Deutero learning is about learning to learn. In other words it is about the creation of conditions that optimize single-loop and double-loop processes. Argyris and Schön constructed Model II as a blueprint for organizations that are most successful in organizational learning. It emphasizes the following values: least defensiveness and public testing of theories. Model II also encourages, supports and rewards learning through the provision of a culture of openness, a management style supporting critical thinking, and an organization structure that facilitates the easy flow of ideas and data at all levels in the organization. It accepts and appreciates disconfirmable statements (new insights) and double-loop learning when needed. The concept of 'the learning organization' as proposed by e.g. Senge, is a further operationalization of
Model II. An important variable then is the set of organizational norms that enables organizations to learn effectively. The identification and implementation of these norms is not at all an easy process. Two authors have become reknowned for their proposed 'solutions', Tom Peters and Peter Senge.
Peters' Solutions
To demonstrate the practical way in which deutero learning processes work from an organization development perspective, Tom Peters provides two interesting cases: Electronic Data Systems (EDS) and Asean Brown Boveri.
EDS is a huge 'system integrator' with about 72.000 employees, operating in about 28 countries for over 7000 clients, organized in 38 strategic business units. A most remarkable feature of EDS is:
" Boil down any SBU and you'll find projects. In fact, EDS is one big collection of project teams. The number of people on a project can vary greatly throughout its life. The norm is 8 to 12 EDSers, working together for a period of 9 to 18 months" (Peters, 1992, p. 24-25).
Because the greatest emphasis is placed on the project teams, the big problem is how to connect people in EDS with each other, and specifically how to know which people can participate in specific projects. Therefore, EDS has to learn to leverage its skills (mainly connected with individual persons), and must develop a base containing information about these skills. Additionally EDS has 'Centers of Service', that set some people free for fundamental research on a particular new skill or subject (e.g. imaging technology). These Centers of Service are temporary organizational units, and have to earn their income by motivating project groups to adopt the developed knowledge. EDS has thus explicitly been designed to augment and store knowledge and make this knowledge into a shared organizational memory via its procedures, systems and structure.
Asean Brown Boveri is a huge company operating in power plants, power transmission, power distribution, transportation, environmental control, financial services, and other types of business such as metallurgy, process automation, robotics and superchargers. In 1991 they booked $28.9 billion in revenue in 140 countries. CEO Sune Karlsson of the $1 billion revenue Power Transformers Business Area gives an illustration of how this giant organization is managed:
" Our most important strength is that we have 25 factories around the world, each with its own president, design manager, marketing manager, and production manager. These people are working on the same problems and opportunities day after day, year after year, and learning a tremendous amount. We want to create a process of continuous expertise transfer. If we do, that's a source of advantage none of our rivals can match" (quoted from Harvard Business Review, in Peters, 1992, p. 51).
Additionally Karlsson tries to create internal competition by providing detailed monthly information on the performance of all 25 units.
" But Karlsson is well aware that such competition must be constructive; he insists (...) that the key task is creating a 'culture of trust and exchange' (p. 51).
But..
" Sharing of expertise does not happen automatically (...) People need to spend time together, to get to know and understand each other....People must also see a payoff for themselves (....) We have to demonstrate that sharing pays - that contributing one idea gets you twenty-four in return" (according to Karlsson, quoted in Peters, 1992, p.52).
Not only knowledge storage and dissemination are important for organizational learning, but people must be motivated to participate and create open communications as well. Both cases clearly have developed model II characteristics. Information technology has a prominent role in the construction of these modern organizations, by the creation of electronic highways, knowledge and skills databases. The following motivational and leadership features are even more basic than the construction of these (infra-)structural arrangements:
1. Internal market principles, that give people direct feedback to their performance and provides strong incentives for high performance.
2. Decentralized organizations and reduction of bureaucracy. This empowers people and does not frustrate initiatives and creativity.
3. Developing expertise as never before. (Something that might look contradictory to the decentralization trend, but isn't when the organization connects smart people together, e.g. by means of EDS's Centers of Service, or connecting with research institutes).
4. Management's support staff must contribute to these three principles. They must change their bureaucratic sense in which knowledge is power. Top management must not use its support staff for control and the support staff must not slow down the decision-making.
5. "The essence of an effective KMS11 is advertising, marketing, packaging, incentives, big
travel budgets, and the psychodynamics of knowledge management12. The crux of the
issue is not information, information technology, or knowledge per se. It's how, for example, you get busy people in those miniature ABB units to want to contribute to the KMS. The answer turns out to lie more with psychology and marketing (...) than with bits and bytes" (Peters, 1992, p. 384).
Senge's 'Solutions'
Senge states, in line with Argyris and Schön, that organizational learning is not only a
11Accronym for Knowledge Management Structures, Peters' term for learning organization.
cognitive activity but often requires a change in power relationships and attitudes. Many of the norms that inhibit learning are tacit and private, and must be well analyzed for their organizational impacts, so that true learning can occur. Senge describes five disciplines as basic for effective organizational learning (Senge 1990a, p. 5-13):
• Systems thinking by which people learn to understand the patterns and linkages that exist among phenomena.
• Personal mastery: Defined by Senge as: "...the discipline of continually clarifying and deepening our personal vision, of focussing our energies, of developing patience, and of seeing reality objectively. As such, it is an essential cornerstone of the learning organization - the learning organization's spiritual foundation" (p. 7).
• Mental models:"....deeply ingrained assumptions, generalizations, or even pictures or images that influence the world and how we take action" (p.8). Many of these theories-of-action are tacit and obstruct organizational change. By understanding these models we can change them and provide basic conditions for innovation.
• Building shared vision. This is the discipline of translating individual visions about a wishful future to a joint sense of destiny in an organization.
• Team learning. The strength of a team is that it can discover insights that none of the members would have discovered alone. This can only happen, however, when a free-flow of meaning is created among the members. This is not something that happens by chance but must be learned and teams can learn to become more effective by a constant process of improvement in this discipline. It is essential, according to Senge's theory, that these five disciplines are developed as an ensemble, which he calls 'The Fifth Discipline'. Senge presents a substantial number of ideas to support his fifth discipline concept and is extremely normative. Senge does not concretely explain why an organization requires these five disciplines and does not describe how organizations in specific contexts must learn these disciplines. The theory underlying his thought is therefore obscure and not open for academic research. Nevertheless, it is part of the organization development tradition because of its strong emphasis on tacit processes, personal and interpersonal development and change. In fact Peters' ideas are more concrete because he describes concrete and measurable organizational arrangements that should be made, given the context of large organizations. His approach is however weaker than Senge's on the psychological aspects of learning.