or conversation begins with an initial action by the Mover. Other people either support or challenge the action, or call attention to the process (Mirror).

This framework is useful for analyzing team behavior, identifying variables in causal loop diagrams, and designing solutions to the Team Traps. How does this work in practice? Let’s look at one particularly disabling Team Trap: False Consensus. False Consensus is characterized by the following list of symptoms:

• People silently nod their heads in support of an initiative even though they don’t really agree with what is happening.
• A lack of discussion results in faulty decisions.
• Controversy is discouraged out of fear of slowing down the process.
• People say one thing but think or do another.
• Team members undermine the decision after the meeting.
• Because participants don’t really “buy in,” they don’t follow through on assigned tasks

In a False Consensus scenario, someone, usually the team leader, wants something to be done to address a problem or exploit an opportunity (R2in “The Dynamics of False Consensus”). Fearing repercussions if they question (Challenge) this action, the rest of the group gives a “head nod” to the leader, resulting in false agreement and consequently poor follow-through.

Because no one actually takes action to implement the leader’s idea, the original problem intensifies, resulting in stronger “moving” by the leader. Notice how the causal loop diagram includes both task and process variables, and how emotion (fear of repercussions) drives the behavior (head-nodding) that ultimately worsens the situation.

The team members’ fear of repercussions and the strength of their conviction that the Mover’s actions are wrong-headed make them angry. These emotions quickly find expression in covert conversations around the water cooler and in the hallways, which legitimize the inaction and lack of productivity (R3). Not only does this behavior exacerbate the original problem, but it also isolates the team leader, again increasing his or her level of frustration and tendency to push for action (what Kantor refers to as a, “Stuck Mover”).

At this point, the entire team feels stressed. Certain individuals may try to solve the problem by approaching the Mover to discuss the situation. However, the longer the issue persists, the more defensive the team leader may feel. This defensiveness can stymie any attempts to initiate a dialogue (R4). Because the team members do not feel that they can overtly challenge the leader, they continue to resist the plan covertly (R5).

THE DYNAMICS OF FALSE CONSENSUS

The Mover wants something to be done. Team members’ fear of repercussions leads them to appear to accept the mandate, but they fail to take action (R2). These fears find expression in covert conversations, which legitimize the inaction and cause the leader to feel defensive (R3). This defensiveness stymies attempts to initiate a dialogue (R4). Because the team members do not feel that they can talk to the leader, they continue to resist the plan(R5). Leverage lies in supporting rather than challenging the Mover.

Supporting the Mover may seem counter intuitive, even for experienced facilitators. In addition, team members may have difficulty forgiving the Mover for his or her heavy handedness in pressing for action. Never the less, we have seen numerous breakthroughs achieved when a team member or an outside facilitator validates a Mover’s motives. After all, the Mover is at least trying to solve the perceived problem or capitalize on the opportunity. Validating his or her intentions makes the Mover feel understood, which lessens the need to push for action.

Validation also opens the door to the possibility of a new solution to the ongoing challenge. It makes the Mover more able to hear others’ perspectives and to consider alternative solutions to the problem. This openness in turn sets the stage for a dialogue about the emotions — such as fear of repercussions that have been fueling the process. In such cases, creating a causal loop diagram and using insights from human systems can lead to a new understanding of both the problem behavior and the structural solution.

System Types: Differing Vulnerabilities

David Kantor and later Larry Constantine have postulated that all human systems fall into four types: Closed, Random, Synchronous, and Open (see “System Types”). Each system type has its own characteristic set of mental models, behaviors, operating rules, and feedback systems. For instance, Closed systems are classically hierarchical, and Random ones are individualistic. Open systems stress collaboration, while Synchronous ones emphasize values and alignment.

Theory and practice indicate that there is no one “best” type of system. Each has its own strengths and vulnerabilities, and each may be especially prone to certain Team Traps. For example, Open systems may try too hard to build consensus and therefore can fall prey to the Inability to Reach Closure Team Trap. The high degree of flexibility and lack of emphasis on leadership shown by Random and Open systems also make them vulnerable to Overt Conflict. With their inherent rigidity, Synchronous and Closed systems may be overly hierarchical and experience a surplus of covert activity. Random and Synchronous systems, with their lack of cohesion, may forget to include customers and stakeholders in their decision-making, or may fail to ensure adequate communication and participation throughout the organization.

