But assessment strikes fear in most people’s hearts. The word itself draws forth a strong, gut-level memory of being evaluated and measured, whether through grades in school, ranking in competitions, or promotions on the job. As writer Sue Miller Hurst has pointed out, most people have an intrinsic ability to judge their progress. But schools and workplaces subjugate that natural assessment to the judgment of teachers, supervisors, and other “experts,” whose appraisals determine promotions, wealth, status, and, ultimately, self-esteem.

Assessing Learning

Is it possible to use assessment in the service of learning? Can assessment be used to provide guidance and support for improving performance, rather than elicit fear, resentment, and resignation? This has been a guiding question at the MIT Center for Organizational Learning for several years, as we have struggled to find a reasonable way to assess learning efforts. The motivations are essentially pragmatic: our corporate affiliates need some idea of the return on their investments, and we as researchers need a better understanding of our work.

To create a new system of assessment, we started by going back to the source — to the people who initiate and implement systems work, learning laboratories, or other pilot projects in large organizations. We then tried to capture and convey the experiences and understandings of these groups of people. The result is a much-needed document that moves beyond strict assessment into the realm of institutional memory. We call it a “learning history.”

The Roots of a New Storytelling

A learning history is a written document or series of documents that is disseminated to help an organization become better aware of its own learning efforts. The history includes not just reports of action and results, but also the underlying assumptions and reactions of a variety of people (including people who did not support the learning effort). No one individual view, not even that of senior managers, can encompass more than a fraction of what actually goes on in a complex project — and this reality is reflected in the learning history. All participants reading the history should feel that their own points of view were treated fairly and that they understand many other people’s perspectives.

A learning history draws upon theory and techniques from ethnography, journalism, action research, oral history, and theater. Ethnography provides the science and art of cultural investigation — primarily the systematic approach of participant observation, interviewing, and archival research. From journalism come the skills of getting to the heart of a story and presenting it in a way that draws people in. Action research brings to the learning history effective methods for developing the capacities of learners to reflect upon and assess the results of their efforts. Finally, the tradition of oral historians offers a data collection method for providing rich, natural descriptions of complex events, using the voice of a narrator who took part in the events. All of these techniques help the readers of a learning history understand how participants attributed meaning to their experience.

Each part of the learning history process — interviews, analysis, editing, circulating drafts, and follow-up — is intended to broaden and deepen learning throughout the organization by providing a forum for reflecting on the process and substantiating the results. This process can be beneficial not only for the original participants, but also for researchers and consultants who advised them — and ultimately for anyone in the organization who is interested in the organization’s learning process.

Insiders versus Outsiders

One goal of the learning history work is to develop managers’ abilities to reflect upon, articulate, and understand complex issues. The process helps people to hone their assessments more sharply by communicating them to others. And because a learning history forces people to include and analyze highly complex, dynamic interdependencies in their stories, people understand those interdependencies more clearly.

In addition, the approach of a learning history is different from that of traditional ethnographic research. While ethnographers define themselves as “outsiders” observing how those inside the cultural system make sense of their world, a learning history includes both an insider’s understanding and an outsider’s perspective.

Having an outside, “objective” observer is an essential element of the learning history. In any successful learning effort, people undergo a transformation. As they develop capabilities together, gain insights, and shift their shared mental models, they change their assumptions about work and interrelationships. This collective shift reorients them so that they see history differently. They can then find it difficult to communicate their learning to others who still hold the old frame of reference. An outside observer can help bridge this gap by adding comments in the history such as, “This situation is typical of many pilot projects,” or by asking questions such as, “How could the pilot team, given their enthusiasm, have prevented the rest of the organization from seeing them as some sort of cult?”

Similarly, retaining the subjective stance of the internal managers is important for making the learning history relevant to the organization. In most assessments, experts offer their judgment and the company managers receive it without gaining any ability to reflect and assess their own efforts. The stance of a learning history, on the other hand, borrows from the concept of the “jointly told tale,” a device used by a number of ethnographers in which the story is “told” not by the external anthropologist or the “naive” native being studied, but by both together. For these reasons, the most successful learning history projects to date seem to involve teams of insiders (managers assigned to produce and facilitate the learning history) working closely with “outside” writers and researchers hired on a contractual basis.

Results versus Experience and Skills

Companies today don’t have a lot of slack resources or extra cash. Thus, in every learning effort, managers feel pressured to justify the expense and time of the effort by proving it led to concrete results. But a viable learning effort may not produce tangible results for several years, and the most important results may include new ways of thinking and behaving that appear dysfunctional at first to the rest of the organization. (More than one leader of a successful learning effort has been reprimanded for being “out of control.”) In today’s company environment of downsizing and re-engineering, this pressure for results undermines the essence of what a learning organization effort tries to achieve.

One goal of the learning history work is to develop managers’ abilities to reflect upon, articulate, and understand complex issues.

Yet incorporating results into the history is vital. How else can we think competently about the value of a learning effort? We might trace examples where a company took dramatically different actions because of its learning organization efforts, but it is difficult to construct rigorous data to show that an isolated example is typical. Alternatively, we might merely assess skills and experience. A learning historian might be satisfied, for instance, with saying, “The team now communicates much more effectively, and people can understand complex systems.” But that will be unpersuasive — indeed, almost meaningless — to outsiders.

In this context, assessment means listening to what people have to say, asking critical questions, and engaging people in their own inquiries: “How do we know we achieved something of value here? How much of that new innovation can we honestly link to the learning effort?” Different people often bring different perceptions of a “notable result” and its causes, and bringing those perceptions together leads to a common understanding with intrinsic validity.

For example, one corporation’s learning history described a new manufacturing prototype that was developed by the team. On the surface, this achievement was a matter of pure engineering, but it would not have been possible without the learning effort. Some team members had learned new skills to communicate effectively with outside contractors (who were key architects of the prototype), while others had gained the confidence to propose the prototype’s budget. Still others had learned to engage with each other across functional boundaries to make the prototype work. Until the stories of these half-dozen people were brought together, they were not aware of the common causes of each other’s contributions, and others in the company were unaware of the entire process. The learning history thus included a measurable “result” — the new prototype saved millions of dollars in rework costs — but simply reporting a recipe for constructing new prototypes would be of limited value. At best, it would help other teams mimic the original team, but it wouldn’t help them learn to create their own innovations. Only stories, which deal with intangibles such as creating an atmosphere of open inquiry, can convey the necessary knowledge to get the next team started on its own learning cycle.

