Given the “perpetual white water” of the contemporary business, Peter Senge has pointed out that one of the most critical skills that organizations need to develop is “learning how to learn.” Real learning can be contrasted with “shelf-ware” – that brand of learning that remains intellectual and theoretical, until it is ultimately forgotten… In contrast, real learning changes the way we look at a situation, the way that we think, the way that we are, the way that we behave – it is truly transformational.Transformational learning involves seeing things from a new perspective, so that new kinds of behavior become natural and obvious rather than “politically correct.”
In an earlier article, I wrote about how the metaphors we use to describe leadership and organizations shape our perception and interpretation of a situation and therefore, our behavior (http://www.creativeleadercoach.com/2008/01/16/what-is-your-organization-like/). Metaphors act as a kind of map of the territory; yet, as we know, there is an enormous difference between the map and the actual territory.
We need simply compare a street map to the full experience and complexity of our own neighborhoods to see that the map simply represents one way of perceiving and thinking about a much richer and complex reality. The number of physical, social, psychological… maps (not to mention the interactions amongst these categories) that we could create are only exhausted by our imaginations. Each new map would give us new insight, but taken all-together, they could never exhaust reality.
For this reason, we need to hold our perspectives more lightly, to experiment with new ones to see how they work or don’t work for us.
One prevalent metaphor is the organization as a well-oiled machine. In upcoming articles, we’ll explore this metaphor in more detail to see what it buys us and also what it costs us with respect to collaboration, innovation, and organizational effectiveness.
Practice
In what ways is your organization like a machine? How is this analogy useful to you in thinking about your role as a leader?
In what ways is your organization different than a machine?
What different metaphors do you use for thinking about your organization?
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