Moreover, because of their differences, each system type may require a unique solution to the same problem. For example, accountability issues can be resolved more easily in Closed systems, in which people are already familiar with policies and procedures, than in Random systems, in which members find the concept of evaluation alien. Similarly, Open systems, which value direct communication, can resolve Overt Conflict more quickly than can Synchronous systems, which tend more toward indirect communication.

Knowledge of the Four Team Roles can help facilitators track human interactions on the behavioral level. Causal loop diagrams can analyze the Team Traps on the structural level and provide a testing ground for proposed interventions. The System Types provide additional data on the potential vulnerabilities of the group to certain Team Traps, and the types of interventions that might succeed in that context.

Unspringing Team Traps

SYSTEM TYPES

Addressing the Team Traps concept at the structural level can provide real, lasting solutions to previously intractable problems. An awareness of the most common team disablers, guidance for a structural intervention, and an understanding of the Four Team Roles and the System Types provide a powerful toolbox for teams in trouble. This multifaceted approach to the Team Traps can also help groups learn to work on the system, not merely in it, which is generally the most effective way to improve group dynamics. Perhaps even more important, familiarity with these common traps can help participants and facilitators anticipate a team’s tendency toward one or more of the Team Traps and diffuse negative patterns of behavior before they become entrenched. The highest leverage actions may not always be the easiest to implement, but they are likely to be the most effective over the long run.

The post Taking the Teeth out of Team Traps appeared first on The Systems Thinker.

In an attempt to capture learnings, we make our best efforts to take time out to reflect. For example, we may institutionalize project “postmortems,” or have an internal consultant study and document lessons learned. Or, we may focus on the “front end” by conducting training in balancing inquiry and advocacy, understanding systems archetypes, or engaging in dialogue.

All of these approaches have the potential to shift us out of our reactive ruts. But they do not automatically become part of an organization’s working habits; we must devote time, resources, and infrastructure to tend to and nurture them. More often than we care to admit, “lessons learned” collect dust on the shelf because we just don’t have the time to translate others’ hard-won insights into our next high-priority project. And sometimes our new reflection skills and techniques are just “out of sync” with our workflow — we don’t have time for them when we need them, and when we do have time, other priorities beckon us.

THE EMERGENT LEARNING PROCESS

“Learning from experience” is mostly done retrospectively. Engaging in emergent learning means taking an intentional, evolutionary approach to learning “through” experience — by conducting iterative experiments using a group’s real work as the experimental field. Taking this approach often produces new and powerful learning simultaneously to making headway on key business issues

Emergent learning practices offer us a pragmatic, low-overhead approach to making the time and space for organizational learning habits to grow. In the process, they help teams and business units develop “islands of mastery,” or growing areas of expertise in their increasingly complex working environments. And the practices help sponsors identify incremental wins and build a business case for the value of organizational learning.

What Is Emergent Learning?

Emergent learning is the ongoing exploration of a locally defined arena of action through intentional, iterative learning experiments. The goal of emergent learning is for a group of people — perhaps a team or business unit — to master performance in arenas of key importance to their business. The focus of these learning experiments might be improving the organization’s ability to fulfill its basic mission (such as, for a police department, reducing crime), managing escalating costs, creating successful strategic alliances, or bringing projects in on time and under budget. An experiment might involve comparing two recent strategic alliances, forming conclusions about these experiences, and testing the conclusions on a new project. Or for a group of project managers, an experiment might mean getting clients involved in projects at different times and in different ways to see how these variables affect the decision-making process But in each case, the two characteristics that distinguish emergent learning from how we usually approach simply “learning from experience” are that it is iterative and intentional. Teams repeat emergent learning experiments in parallel or in close enough succession to be able to compare and contrast performance from instance to instance. They purposefully define experiments in advance of the experience, not in retrospect, as in a “post-mortem.” These intentional iterations make learning from experience active and evolutionary, rather than a static, one-time review.