The Strength of the Story

Some learning histories have been created after a project is over. Participants are interviewed retrospectively, and the results of the pilot project are more-or-less known and accepted. Other histories are researched while the story unfolds, and the learning historian sits in on key meetings and interviews people about events that may have taken place the day before. “Mini-histories” may be produced from these interviews, so that the team members can reflect on their own efforts as they go along and improve the learning effort while it is still underway. But such reflection carries a burden of added discipline: it adds to the pressure on the learning historian to “prove results” on the spot, to serve a political agenda, or to justify having a learning history in the first place.

To create an ongoing learning history, an organization must embrace a transformational approach to learning. Instead of simply learning to “do what we have always done a little bit better,” transformational learning involves re-examining everything we do—including how we think and see the world, and our role in it. This often means letting go of our existing knowledge and competencies, recognizing that they may prevent us from learning new things. This is a challenging and painful endeavor, and learning histories bring us face to face with it. When the learning history is being compiled simultaneously with the learning effort, then the challenge and pain of examining existing frameworks is continuous. But to make the best of a “real-time” learning history, admitting and publicizing mistakes must be seen as a sign of strength. Uncertainty can no longer be a sign of indecisiveness, because reflecting on a learning effort inevitably leads people to think about muddled, self-contradictory situations. Much work still needs to be done on setting the organizational context for an ongoing learning history so that it doesn’t set off flames that burn up the organization’s good will and resources.

Currently, there are almost a dozen learning history projects in progress at the Learning Center. In pursuing this work, we no longer talk about “assessing” our work. Instead, we talk about capturing the history of the learning process. It is amazing how this approach and new language changes the tenor of the project. People want to share what they have learned. They want others to know what they have done — not in a self-serving fashion, but so others know what worked and what didn’t work. They don’t want to be assessed. They want their story told.

George Roth is an organizational researcher with the MIT Center for Organizational Learning and a consultant active in the study of organizational culture, change, and new technology introduction.

Art Kleiner is co-author and editorial director of The Fifth Discipline Fieldbook, and author of the forthcoming The Age of Heretics, a history of the social movement to change large corporations for the better.

The post Learning Histories: “Assessing” the Learning Organization appeared first on The Systems Thinker.

During the past decade or so, many management experts and pundits have referred to the “learning organization” as the singular prototype of the successful organization. This terminology has been interpreted as suggesting that organizations must conform to a certain set of characteristics, abilities, or disciplines in order to be successful. In this article, I offer and advocate for a view of “organizations as learning portfolios” that I believe more accurately reflects what organizations are and the diversity within them. By making this shift, we can design interventions to promote organizational improvements that recognize existing strengths and capabilities, and that support a pluralistic way to promote learning in and by organizations.

Many Ways and Styles of Learning

In recent years, the work of Howard Gardner on multiple intelligences and Daniel Goleman on emotional intelligence has shown that understanding competence requires more than just testing for IQ. Competence, intelligence, and learning are multidimensional concepts that cannot be determined with a single measure. Reliance on one kind of assessment simplifies reality and devalues forms and characteristics that deviate from social norms.

For example, in his theory of multiple intelligences, Gardner identifies seven types of intelligence, including spatial intelligence, musical intelligence, and mathematical intelligence. Goleman measures EIQ (emotional intelligence quotient) by considering levels of emotional self-awareness, empathy, and self-control, among other indicators. More recently, in his book, A Mind at a Time (Touchstone Books, 2003), Mel Levine explains the functioning of eight different systems of learning, such as attention control, memory, and sequential ordering.

Much as individuals learn in different ways, so too do organizations (see “Learning Characteristics of Organizations”). To some extent these differences are a function of the diverse environments in which organizations operate. For example, what and how organizations in stable environments with established products like ketchup or cement learn will be very different from what happens in industries that are volatile and involve new products or evolving technologies, such as nuclear power or computer hardware. Companies in stable environments improve performance primarily through their own operating experience. In volatile environments, organizations must look outside their boundaries to learn about changes in customer needs or expectations and shifts in competitor capabilities.

Diverse learning styles also occur as a result of an organization’s history, culture, size, and age. New, entrepreneurial firms are apt to learn differently from larger, established corporations. The former tend to gain knowledge about leading-edge products or technologies, while the latter focus on improving existing ones. These differences create opportunities for up-and-coming firms to take market share away from industry leaders, as Apple did from IBM in the 1970s and 1980s. Different learning styles do not reflect how well an organization is learning or how strategic, but they do shape what the organization is learning and how that learning is taking place.

Although an organization can have a dominant learning style, when we look closer, we often find some variation between departments and functions. As a whole, a complex organization is bound to support numerous learning practices that reflect different learning styles. These practices and styles constitute the raw elements of an organization’s “learning portfolio.”

Learning Portfolios

I use the phrase “learning portfolio” to represent the notion that multiple learning activities take place concurrently within any organization. Each form of learning makes a unique contribution to the organization’s knowledge base. The view of “organizations as learning portfolios” has significant implications for the design of interventions to promote learning and change. Instead of viewing organizations as monolithic and then prescribing singular learning practices that are universally viewed as optimal (that is, “best practices”), leaders can choose from a range of learning activities, each targeted at different objectives, and manage them to maximize impact. Some firms may make heavy investments in R&D (learning through knowledge generation), while others may prefer investing in benchmarking (learning through the acquisition of knowledge from others). Companies can also divide their resources and allocate them among several forms of learning.

An “organization as a learning portfolio” reflects a capability that has evolved and grown as the organization’s culture has matured. To use that capability for competitive advantage, organizational members must first recognize the elements that shape and comprise it. Identifying current capabilities provides a starting point for strategic action to change, augment, or enhance a style or portfolio of styles. Rather than presume no existing competence and the need to build it from the bottom up, managers work with and from what already exists. By focusing on the positive, this approach is consistent with techniques of Appreciative Inquiry (for more information about AI, see Bernard Mohr and Jane Magruder Watkins, The Essentials of Appreciative Inquiry: A Roadmap for Creating Positive Futures, Pegasus Communications,2002). It contrasts with prescriptive techniques in which organizations that do not have specific competencies are regarded as failing. “The Learning Portfolio” shows how learning practices, orientations, and profiles comprise a complete organization wide portfolio.

