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Learning
for a Change
What
is Change Learning ?
How
does it come about ?
How
can it be developed ?
What
are the four dimensions?
Why
does it not always work ?
Becoming
a Learning Organisation
What
are the four dimensions ?
It's
not easy to get people feeling comfortable about constant
change. This is beacise you are askingpeople to move out of
their 'comfort zone' and into the 'change zone'. A fundamental
human need is to feel secure, you hold on to old habits and
the thinking hat goes with them.
Rapid
change means doing today what we want to be tomorrow. Change
and learning can only happen in the present. We can tap into
each other's untapped human energy by making people our learning
and change partners - improving the present and creating the
future together. Both mindsets have to co-exist.
Present mindset
- do things right
"What's wrong and who will fix
it ?
Future mindset -
do the right things
"what's possible and who cares?"
It
all depends where your attention is focused, what engages
your mind, body and spirit. Clarity of purpose, meaning, communication
and thinking hold the key. You create links to the things
that really matter to you - you are conscious of them. .
The
leadership for learning and change has to be distributed.
They must become learning partners in a coaching relationship.
Real change is about turning ideas into practical action.
Leading real change is about focusing the energy to get the
biggest impact.
The
process of learning requires you to engage with the unknown
by giving people choices - but not between yes or no. Otherwise
we just gain additional information, but it doesn't challenge
us to think or act in new ways.
I
use an approach called TeamNets
that uses Change
Teams. Some of these teams focus on improving
the present and others on preparing for the future. Representatives
from each type of team sit on a TeamNet Group that endorses
the best ideas and supports their implementation.
Learning
can no longer be seen as just the acquisition of knowledge,
skills and behaviours. Personal qualities such as intuition
and energy are just as important in today's workplace. People
talk about learning and change as outcomes or competencies.
But there's more to it. Learning and change are complementary
processes - one emerges from the other making them interdependent.
Learning needs change and change needs learning.
What is change
learning ?
Change
requires active learning - it is not just an outcome. It's
a process by which the mind compares an idea, feeling or experience
with existing knowledge and patterns of understanding. It
either rejects new information or connects it up with existing
concepts, resulting in a change of thinking or behaviour.
Piaget calls this 'accommodation'. Without learning their
could be no change, and without change there would be no learning.
When
you learn from your day-to-day interactions you shift your
thinking and behaviour gradually and easily so that they makes
sense. It is easily, even unknowingly assimilated. You may
even learn a new skill without realising. Nevertheless, you
will find it difficult to know what exactly has been learned
unless you spend some time reflecting on any changes. This
learning process is enhanced when it takes place with others
who have had the same or similar experience.
When
you want to make change happen you have to learn with a purpose,
and understand how you learn so you can make the learning
process more effective. This is called 'double-loop' learning.
In
simple terms, you have learned when you know something
you didn't know before, or can do something
you couldn't do before.
"All
knowing is doing, and all doing is knowing."
Humberto
Maturana in 'The Tree of Knowledge'
Learning
and change can be incremental
when adding to existing knowledge, skills and insights, or
transformational, when
existing patterns are turned upside-down and given new meaning.
Hence the need for different types of Change
Team
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