Simply put, today’s working environments are often too complex and fast moving to give us the time and space we need to focus our full attention on learning. Consequently, the practical reality for many of us is that only those learning practices that require little time will actually take root (see “Rethinking Time” by Peter M. Senge in The Dance of Change, Doubleday/Currency, 1999). By weaving learning into the real-time priorities and real work challenges of a business unit or team, an emergent learning approach bypasses the need to stop what we’re doing in order to learn

In fact, a team may develop extraordinary emergent learning practices without ever thinking of it as “learning.” Emergent learning often looks a lot more like locally driven strategic planning or problem-solving than like what we usually think of as training. Groups self-organize to focus on improving their performance, rather than stepping into a classroom setting where the attention centers on the instructor’s expertise. On the other hand, because of its iterative nature, it differs from what we traditionally think of as planning or problem-solving by focusing on mastery (performance over time), rather than on accomplishment (performance today) (see “Comparing Training, Planning, and Emergent Learning” on p. 3).

Emergent Learning in Practice

Here’s an example of an emergent learning process based on a group’s real work needs and conducted in real time: The executive team of a large regional vocational school expressed its frustration at once again needing to downsize because of escalating costs. In years past, members had rolled up their sleeves and done the painful work of identifying possible staffing and program cuts. When all was said and done, they had at least felt a sense of accomplishment at having taken hard but necessary steps to solve the problem.

After the third downsizing this decade, they made a determined effort to escape from what they had come to see as a vicious cycle by taking steps to shift their focus from short-term crisis resolution to developing long-term solutions through emergent learning.

The team defined an arena on which to focus: its cost structure. Facing obvious and painful failures in trying to solve recurring financial problems, members recognized how little they really understood their costs. They made a commitment to “master” the cost arena — to develop a richer, shared understanding of what drives costs, and to be able to consistently manage them. They had a discussion to articulate the key variables or criteria that would indicate success in this arena.

The team then identified a few repeatable contexts that could easily provide opportunities for reflection: weekly staff meetings and executive reporting. Because these activities were already on their plates, they provided a relatively quick and easy way for team members to test their mental models about what was driving costs. Because they were recurring, the group could easily review the results of experiments that they planned to conduct on a regular basis, and gradually evolve a real mastery of the issue.

This process may look like nothing more than good problem-solving. But it demonstrates a subtle shift from accomplishment to mastery

To get started, team members shared their beliefs and understanding about what contributed to the school’s cost structure. Then they very deliberately turned these statements into hypotheses to test in learning experiments. Each member considered what projects he or she was involved in or what data he or she had that would serve as the basis for conducting experiments. For example, the head of programs was curious about whether his assumptions about the direct relationship between class size, perceived program quality, and costs would hold up. The head of facilities had questions about whether previous cuts in headcount might have actually resulted in increased maintenance costs.

Initially, they simply added brief reviews of cost trends (such as compensation, legal fees, and supplies) to their weekly meetings, and a discussion of 12-month cost patterns to the monthly and quarterly executive reports. Over time, through several iterations, they began to see new relationships and investigate such dynamics as the relationship between facilities maintenance, compensation, and legal costs. In staff meetings, they reflected on the potential causes of changes in costs and described experiments that they had tried. (At one meeting, the head of facilities reported about asking his team what they would do if he went on sabbatical for a year. The creative responses that he got inspired some of his peers to try the same experiment.)

At each iteration, the results of just-completed learning experiments became the “ground truth” on which they reflected in order to plan for the next learning experiments (see “The Emergent Learning Process” on p. 1). With the benefit of their peers’ perspectives, team members teased out unspoken assumptions, lessons learned, and so on. They began to question the measures that they had relied on in the past and realized that they needed more powerful and timely cost indicators. They acknowledged how delays in feedback — in the form of unanticipated cost increases — affected their ability to manage expenses. These sessions inevitably led to new questions and new experiments.

Beyond Problem-Solving

This process may look like nothing more than good problem-solving. But it demonstrates a subtle shift from accomplishment to mastery. With this new mindset, everyone on the school’s executive team worked under the assumption that they would run through the learning cycle at least several times. Over time, as they cycled through iterations of this process, their learning experiments got more specific and they asked better and better questions. They also developed finer distinctions about costs and the dynamics that cause them to rise. In addition, they identified early indicators that a problem was brewing. As a result, their sense of confidence in being able to tackle something as complex as escalating cost structures grew.