Companies with a large portfolio of learning practices are apt to have multiple competencies and a greater capacity to adapt to change than companies that rely on a single approach to learning. By focusing on a company’s learning portfolio in its entirety, learning advocates can reorient themselves from wondering whether the company has the correct learning practices or styles to considering their complementarity. Also, instead of focusing on individual activities, they can take a systemic view to consider synergistic possibilities between different elements in the learning portfolio.

For example, many learning advocates suggest that double-loop or transformative learning is preferable to single or corrective, incremental learning. Yet in the control room of a nuclear power plant, a transformative learning style is apt to lead to disastrous consequences, as was the case with the nuclear accident at Chernobyl. In that specific context, corrective learning is the appropriate style. However, it would be entirely appropriate and strategically advantageous for a company that runs a nuclear power plant to operate an equipment R&D lab where employees practiced transformative learning. In the context of the entire firm, the styles are complementary.

Recognizing the presence of multiple styles within a company can also explain some intergroup conflicts and barriers to learning. If different parts of a company learn in different ways, then it is highly unlikely that knowledge will be efficiently transferred across functional or group boundaries. Once we recognize such barriers, we can manage them as a potential source of diversity and competitive advantage.

Analyzing Learning Portfolios

Analyzing an organization’s learning portfolio requires creating an inventory of the learning practices and profiles that exist throughout the enterprise. There are several ways to conduct such an inventory. A simple approach is to list the resources that promote learning either directly or indirectly and to specify how such resources are used. Another approach is to interview staff members to identify those firm-sponsored activities or practices that promote both individual and collective learning. A more elaborate approach is to use a diagnostic instrument to profile learning styles and orientations (for an example of a diagnostic instrument, see DiBella, Learning Practices: Assessment and Action for Organizational Improvement, Prentice-Hall, 2001).

Despite the time lags or uncertainty about the return from investing in learning, managers must consider learning a long term asset rather than a liability.

A second issue in analyzing a firm’s learning portfolio pertains to the relatedness of the actual items in the inventory – to what extent are the learning practices and styles complementary, in conflict, or redundant? This question moves the analysis beyond the mere identification and enumeration of practices to examine how the learning activities and practices fit together across the organization in meaningful patterns. Such an analysis considers whether practices are similar or contribute in some unique way to the creation or acquisition of knowledge.

A third issue about learning portfolios is the extent to which current practices or styles align with or match learning needs and work demands. Consider a team or organization that is in a new industry where innovation is critical to success. If its learning style emphasizes practices that support incremental learning and formal dissemination of knowledge, then the content of what is being learned and the speed at which that learning is being applied are not apt to be as helpful to the firm’s competitiveness as practices that support transformative learning and informal networks.

In another scenario, if a firm wants to emphasize teamwork, then it should give more support to learning practices that promote group rather than individual learning. For example, instead of sending individual employees out to professional development conferences or programs, managers could send teams of employees or they could allocate learning resources to team-building exercises that replicate current work conditions. So, in the airline industry, members of a cockpit flight crew could train together on a simulator. That learning practice would complement any formal training given to individual members who need to stay current in flight technology.

Managing Learning Portfolios

The idea that a firm’s learning portfolio might be misaligned with its learning needs or competitive demands raises the question of portfolio management. How can a firm manage its portfolio for maximum advantage? What criteria should it follow in making portfolio management decisions? How would a managed learning portfolio differ from an unmanaged one? These questions suggest that instead of blindly supporting learning practices or not supporting them at all, companies should actively allocate the resources within their portfolio in such a way so as to maximize their impact. Even when resources are constrained, despite the time lags or uncertainty about the return from investing in learning, managers must consider learning a long-term asset rather than a liability.

As such, managing a learning portfolio requires a sensitivity and appreciation for the outcomes of resource allocation. In most business environments, outcomes or outputs are traditionally examined in light of inputs. Return on investment, or ROI, has been a key measure that reflects the ratio of outputs to inputs. As businesspeople attempt to maximize the return on their investments, they make management decisions using ROI as a guiding indicator.

However, using ROI as a singular criterion for making management or investment decisions, especially around learning, is a limiting approach. To determine the value of outputs and expected returns requires managers to make assumptions about the future, and these assumptions often turn out to be invalid. They also involve linear predictions that an investment (usually financial resources) will be converted into some measurable amount of inputs (material, labor, process technology), which will lead to an expected set of outputs (products, services, benefits). Over time, unanticipated events or circumstances can thwart this process, such as when the cost of material or labor increases or when competitors come out with a product that lowers the value of others on the market. Consequently, many management decisions are based on projections that turn out to be inaccurate.

This problem is especially prevalent with projecting the return from learning investments, because the period during which the outcomes from learning are realized can be quite lengthy. The longer the period of returns gained from an investment, the more tenuous our level of commitment to the process tends to be. The usefulness of learning also pertains to its timeliness. When employees learn something in a formal training program, such as how to use new software, it’s often because they expect to use those skills right away. In that scenario, the benefits and outcomes from learning have immediate value. On the other hand, employees sometimes learn behaviors – such as how to deal with angry customers or aggressive competitors — that they hope they never have to use. If they never have to use such behaviors, does that mean those skills have no value and were not worth the initial learning investment? Of course not, but what criteria should we use to make decisions about investing in learning practices that lead to uncertain outcomes?

Another difficulty in using ROI as a criterion to manage learning investments is that it only takes into account tangible assets or returns.

When an employee learns a new skill, a team learns how to work better together, or a firm develops a new process technology, nothing tangible is created, but obviously the learning has produced something of value. When managers take the customary route of basing investment decisions and allocating resources only to practices that generate immediate, tangible results — and hence promise a higher ROI — they neglect to account for several important characteristics — and benefits — of learning.

The idea of a firm as a learning portfolio produces a view of learning and organizations that is fundamentally different from the prescriptive vision of the “learning organization.”

