“We don’t talk about what we see; we see only what we can talk about,” observed systems thinker Fred Kofman.
How much do we think about how we think? Look at a tree, a dog, or a tea field. Do straight lines exist in nature? Can a one track reliance on linear straight line thinking get us into trouble? What is single loop learning? What is double loop learning, that can perk up imagination, fueling innovation?
Managers create their world in their speaking. It is painful to admit but we see only what we want to see. What is out of our field of awareness, is never discussed. Awareness is everything. If you are not aware of something, does it exist?
Tomorrow’s market leaders are able to create distinctions. Is a goldfish in a fishbowl able to create the distinction: water? Noticing what others miss, yet it is right in front of them, is a route to gaining a competitive advantage.
Medium impacts the message
“[Language] can serve as a medium through which we create new understandings and new realities as we begin to talk about them. Our perspectives on the world depend on the interaction of our nervous system and our language --- both act as filters through which we perceive our world . . .”
“The language and information systems of an organisation are not an objective means of describing an outside reality – they fundamentally structure the perceptions and actions of its members. To reshape the measurement and communication systems if a [society] is to reshape all potential interactions at the most fundamental level. Language . . . an articulation of reality is more primordial than strategy, or . . . culture,” wrote Kofman in the journal, The Systems Thinker.
Small push, small response
Helps to notice the nature of business relationships. Some can be considered to be linear, drawn on a graph with a straight line. A relationship of constant proportions. If the farmer puts five kg of fertiliser on their field, their yield will go up by 30 percent. We tend to gravitate to linear cause and effect thinking.
If I do A, the result will be B. A small push will give a small response. And, a big push, twice the size, will give a big twice the impact response. But in our non-linear [complex systems] real world, twice the response could give only one sixth the impact, or no response at all.
“Linear relationships are easy to think about, the more the merrier. Linear equation are solvable, which makes it suitable for textbook. Linear systems have an important modular virtue: you can take them apart and put them together again – the pieces add up .
Non-linear systems generally cannot be solved and cannot be added together ... non-linearity means the act of playing the game has a way of changing the rules ... That twisted change ability makes nonlinearity hard to calculate, but it also creates rich kinds of behavior that never occur in linear systems” wrote James Gleick.
Think about driving on the highway to work, as the numbers of cars increase, your car’s speed is only slightly affected. But as more cars join, the traffic density increases, creating a rapid drop off in speed. And, once just a few more cars join, you are in a traffic jam, and car speeds drop to zero. A saturated solution.
Add one more loop to learning
So what to do? In an age of constant 24/7 distraction and an almost exponential rate of change, the ability to learn [one small step at a time, every day] is a source of competitive advantage, both for the manager and his or her organisation.
Double loop learning helps, a concept learning introduced by Chris Argyris, some 50 plus years ago helps. In single loop learning, one corrects errors, mistakes based on the existing rules and assumptions.
In double loop learning, managers question and play with the underlying assumptions and goals. Going back to first principles, the root cause, one notices that the way a problem is defined and solved, can be a source of the problem.
It's an open question: How much companies and NGO – donor organisations learn ? Applying double loop learning, creating a sense of awareness, can drive creativity and innovation, perhaps going beyond simply adapting to change, to anticipating, or even being slightly ahead of the change.
So not only learning, but learning how to learn. Nothing new under the sun. These ideas are not novel, 2,500 years ago Confucius said -- “He who learns but does not think, is lost! He who thinks but does not learn is in great danger.”