On the other hand, if the team had continued to focus on problem-solving rather than on learning, they might have replaced downsizing with another, perhaps equally short-term, “solution.” By simply abandoning their first approach to the problem, they may have failed to develop a true understanding of why downsizing did not solve the problem. Or they might have chosen to “downsize harder,” triggering even steeper cost problems as the school struggled with the loss of skilled personnel

By taking an emergent learning approach, the team also created a compelling context for drawing on the tools of organizational learning. For example, they began to see that they had fallen into a “siege” mentality regarding saving their favorite function from the chopping block. So the group sought training in balancing inquiry and advocacy, recognizing that their ineffective communication habits were affecting their ability to explore alternative theories and solutions. They also studied systems thinking to begin to grasp the drivers of costs and to understand the behavior of reinforcing processes. In this way, they developed expertise as they needed it and as it made sense for addressing their current business challenges — not as it was deemed necessary by a training department or corporate mandate.

Simplicity and Localness

The best emergent learning practices track a few simple variables within an experimental field that is as local as possible. In the example above, the executive team initially tracked operating costs (variables) within the different departments (experimental fields). Each participant made a series of small changes to the work that they were already doing in these areas.

Over the long term, these intentional, iterative experiments at the operational level often generate new and unpredicted, but remarkably powerful, changes in behavior. For example, the Boston Police Department uses simple three-month charts of major crimes, district-by-district, to understand and influence crime trends, such as a rise in burglaries in a particular neighborhood. Over time,

this disciplined approach to managing crime has inspired district police to go out of their way to meet local teens and attend community meetings, not because it’s their job, but because they see that making a personal connection is critical to grasping what is fundamentally driving trends in crimes.

The U. S. Army’s After Action Reviews (AARs), which emerged from its intensive two-week training simulations in the Mojave Desert, are another example of a practice that is so simple and local in design that it spread on its own, without being mandated from above. In an AAR, soldiers take an hour after a military encounter (simulated or real) to analyze what caused any differences between what they intended to accomplish and what actually happened. In addition, they identify strengths to sustain and weaknesses to improve in the next encounter. AARs have become so ingrained in the organization’s culture that almost anything is now seen as a learning opportunity—, “Let’s AAR that.”

Committing to Learning Experiments

As shown in these examples, opportunities for emergent learning are everywhere. The seeds for it can be found in what Barry Dym calls “forays” — small, local initiatives that are exceptions to the more established patterns of working together (see “Forays: The Power of Small Changes” by Barry Dym, V9N7). They can also spring up in “communities of practice” — informal groups that join together to develop a shared repertoire of resources. To reap the benefits of emergent learning, members of these groups must shift from following the traditional professional association model — holding abstract conversations based on expert presentations — to making the commitment to study their own performance in a concretely defined field of experiments (see “Communities of Practice: Learning as a Social System” by Etienne Wenger, V9N5).

Nortel Networks’ Competitive Analysis Guild (CA Guild) is an apt example of a self-organized community of practice that has been able to make that shift. The CA Guild gathers members from across organizational boundaries to share knowledge about Nortel’s competitors and build their competitive intelligence skills. Guild membership outlives project assignments and creates a “virtual neighborhood” of likeminded individuals.

Some Guild practices look like those of traditional professional associations: monthly meetings with formal presentations and a Web site with announcements of upcoming events. But the Guild has also created some activities that are developing emergent qualities. For example, any Nortel Networks employee can use the Guild Web site to seek information about competitors from members. The sharing of questions and answers through the network is an iterative process. Participants have reported that they have become more sensitive to early indicators of important actions by competitors.

The Guild also views industry trade shows as a natural experimental field. At any given industry trade show, there may be 30 or more Nortel Networks employees wandering the floor. The Guild developed a procedure to focus these employees on a learning agenda. After each show, not only does the Guild take away good data, but it also reflects on and refines its trade-show practices. Over time and with iterations, this approach turns good intelligence-gathering into emergent learning.

Islands of Mastery

Peter Senge has commented that, “I have never seen a successful organizational learning program rolled out from the top. Not a single one. Conversely, every change process that I’ve seen that was sustained and that spread has started small. Usually these programs start with just one team” (Fast Company, May 1999). Emergent learning builds the organizational learning “habit” from the bottom up, by focusing a team on mastering performance in an arena that is important to them. The venue may be big and “strategic,” such as demonstrating leadership during a merger, or it may be small and “tactical,” such as planning food for faculty meetings. Whatever the level, as the team disciplines itself to focus its attention on its performance in this one arena in an iterative way, a lot of what previously seemed like erratic, unpredictable results can begin to make sense (see “Conducting Learning Experiments”).