An alternative approach to managing learning investments is based on value creation and analysis. Rather than starting with the investment and determining the value of the outputs generated by that investment, the analyst starts downstream with the customers’ perception of value and then traces the sources of that value. All firms and organizations create value for their customers or clients through their products or services. Our customers pay for what they value or appreciate. The essential question then is, What is the value we create or provide our customers? Then we work backward (or upstream) to ask, What skills, behaviors, and/or knowledge generate that value and then, most critically, how did we as individuals, teams, or an organization learn or acquire those skills, behaviors, or knowledge? Different learning activities create different value, so, using this technique, we can identify their contributions relative to one another and relative to their cost.

Once we know the relative contributions to value creation of different learning processes, we can reallocate resources to maximize the return from the learning portfolio as a whole. In fact, research has shown that many firms mismanage their portfolios (see “The Teaching Firm: Where Productive Work and Learning Converge,” Education Development Center, 1998). Companies tend to allocate the majority of their learning resources to formal learning activities, like classroom training, not recognizing that people learn much of what they do to create value from informal learning activities. If that’s the case with your organization, then it’s past time to adjust your allocations to maximize value creation (see “Four Steps to Managing Learning Portfolios”).

Learning Portfolios vs. Learning Organizations

The idea of a firm, company, school, or government agency as a learning portfolio produces a view of learning and organizations that is fundamentally different from the prescriptive vision of the “learning organization.” Instead of focusing on some future state to be attained through managerial action and executive leadership, any desire to enhance an organization’s learning must focus on understanding the organization as it exists now. Instead of perceiving an organization as some unified, homogeneous, or monolithic entity that does or does not learn, we view learning as innate to all organizations but allow for its different manifestations. Instead of focusing on the dilemmas “Why don’t organizations learn?” or “How do we build ‘learning organizations’?” the central questions become “What do organizations learn?” “In how many different ways do they do so?” and “How can they learn in the most effective manner?”

The learning portfolio concept also provides a bridge from the knowledge that is generated and used in our organizations to processes of learning. After all, if knowledge is in the notes, it’s learning that makes the music. The result is different research questions and avenues and approaches for interventions than before. For example, What types of knowledge are valued across an organization’s portfolio and how is that knowledge aligned with its strategic direction? What are the diverse ways in which knowledge is acquired, disseminated, and used? How do various forms or styles of learning across an organization conflict or complement one another? Finally, how are resources allocated within the portfolio and how might they be reallocated to increase a firm’s return on its learning investments?

As theorists and practitioners struggle to make their organizations more adaptable and more competitive than before, the call to learning will endure. Until a proven formula for learning is found or generated, alternative paradigms will be needed to explore what does or does not help executives make their organizations learn. Thinking about organizations as learning portfolios broadens the view about how “learning” and “organizations” can best be glued together.

Anthony DiBella (ajdibella@orgtransitions.com) is a consultant and thought leader in organizational learning and change management. This article is based on “Organizations As Learning Portfolios” by Anthony J. DiBella as published in The Handbook of Organizational Learning and Knowledge Management, Blackwell, 2003.

For Further Reading

Brown, J. S. and Duguid, P. The Social Life of Information. Harvard Business School Press, 2000.

DiBella, A. J. and Nevis, E. C. How Organizations Learn: An Integrated Strategy for Building Learning Capability. Jossey-Bass, 1998.

The post Managing Organizations As Learning Portfolios appeared first on The Systems Thinker.

Yet all too often, we find ourselves working in systems stuck in downward spirals of self-defeating dynamics. Intuitively, we all know the story of the downward spiral. A sports team makes a few mistakes and then cannot manage even the most basic play. A company cuts maintenance budgets due to financial pressure, which results in more breakdowns and lower quality, rising costs and lost customers, and eventually even greater financial pressure.

The downward spiral is a metaphor for decline, a self-reinforcing process that depletes something of value (or, in systems thinking terms, a “stock”). It can be described as a cycle of disinvestment or deterioration, as players withdraw resources from a system, an action that reduces its performance and prompts further withdrawals down the line. Unfortunately, when we are part of a downward spiral, we almost always find it difficult to see a way out because the incentives in the situation often reward narrow, short-term thinking.

Mobilizing change in a downward spiral means starting without the usual conditions for success. Because of the financial and emotional stress of the situation, we are unlikely to have accurate data, sufficient resources or time, committed participation from other stakeholders, or executive sponsorship. We lack the inclination to collaborate with others because our trust has eroded. And, frankly, why should we invest more effort before “they” fix their part of the problem?

For example, a colleague told me about a company where two department leaders who reported to the same boss were competing to avoid the boss’s disapproval. As a result, the leaders distanced themselves from each other. They were cordial in group settings, but otherwise they hardly spoke. They would only return each other’s emails or phone calls when absolutely necessary. This dynamic left the staff in the leaders’ departments unclear how to manage interactions, as their policies conflicted with each other. As a result, the company paid more contract penalties, and service quality suffered. Of course, overall results worsened, and staff confusion increased. But when my colleague asked the two leaders about addressing the issue, they said they wanted to send their teams to a workshop on collaboration.

Systems thinkers believe that if people have a shared picture of how a system works, they can shift things for the better. Our “meta-model” for change is that systems thinking will lead to shared vision, common mental models, and coordinated action on the leverage points that will turn the situation around. Unfortunately, in a downward spiral, where we most need systemic change, we typically cannot negotiate the time or attention to fully understand key dynamics and coordinate action. What we need instead is a meta-model that lets us “bootstrap” our way out of the downward spiral.

“Bootstrapping” is short for “pulling up by one’s bootstraps” or self-generated change. For example, we refer to a computer as “booting up” because it is hardwired to execute a small amount of code that instructs it to execute the next batch of code and so on, repeating until the computer is ready for use. In similar ways in other systems, the dynamics of organic growth — including feedback, accumulation, and amplification — can over time turn small changes into the miraculous forms of a baby, a town, a business, an economy, or a complex ecosystem.

Rediscovering Organic Growth

Given the choice, most leaders want to grow something real. Much as they welcome change, they lose all motivation when asked to “go through the motions” of improvement. “I just can’t do fake stuff,” said a senior vice president. Though they may compromise to reach short-term targets, most would prefer to focus on long-term, ongoing results and real value.

Of course, we do not “grow” results directly. The only way to improve long-term financial results and other outcomes is to grow the systems and capabilities that generate them. This is why nearly every systemic change is ultimately about fostering organic growth.