Emergent learning builds the organizational learning “habit” from the bottom up

And so, an island of mastery begins to emerge from the sea of complexity. And as one arena of action starts to make sense, the group naturally expands its field of inquiry into other arenas. In turn, team members’ confidence in being able to master their business challenges grows. They become better able to clarify their priorities, articulate their own theory of success, test their hypotheses, and make a strong case in support of their thinking.

This self-reinforcing cycle of curiosity and growing competence can have an almost addictive quality — it makes people thirsty to learn more. As people develop a learning discipline and begin to search for fundamental solutions, they almost automatically take a systems perspective, collaborate more effectively with others, and challenge their existing mental models.

In this way, pairing emergent learning practices with traditional training can help the tools and techniques of organizational learning find a natural home. As internal and external practitioners, we can look for opportunities to turn events and projects that we are currently working on into learning experiments. We can do more to identify and support naturally occurring emergent learning practices, and make it a priority to notice and publicize results. And we can also help business units, teams, and communities of practice create new emergent learning practices. In the process, we will build natural advocates for organizational learning, complete with their own compelling stories to tell.

The post Emergent Learning: Taking “Learning From Experience” To a New Level appeared first on The Systems Thinker.

The conversion process includes the following steps:

Specify the Units of All CLD Variables

The process starts with a simple question that lays the groundwork for the later steps: What are the units of each variable in the diagram? Specifying the units serves several important purposes:

• It makes thinking about the causal loop more rigorous, which is an important step toward stock and flow thinking.
• It helps determine which variables are going to involve time and will therefore likely be flows.
• It provides the basis for determining what variables are missing and will need to be added later in the conversion process.

For example, in the causal loop diagram below of a product life cycle, the unit for Installed Base, Potential Customers, and Market Size is people. The unit for People Buying Product is people per month.

Identify and Create the Stocks

The next step is to determine which CLD variables are stocks. The previous step of specifying the units helps facilitate this process by indicating which variables involve time and, therefore, are probably flows. (Note, however, that just because a variable is a function of time does not necessarily mean that it is a flow; it depends on the CLD’s overall function). Double-check your ideas about which variables in the CLD are stocks — and identify any additional stocks that might be needed — by following the guidelines given in Part I of this series. In the product life-cycle example, the two stocks are Potential Customers and Installed Base.

Identify and Create the Flows

Once you have identified the stocks, it is easy to identify the flows: They are simply the variables that add to or subtract from the stocks. Only a flow can increase or decrease a stock, so if a variable is directly influencing a stock and is a function of time, it’s a good bet that it’s a flow. In our example, the only flow is People Buying Product.

Connect Flows to Stocks and Stocks to Flows (if Necessary)

The first task in this step is to connect all flows to the stocks that they influence. If the flow has a negative effect on the stock, then it’s an outflow; if it has a positive effect, it’s an inflow. For example, as the flow People Buying Product increases, the stock Installed Base increases, because People Buying Product is an inflow to Installed Base. On the other hand, as the flow People Buying Product increases, the stock of Potential Customers declines.

Once you have connected all of the flows to their stocks, you may need to connect certain stocks to flows. This is necessary if a stock influences one or more flows through an information link. In a CLD, the same kind of link can carry either material (e.g., units assembled) or information (e.g., interest rate). In a stock and flow diagram, however, material and information links are separate. In our case, neither of the stocks is directly linked to People Buying Product by an information link.

Add and Link Remaining CLD Variables

In this step, add any CLD variables that you did not previously identify as stocks or flows. These “auxiliary” variables are of two types: variables whose value does not change at all over the time period you are interested in — called “constants” — and variables that simply represent calculations based on stocks and flows. For example, in the product life-cycle diagram, Total Market Size is an auxiliary variable that is a constant (for simplicity, we assume the size of the market does not change). Percent of Market Untapped is an auxiliary variable that represents a calculation: Potential Customers divided by Total Market Size.