Whereas inorganic growth occurs through accretion — as when a business grows through mergers – to grow organically means to increase (or restore) through natural development, measured in size, complexity, or maturity. Any system that is growing organically is functioning well enough to create a surplus that can be reinvested in new capabilities or provide resources to the larger system. One of the most inspiring aspects of these turbulent times is that there are signs that those who really know how to grow or regenerate an organization can differentiate themselves for the future. Witness the performance of what Jim Collins and Morten Hansen refer to as “10x companies” in a recent study (Great by Choice: Uncertainty, Chaos and Luck – Why Some Thrive Despite Them All, HarperCollins, 2011).

Yet for most leaders, the dynamics of organic growth are invisible day to day. They cannot see whether their core capabilities are growing, deteriorating, or getting close to a tipping point. Managers see financial results and other outcome metrics, but the system that generates those results is a black box, and everyone in the organization has to discover for themselves how it works. Ironically, this sometimes leads busy leaders to think more simplistically, just when they need to be thinking more systemically.

Still, in most cases, asking leaders to learn the language of systems thinking so they can discuss growth is too high a hurdle. They need a simpler lens to prompt them to ask the right questions and make good decisions. Is there a way to help leaders see and manage the dynamics of organic growth more intuitively — without requiring them to learn a new language before they can start?

The Upward Spiral

In almost every culture, the shape associated with growth is the spiral (as shown by Angeles Arrien in Signs of Life: The Five Universal Shapes and How to Use Them, Jeremy P. Tarcher/Putnam, 1998). Many things in nature grow in spirals, from ferns to seashells to whirlpools. They can be as small as the double helix of a protein molecule and as large as the spiral arms of the Milky Way. Over 80 percent of plant life exhibits spiral growth patterns (see SpiralZoom).

The spiral is simply the shape created by a self-reinforcing growth process. By definition, a spiral winds around a center, in a progressive expansion or contraction, a rise or fall. What we see is the accumulation of changes as the system iterates over time. We tend to associate an upward spiral with growth, development, and evolution, as reflected in the architecture of spires and towers. Thus, I have begun using the metaphor of the upward spiral as a meta-model for systemic change. I define the upward spiral in this context as a metaphor for growth or “mutually reinforcing change that creates or regenerates something we value.”

To understand why the upward spiral metaphor simplifies and empowers how we think about systemic change, let’s take a look at two other prototypical models, Heroic Change and Grassroots Change.

With Heroic Change, change is likened to a journey or “trip to the moon.” In practice, it generally involves a strategic injection of resources and energy to orchestrate a “trip” from the old way to the new way. The drawback is that it is resource intensive, so we may find we do not have enough fuel to get to our destination. If we have not reached our goal and have bulldozed past opposition, the system may swing back toward the other pole, stuck in oscillation rather than advancing (see The Structure of Things by Robert Fritz).

By contrast, with Grassroots Change, we think of change occurring through “ripple effects.” It relies on many small-scale efforts, gradually winning converts until the new way replaces the old. This approach allows for creative emergence, yet can fail to take off if it does not engage structural barriers that limit progress or if local efforts do not build on each other. If our experiments run out of energy, or if we have excluded important opposition, the system can swing back again toward the other pole.

As an alternative, the upward spiral metaphor prompts us to engage limits and opposition, but at a manageable angle. It is not straight up, nor is it entirely sideways. Like a spiral staircase, it grows an asset stepwise, in increments that fit with our resources at any given time. This does not mean we lower our sights; it simply means we only go as fast as we can go and keep it real. The upward spiral approach enables us to bootstrap change out of many small efforts, but it challenges us to go beyond “preaching to the choir.” In practice, many intractable situations in business, cross-sector collaborations, personal relationships, and public life are improved through small, reciprocal actions among peers, leaders and followers, and opposing parties. The upward spiral metaphor looks for ways to use this dynamic intentionally, consciously activating higher levels of aspiration, commitment, and action — even among those who disagree.

The upward spiral metaphor prompts us to engage limits and opposition, but at a manageable angle.

For example, in a tense union-management conversation leading up to a negotiation, a mediator recognized that trust was so low that the parties involved even misinterpreted sincere collaborative behavior. Rather than continue, with the risk of a destructive strike looming, he advised both parties to stop the negotiating activity. He then asked each side to draft a list of things the other could do to demonstrate that it had turned over a new leaf and was committed to collaborating. Management’s list included “reduce work-to-rule days during critical busy periods.” Labor listed items such as “do not require physician’s notes for sick leave of less than a day.” Once complete, the two sides exchanged lists.

Over the following month or two, they watched each other’s actions. Eventually, someone tried an item on the other side’s list. Then the second side decided to reciprocate. The process built until the two sides had carried out a good portion of the items on the lists. When representatives met a second time to negotiate, though they still differed markedly in their interests, they were able to communicate critical data and forecasts more credibly and arrived at an innovative solution to avoid both a strike and difficulties for the workers. This same method has contributed to reversing destructive conflict in a variety of settings, such as helping end the violence in Northern Ireland.

Why the Upward Spiral Model Helps with Bootstrapping Change

In my experience, the upward spiral has four advantages as a model when thinking about systemic change.

1. It activates positive potential. In a downward spiral, we see the worst in people. Yet social psychology shows that human beings are not fixed entities. We can prime ourselves to act on higher values. The upward spiral image itself seems to evoke some of this energy. “I feel different just thinking about the situation as an upward spiral,” explained a teacher. “The image itself activates hope.” With renewed hope, we gain the imagination to reengage difficult situations with new perspective.

2. It works with the way systems grow. Because it is derived from the growth of living things, the upward spiral naturally invites systems thinking without requiring specialized terminology. We can use it to prompt questions such as: What do we want to grow? Are we currently growing or deteriorating? Are we near a tipping point? The spiral shape also guides us in pacing change, tackling challenges at a manageable “angle of approach.”

3. It views opposition as part of the process. The spiral metaphor reminds us that real progress requires engaging those with whom we disagree, so our efforts yield more than just a swing of the pendulum from one pole to the other (see “Progress Through Engaging Disagreement”). For example, as Barry Johnson describes in Polarity Management (HRD Press, 1996), by managing tensions through constructive engagement that integrates the best of two opposing view, we can create both/and solutions and an upward spiral based on shared purpose. At the same time, the metaphor recognizes that change often requires saying “no.” The Systems Archetypes, as defined in The Fifth Discipline and other resources, all involve rejecting some easy but ineffective solution — from quick fixes, to drifting goals, to monopolizing resources.