Connect the new variables to the variables that they influence and to those that they are influenced by. Note that stocks can affect auxiliary variables (e.g., Potential Customers affects Percent of Market Untapped), but these variables cannot affect stocks — stocks can only be influenced by flows. If it seems that the variable must be affecting a stock, then you need to determine if it is a flow that you overlooked earlier.

At this point, your initial pass at creating the stock and flow diagram is done (see “The First Iteration”). However, the conversion process is iterative; you will likely need to go through further rounds of defining and creating variables before the diagram is complete. In addition, one key way in which the diagram still needs to evolve is in making it calculable, which means that the value of all stocks and flows can be calculated from the information in the diagram. Although a CLD expresses how one variable is related to another, it does not provide enough detail to calculate the value of one variable given the values of the others. In contrast, a stock and flow diagram is a calculable representation of the system. For this to be possible, each variable must be defined and assigned the correct units, and often new variables must be added as well.

Define Stocks and Flows and Check Units

Formally defining variables entails specifying the equation that allows you to calculate the value of a given variable when you know its initial value and the values of the other variables in the diagram. For example, Installed Base is defined as the initial installed base plus the inflow People Buying Product. During the definition process, you may discover additional variables required to ensure that the units of input match the units of output.

Start with the stocks, which are usually the easiest to define. Because they are calculated by adding the effects of the inflows and the outflows to the amount already in the stock (i.e., they accumulate the effects of the flows), all they require is an initial level (how much they have to begin with) and defined units. You can use the work you performed earlier on specifying units again in this step. Ask yourself: Are the stocks accumulating the right material? For example, in the product life-cycle example, if Installed Base accumulates dollars and People Buying Product is measured in people, then the units of Installed Base are wrong.

The next step is to define the flows and then check the units they use. In our example, the flow People Buying Product is measured in people per month. It flows into the stock Installed Base, which measures the total number of people who have bought the product. If instead People Buying Product were measured in units of people per hour, but the smallest “slice” of time (often called the “time step”) that you wanted to think about was a month, then you would have to change the time increments from people per hour to people per month. Defining units for the flows may also lead you to discover other variables that need to be included in the diagram.

Create and Link Any Additional Variables

Once you have determined that the stocks and the flows have the proper units, you need to examine the other variables. The process for defining the remaining variables and checking for unit consistency is the same as the one described above for defining the flows. Again, you may discover the need for even more variables, beginning another iteration of defining variables and checking units.

Once you have defined all necessary variables and made all units consistent, you have completed the conversion of the CLD to a stock and flow diagram. However, the model still is not calculable. Consider the calculation for People Buying Product: What number of Potential Customers Told about the product buy the product in an average month? Without knowing this figure, you cannot calculate the value of the flow People Buying Product. What is missing is the percentage of people told about the product who decide to buy it, which we will call Likelihood of Potential Customers to Buy. With this variable included, if we know the value of Potential Customers Told, we can calculate the number of People Buying Product.

As it turns out, however, we can’t calculate the number of Potential Customers Told per month because we don’t know how many people each member of the Installed Base tells. Without that information, we can’t figure out how many potential customers are told about the product. If we add a new variable called Contacts per Person, then we can determine the number of Potential Customers Told (the Total Contacts made by the people in the Installed Base, multiplied by the Percent of Market Untapped). Using that figure and the Likelihood of Potential Customers to Buy, we can calculate the number of People Buying Product. At this point, the diagram is calculable and the conversion is complete (see “The Final Version”).

The Learning Process

Just following a conversion “recipe” is insufficient for learning to create stock and flow diagrams. For that reason, we recommend that learners work through a series of conversions (for examples, see the Web address at the end of the article), starting with simple ones and moving on to more complex ones facilitated by an instructor before attempting solo or paired conversions.

Daniel Aronson (aronson@thinking.net) holds an MBA from the MIT Sloan School of Management. He recently joined Arthur Andersen’s Knowledge Services Business Solutions Team and is the host of the Thinking Page (www.thinking.net). Daniel Angelakis (dangelakis@aol.com) is a senior consultant at Arthur Andersen’s Knowledge Services Business Solutions Team. For additional examples and more detail on the conversion process, go to www.thinking.net/Systems Thinking/ stocksandflows.html.