4. It enables us to take action whatever the circumstances. In systems thinking terms, the upward spiral metaphor works as a fractal; we can use it to spark our thinking relative to any critical resource, asset, or stock — zooming in and out as needed to any scale. We do not need to wait for others to collaborate; in fact, we can act unilaterally to help the right thing happen, addressing whatever is limiting our progress. For example, we can use it to think about growing a company’s strategic capabilities. And if we do not have enough support to act on those ideas, we can use it to think about building that support. If we do not have alignment with our boss on getting that support, we can use it to work on the relationship with our boss. The general principle is to use the resources for change that you do have, to create the resources that you need — starting with the most immediate barrier. For example, a marketing communications manager called her boss to discuss a problem with their marketing strategy, but he treated her concerns with some skepticism. Ah, she told herself. We can’t get to a shared mental model on our marketing strategy until we build some trust and rapport between us. I’ll focus on that. “So,” she said to her boss, “What do you see as the biggest barriers to achieving our goals this quarter?” By the end of the call, he began asking her similar questions.

The CPIRAL Model: Six Principles for Mobilizing an Upward Spiral

After studying examples of downward spirals, reversals, and upward spirals, I began discovering six principles that can help leaders take small, effective steps to build trust, collaboration, and excellence, even in difficult circumstances. To make these principles memorable, I captured them in what I call the CPIRAL Model:

• Center on the Asset
• Prime for Potential
• Invest in Increments
• Approach at the Right Angle
• Signal Through Action
• Listen and Amplify

Let’s examine each of these in the context of a real company in the throes of a downward spiral.

NTB was a client of mine that developed highly specialized software for government programs and was required to submit its software to citizen review committees for approval of the final product. Unfortunately, the company routinely delivered its programs months late. Code often had errors, and many of these were caught by clients, who rejected the faulty software. Programmers were often shifted from one project to another to catch up on deadlines. Stress led many of the programmers to work from home, which reduced the sense of teamwork. Angry customers changed specifications or added to project scope mid-stream. And if a project was delayed too long, the citizen review committee would complete its term, and the programmers would have to start over with a completely new set of approvers. As customers went to competitors, financial pressure mounted, so the company set hiring limits and raised targets for sales staff. Unfortunately, for the sales team to close deals, it often had to promise unrealistic delivery dates, which started the cycle all over again.

One day, sales promised five-month delivery on an 18-month project. The goal was so ridiculous that programming team members knew they had to try something different. They decided to hire a contract project manager (I’ll call him Jake). Jake said he would take the assignment but only with certain non-negotiable parameters. Skeptical but desperate, company leaders agreed.

If we do not diverge from the default pressures on the system, nothing will change.

To everyone’s amazement, Jake’s approach worked. The team completed 18 months of work in just five months, with no changes to the client’s specification (down from 10-25 percent on previous projects) and only 5 percent defects (down from 15 percent). Together with their clients, team members reversed a downward spiral of frustration and delays, and created an upward spiral of credible commitments, delivery, trust, and results.

How did they do it? And why did it work?

Center on the Asset

The first step in building an upward spiral is to ask, What do we want to grow? The answer is usually some kind of asset that enables us to generate the results we want. (An asset refers to any enabling resource, infrastructure, or stock – physical or intangible.) For example, Jake decided that he needed to drastically expand the team’s capability to deliver – the know how, systems, resources, and practices that enabled them to deliver high quality at a fast pace – if they were going to meet the deadline.

Prime for Potential

The second step is to activate hidden potential in ourselves and others by asking, What might help us see ourselves and each other anew? What are we truly capable of? A fresh look provides the inspiration to invest new energy in a situation with negative history. For example, Jake brought in benchmarks from his prior assignments showing how a few changes to work practices can multiply productivity. “Do you think we could apply those ideas here?” he asked the team. They wanted to try.

Invest in Increments

The third step is to decide: How big a step should we take next? The ideal next step contributes to the core asset, yet is within the scope of what you can manage. For example, Jake used the team’s willingness to try something different to get agreement on three small but radical changes. First, he insisted that all team members be assigned to the project full time (rather than several people part time). Second, he insisted the whole team travel to attend a kickoff so they got on the same page. And third, all developers and managers would review issues on joint weekly calls. Developers would fix their own bugs instead of handing them off to junior programmers to fix. These few changes ensured that 100 percent of team members only wrote code that fully met the client’s specifications, drastically reducing rework and waste. Despite the surface inefficiency, these practices virtually multiplied the team’s capability without adding staff hours.

Approach at the Right Angle

The fourth step invites us to set our “angle of approach”: Where do we need to differ from expectations or reach out across lines? Where do we need to say “no”? For example, Jake included downstream departments in team meetings. He vigorously resisted staff reassignments. And he disciplined his team not to write any code before the specifications were finalized. In this way, he ensured that the team only wrote code that fully met the client’s specifications and was consistent with the deadline. If we do not diverge from the default pressures on the system, nothing will actually change.

Signal Through Action

The fifth step advises us not to start with talk, but to ask ourselves, How can we signal our commitment through action? For example, Jake simply showed up at the client meeting with a list of draft specifications, then said, “Rather than give you a blank sheet of paper, we thought we’d give you something to react to. Could you review these and tell us where we’re wrong?” This helped focus the client’s input, demonstrated that the team was on top of things, and showed a commitment to customer satisfaction. If they had waited to talk through the best approach, they might not have gotten started.

Listen and Amplify

If bootstrapping change requires many small, reciprocal actions, then we can drastically accelerate that process by paying closer attention to what is already underway. We can simply ask, What can we build on? How will we know when to take the next step? For example, after a while, Jake noticed that the joint team reviews were not producing new insights. Instead, he switched to a monthly check-in, which won him kudos with the team and sparked even more productivity. Many leaders dramatically accelerate progress by watching closely as their team’s capability grows and adapting in response.

Conclusion

Many people ask at what point a downward spiral tips to an upward one. The answer depends on the balance between growing and depleting flows. Results improve as the asset grows, which then enables reinvestment. (See “Basic Dynamics of Asset Growth.” The structure is similar to the inflows/outflows in a bathtub.) We can tip the spiral by increasing the growing function or reducing the depleting function. In this way, a small action can transform the functioning of the system as a whole.