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Not surprisingly, rising traffic volume has caused extreme congestion on German roadways, particularly in and around urban areas. Traffic delays cost the German national economy approximately 200 billion DM annually. Other problems, such as a reduction in road safety and an increase in pollution and environmental destruction (owing to the continual addition of roads and parking lots), have also been mounting. In the late 1980s, the automobile industry, like many other industries, became increasingly aware of its social responsibilities and sought creative ways to address these problems.

Since the mid-1980s, executives at BMW have recognized that many traffic-related problems can no longer be solved simply by widening or building new roads (see “Too Many Cars, Too Many Roads”). Instead, the entire transportation system — including buses, subways, trams, railways, and airplanes — needs to change. A systemic view, BMW realized, was essential for designing a traffic-management system that could both integrate existing transportation infrastructures and leverage their specific advantages.

A Systems Approach

BMW is in a tricky position: Its mission is to provide consumers with high-quality motor cars that guarantee maximum mobility and pleasure of traveling. Yet the company also realizes that traffic-related problems, if left unaddressed, will ultimately prevent it from fulfilling that mission — even though such problems are not caused by BMW’s products alone. As Mr. Horst Teltschik, member of the Board of Management of BMW AG for Economic and Governmental Affairs, explained in a company brochure, BMW has numerous reasons for wanting to tackle Germany’s traffic problems head-on:

• To fulfill its social and ecological responsibility, BMW is required to have an extensive system competence in the transport sector. . . . It regards this as most easily attainable by drawing up and implementing joint transport projects locally (with partners from politics, public administration, science, and private consultancies) that help the partners to better understand each others’ point of view and to bring them into a systemic correspondence with one another.
• • BMW’s core business activity . . . is directly influenced by the effects of transportation policy. Therefore, it is in the interest of BMW to play an active role in influencing this policy by offering its expertise on questions of transportation and environmental policy to political bodies at all levels, suggesting and preparing solutions, and participating in the proceedings of the relevant organizations.
• Selling automobiles and related services successfully not only in the short term but also in the long term presupposes the efficient functioning of the road system. Commitment to the needs of transportation is, therefore, an essential element in the research and development of new products and services to reduce market risks and support innovation throughout the transportation sector.

Questions for Reflection

• The usual approach to traffic-related problems — especially congestion — is to build more roads. What might be some alternatives to this “road management”?
• Given how passionate people are about their cars, how might BMW and other interested organizations persuade drivers to consider alternative modes of transportation?
• If we think of “road management” as the “successful” side of a “Success to the Successful” dynamic structure, what might make up the other, less successful side of the structure? And how might we reverse the dominance within the structure?

Munich COMFORT

To brainstorm new ways of meeting the company’s mission and its social and ecological responsibilities, managers at BMW began to ask themselves provocative questions, such as “How can we combine the vision of pleasurable, stress-free traveling with protecting the environment?” and “How can road safety be improved while still allowing maximum mobility for drivers?” Exploring these questions led BMW in 1991 to initiate an integrative transportation research project entitled Munich COMFORT (Cooperative Management for Urban and Regional Transportation). Supported by 50 partners from business, industry, politics, and the scientific community, Munich COMFORT was intended to alleviate traffic problems in the northern section of Munich, where commuter, commercial, and holiday traffic converge.

The main objective of Munich COMFORT was to link the different transportation subsystems of the region into one system. This system would in turn be controlled and managed by innovative information and communication technologies. Accordingly, a major part of the project has involved developing computer programs to optimize the management of traffic streams.

Throughout 1992 and 1993, a central computer system was installed in the building of Munich’s regional administrative authorities. The purpose of the system is to collect data on traffic density, accidents and emergency warnings, weather and travel information, and local and long-distance public and individual transport. The Strategy and Service Center then uses the information to design traffic-control strategies, provide road users with the latest traffic announcements, and recommend transportation strategies travelers might use to reach their destinations economically and efficiently.

The new traffic control systems coordinate the interplay of various modes of transportation through means such as dynamic route guidance, traffic-actuated and variable direction sign systems, diversion of cars to park-and-ride facilities, and a strong emphasis on public transport. Drivers can access the system’s announcements by watching for signs placed above or along the road or by using computer-based route-guidance systems in their cars. Commuters get their information through electronic and up-to-date timetable data. For example, the multilingual electronic timetable information system (EFA) installed at bus, train, and subway stations lets passengers request on-screen route suggestions simply by entering their starting point and destination. The EFA responds with information on the nearest stops, departure and arrival times, transfer information, and fares.

Results and Challenges

The results of Munich COMFORT have been impressive so far. The new traffic-control system has led to shorter trip times, lower operation costs (for example, for the bus and tram systems, owing to shorter trip times), a drop in pollution levels, environmental benefits, less individual traffic, and more traffic safety. From 1991 to 1993, congestion in greater Munich diminished by 30 percent, the number of accidents by 36 percent, and the incidence of accident-related personal injury by 34 percent.

SUCCESS TO TRAFFIC MANAGEMENT

The more successful traffic management becomes (as opposed to road management), the less successful road management will become. Diagram contributed in part by Daniel H. Kim.

The project has had some unintended benefits as well: The cooperation that the project has required among the various transport delivery systems broke down many emotional and political barriers and prejudices. For example, public-transportation organizations realized that BMW truly is interested in solving general transportation problems. Moreover, managers of not-for-profit as well as for-profit organizations learned that their management policies do not necessarily need to be at odds. Indeed, Munich COMFORT has inspired numerous follow-up projects elsewhere in Europe. For example, TABASCO (Telematic Applications in Bavaria, Scotland, and Others), started in 1997, will pursue further developments in the management of public and private commuter transport in inner cities and their outlying regions. Amsterdam, Bergamo, Dublin, Edinburgh, and London are some cities now participating in the project.

Despite these successes, Munich COMFORT has encountered its share of challenges. In particular, the number of partners involved introduced a daunting degree of complexity. As Christoph Huss, representative of the Board for Traffic and Environment, said, the partners have had to cope with one another’s unique working procedures, organizational structures, resources, and decision-making processes; to accept each other’s expertise; and to build mutual trust and confidence.

A Systemic Makeover

As another challenge, supporters of Munich COMFORT have had to think of ways to attract people to the idea of traffic management as opposed to road management. This is difficult: For the system to succeed in the long run, people’s long-held mental models about automobiles and other means of transportation will need to change. As a first step, Huss recommends stressing the benefits of the new system. In his words, “An entire networked transportation system between all transport services would allow commuters an integrated solution in order for them to reach their destinations in as efficient and enjoyable manner as possible. It is also important that transitions between the various means of transportation become more attractive. The better the organization of the interchange points, the more willing the prospective users will be to switch from one mode of transportation to another.”

We can view the thinking behind this project as an attempt to reverse a “Success to the Successful” situation (see “Success to Traffic Management” on p. 10). Two activities — driving personal cars (road management) and using alternate, integrated modes of transportation (traffic management) — compete for limited resources (investment, publicity, etc.). Currently, the right-hand side of the diagram, in which more resources go to road management rather than traffic management, is dominating (R1/R2).

For the system to succeed in the long run, people’s longheld mental models about automobiles and other means of transportation will need to change.

The Munich COMFORT partners have sought to reverse the dominance of R1 and R2 — and set a new reinforcing cycle in motion that eventually reduces the amount of resources going to road management and increases the amount going to traffic management (R3). Given how long it can take for the public to accept the widespread benefits of traffic management (see the delays in R3), the project partners need to think about (1) how to “jump-start” the loop (which they’ve done by launching Munich COMFORT as a pilot program), (2) how long they need to maintain such programs in order to overcome the delays inherent in the system, (3) how to reinforce public acceptance of the benefits of traffic management (perhaps through education and helpful technologies), and (4) how to reduce the momentum of the original loops (i.e., make road management less attractive), perhaps through carpooling and other incentives for lessening individual driving of private cars.

Clearly, BMW, along with its many partners, have made significant strides in “rewiring” this system. With time and careful attention to the dynamics at work, perhaps traffic management will someday prevail permanently over road management.

Carol Ann Zulauf is an assistant professor of adult and organizational learning at Suffolk University in Boston, Massachusetts, and is senior partner at Zulauf & Associates. Frank Schneider is a human resource manager for 900 international employees at Forschungszentrum Karlsruhe, one of the largest research centers in Germany.

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