As you have seen above, the upward spiral model is a sort of scalable invest-for-success strategy. By taking small steps to grow a core asset or stock and working on whatever is the most immediate barrier, we can reverse destructive downward cycles and mobilize growth, health, and regeneration. What may begin as unilateral efforts to spark collaboration can enable more coordinated action and more ambitious visions.

As Robert Pirsig says in Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance, even the tiny screw on the cover of the gas tank deserves your respect if, by stripping it, you cannot get to the engine. When a new barrier shows up, we need to zoom in and focus on it. As we make progress, we can zoom out and take bigger steps.

There is no faster way. If we are working effectively on the true constraint, we are making maximum progress. The good news is that, in some cases, barriers can shift in an instant. At its root, the upward spiral metaphor is about choosing what to do with whatever degrees of freedom we have. And its central, driving question is always the same: How do we move up from here?

Elizabeth Doty is the founder of WorkLore, a leadership consulting firm that uses systems thinking and story to help organizations such as Cisco, Archstone-Smith, and Stanford University build cultures of commitment and action. She is the author of The Compromise Trap: How to Thrive at Work without Selling your Soul. Elizabeth has given talks and workshops at The Commonwealth Club of San Francisco, Pegasus’s Systems Thinking in Action Conference, and the Society for Organizational Learning. She is a Steward of the Bay Area Society for Organizational Learning and earned her MBA from the Harvard Business School.

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Dr. Donella H. Meadows was one of the most influential environmental thinkers of the 20th century. As principal author of Limits to Growth (Universe Books, 1972), which sold more than nine million copies in 26 languages, she and her colleagues applied the then relatively new tools of system dynamics to global problems. She went on to write eight other books and a weekly syndicated column.

Donella founded Sustainability Institute in 1996 to apply systems thinking, system dynamics, and organizational learning to environmental and social challenges. Three qualities that she combined brilliantly were dedication to scientific rigor, deeply grounded optimism, and the ability to communicate well. Donella’s use of systems tools enabled her to see clearly the root causes of seemingly intractable problems — poverty, war, environmental degradation — and her deep affection for people and the earth gave her a unique power to reach others.

The Donella Meadows Leadership Fellows Program honors and builds on Donella’s legacy by empowering a new generation of sustainability leaders to use whole-systems thinking in their work and life. The Fellowship integrates rigorous systems analysis with skills in articulating feelings, values, and vision. To support more women in becoming leaders of sustainability, the selection process ensures that at least two-thirds of the participants are female.

The recently graduated 2003–2004 Fellows work in the nonprofit, government, business, tribal, university, and philanthropic sectors. They hailed from major cities, university towns, and rural communities in 14 states. One Fellow came from Brazil, and several others have significant experience working in international settings with a range of colleagues and stakeholders. Through their ongoing work with their organizations, the Fellows interact with conservation activists, farmers, industry executives, legislators, citizen boards, and government officials. Their work represents diverse sectors, bioregions, and ecosystems.

The Curriculum

The Fellows Program is organized in two-year cycles, encompassing four 4day workshops at Sustainability Institute’s affiliated Cobb Hill cohousing community in Vermont, homework, and personalized coaching to apply the workshop teachings to Fellows’ current work. Staff at the Sustainability Institute, and guest speakers Peter Senge (author of The Fifth Discipline), Nancy Jack Todd (Ocean Arks International and editor of Annals of Earth), John Sterman (Jay W. Forrester Professor of Management and director of the MIT System Dynamics Group), and Sara Schley (SEED Systems and the SoL Sustainability Consortium), taught the recent Fellows to:

• Build skills in systems thinking, organizational learning, reflective conversation, mental models, and personal mastery
• Apply systems principles to complex environmental and social problems in their work
• Develop their professional and personal capabilities to serve as leaders for sustainability

Specifically, Fellows:

• Learn to draw causal loop maps that reveal system drivers and leverage points for creating change
• Practice stock and flow diagrams and “Action to Outcome” mapping
• Uncover mental models that drive policy and populations of people to accept or reject new initiatives
• Develop and lead strategies for environmental and social sustainability
• Create new collaborations among other Fellows and with Sustainability Institute staff
• Communicate more effectively, facilitate new understanding, and inspire hope
• Increase their personal mastery and articulate a vision for long-term sustainability in several issue areas

A fundamental thrust of both the Fellows program and Sustainability Institute’s work is to address the systemic roots of social and environmental problems rather than focus on their many symptoms. When Fellows learn to recognize and, most importantly, direct their strategies toward the drivers of complex systems, they greatly enhance their effectiveness. The tools of systems thinking foster connection and understanding as well as win/win dynamics.

By committing to apply the teachings of the Fellowship to their current work challenges, Fellows both use the tools of systems thinking and expose others to them. They also form a learning network representing many regions, issue areas, and professional contacts that amplifies the impact of the training for each participant.

Applying the Learnings

The 2003–2004 Fellows stated that their ability to broaden their perspective in addressing larger-scale environmental and social problems, analyze the root causes of these problems, look for leverage points to make change, and implement solutions have all increased through the program. Angela Park, from the Environmental Leadership Program, says, “The Fellowship has given me very specific tools for thinking strategically about some truly vexing, complicated projects.” Fellows apply these tools to engage multiple stakeholders in complex environmental and social issues in the U. S. and international settings. For example:

• Julia Novy-Hildesley, director of the Lemelson Foundation, has applied a range of tools she learned and practiced through the Fellows Program. She has used an adapted visioning exercise to help her executive board envision the desired results from a program they are initiating. In addition, Julia developed a stock and flow and casual loop map to articulate her foundation’s plan for increasing the rate of invention and innovation toward social ends in the developing world. The stock and flow map outlines the development of ideas to inventions to products actually in use, while the feedback loops show the ways that the foundation’s three strategies — mentoring, recognition, and dissemination — trigger reinforcing cycles that could lead to improved results over time.
• Christina Page of the Rocky Mountain Institute has applied systems thinking tools toward overcoming the barriers that prevent corporations from working together to purchase and use environmentally benign material on a massive scale. The effort pulls together Fortune 500 corporations to radically increase the demand for alternatives to hexavalent chrome, conventional leather, and other products. Christina, a facilitator and catalyst to the effort, has been using causal mapping tools to diagram the various hurdles that the project faces, for example, the building of a critical mass of participants, the potential for too many participants, and competitive pressures. She reports, “It was a luxury to talk about the project in terms of systems and mindsets rather than just budgets and immediate deadlines.”
• Tim Brown, director of the Delta Institute, works to prevent biological pollution in the Great Lakes. Such a seemingly intractable problem involves several major groups — ports, vessel owners, shippers, and the public. By incorporating systems thinking into his work of developing an Environmental Management System (EMS), Tim made it clear to his team (five people from five different organizations) that they would have to engage all stakeholders in crafting a solution that served all of their needs. Tim used a systems map he created with the help of his Sustainability Institute coach and other Fellows to provide strategic orientation to his team. His use of systems thinking on this issue was particularly significant because he is a team member, not a project leader.
• Amália Souza, Global Green grants, Brazil, is using both systems and inquiry tools in the development of a new Brazilian foundation to support grassroots environmental non-governmental organizations (NGOs). She says about the Fellows Program, “Learning to ‘think’ in systems terms is a challenge unlike most so far. And it is an amazing exercise to force my mind to see the whole picture. These tools are proving quite efficient in my work, since I can see things now that would have escaped my perception completely before. I have still a long ways to go in mastering these tools, but I can see why I should persevere. This Fellowship, in many ways, is revealing a new and much more interesting world to me.”
• Ellen Wolfe of Tabors Caramanis & Associates, focuses on electric utility restructuring activities. She works with electrical system operators, policy makers, regulators, and market participants to effect change in market structures. Ellen’s work over the past few years has been in the context of the California energy crises; she seeks further thinking on how to put in place effective and efficient market structures in an environment of short-run political and business cycles. She comments, “The Fellowship has shown me the value of good communication; how great it felt to hear and be heard, to give and receive good coaching, and how little relative impact it has to ‘convince’ someone of something rather than let them arrive at insights themselves. It has encouraged new ways of being for me in my work. Also, in doing so, it has given me a higher level of confidence in stepping up and taking on a leadership role in areas for which I do not necessarily have a demonstrated area of competency.”

Donella Meadows once said, “We humans are smart enough to have created complex systems and amazing productivity; surely we are also smart enough to make sure that everyone shares our bounty, and surely we are smart enough to sustainably steward the natural world upon which we all depend.” The 2003–2004 Fellows are working with multiple stakeholders in a cross-section of issue areas to do just this, giving us inspiration and hope as we build on Donella’s legacy to shift the tide to global sustainability.

Edie Farwell is program director for the Donella Meadows Leadership Fellows Program of the Sustainability Institute. Previously, she was director of the Association for Progressive Communications.

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This analysis raises interesting questions about the best training for today’s business leaders. As former New York Times science writer Daniel Goleman suggests in his book, Primal Leadership (Harvard Business School Press, 2002), the latest scientific findings indicate that brainy but dogmatic bosses rarely rise to be stars in an age when organizational speed and flexibility are the key to survival.

Likewise, in a cover story several years ago, Time magazine sifted through the current thinking and reported, “New brain research suggests that emotions, not IQ, may be the true measure of human intelligence.” The bottom-line significance of what Time called “EQ” was suggested by management expert Karen Boylston: “Customers are telling businesses, ‘I don’t care if every member of your staff graduated with honors from Harvard, Stanford, and Wharton. I will take my business and go where I am understood and treated with respect.’”

If the evolutionary pressures of the marketplace make EQ, not IQ, the hot ticket for business success, it seems likely that both individual executives and boards of directors need to know how to cultivate it. I have a modest proposal: embrace a highly personal practice aimed at improving these four adaptive skills:

1. Practice Self-Awareness. Psychologists call this discipline “metacognition”; Buddhist monks know it as “mindfulness”; Socrates referred to it as the “examined life.” I think of it as thinking differently on purpose and noticing what you’re feeling and thinking. Whatever you call it, practicing this skill is a way of escaping the conditioned confines of your past. Raise your consciousness by catching yourself in the act of thinking as often as possible; routinely notice your emotions and ask if you’re facing facts or indulging biases.

2. Use Imagery. This is what you see Olympic ski racers doing before they enter the starting gate. With closed eyes and swaying bodies, they run the course in their minds, which ultimately improves their performance. You can do a similar thing by setting aside time each day to dream with gusto about what you want to achieve.

3. Frame and Reframe Events. When the Greek Stoic Epictetus said 2,000 years ago that it isn’t events that matter but our opinion of them, this is what he was talking about. Every time something important happens, assign as many interpretations to it as possible, even zany ones. Then go with the interpretation most supportive of your dreams.

4. Integrate the Perspectives of Others. Brain research shows that our view of the world is physiologically limited by our genes and the experiences we’ve had. Learning to incorporate the useful perspectives of others is nothing less than a form of amplifying your senses. The next time someone interprets something differently than you do, pause to consider that a gift of perception is being offered, if you’ll only accept it.

Mastering the emotional components of these four practices often proves to be the most difficult for senior executives, but as Goleman has emphasized, doing so can yield “Resonant Leadership”—emotionally intelligent leaders. By practicing self-awareness, leaders notice their moods and emotions and how these are influencing their behaviors. By using imagery, they can go beyond the intellectual data to make smart choices that look to others like “leaps of faith.” By framing and reframing events and integrating the perspectives of others, leaders can manage their own reactions, thereby improving their emotional state and that of their organizations.

Although the recommendations suggested above may appear simplistic, they are based on what we know about the mechanisms of the mind. The bad news: it’s hard to change power of habits—the electromagnetism of established neural pathways will literally pull you away from changing your practices. This may be why history repeats itself. The good news is that not only is it possible to change our behaviors, it’s actually easier than overcoming a chemical dependency such as alcoholism. But you must have a discipline for doing it. Hence, the method recommended here.

No, it’s not a curriculum in the sense that an MBA is. But what the latest research seems to imply is that without the software of emotional maturity and self-knowledge, the hardware of academic training alone is worth less and less.

Michael O’Brien, Ed. D., is president and founder of O’Brien Group. The firm specializes in executive coaching and executive team development and can be reached at 513-821-9580 or www.obriengroup.us.

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