OEC Handout # 10

Organizational Learning

In his book The Fifth Discipline: The Art and Practice of the Learning Organization, Peter Senge defines a learning organization as the big one that can create the results it truly desires.
According to Senge:
Real learning gets to the heart of what it means to be human. Through learning we re-create ourselves. Through learning we become able to do something we never were able to do. Through learning we repercieve the world and our relationship to it. Through learning we extend our capacity to create, to be part of the generative process of life. There is within each of us a deep hunger for this type of [learning.]
The reality each of us sees and understands depend on what we believe there is. By learning the principles of the five disciplines, teams begin to understand how they can think and inquire their realities, in a way that enhances collaboration in discussions and in working together towards creating the results that matter (to all them).
In the Fifth Discipline, Peter Senge describes learning organizations as places "where people continually expand their capacity to create the results they truly desire, where new and expansive patterns of thinking are nurtured, where collective aspiration is set free, and where people are continually learning to see the whole (reality) together". They do so by:
Seeing, learning and practicing to work with interrelations (circles of causality or "feedback") as well as processes of change (or the time (delays) it takes for change to happen). The extent to which we see and work with these feedbacks and delays hinges on the frames or lenses we are using to help us make sense of our realities. Are we learning to see (practice) the "whole story" or a part of it (linear cause-effect)? The extent to which we see our frames determines the extent to which we understand our realities.
Sharing a set of tools / methodologies and theories: A learning organization creates a common and agreed upon understanding of terms, concepts, categories and keywords that apply within that organization that facilitates this work. See: http://www.lopn.net/60_Tools.html.
Building Guiding Ideas: Leaders and members in a Learning Organization, see primacy of the whole (understand complexities), the generative power of language (generative conversations by recognizing one's frames that get in the way of seeing another's frames) and the community nature of self (seeing oneself and the connectedness to the whole and the world). The true learning organization is redesigning itself constantly or not merely led by the leader (and his frame). A leader in the organization instead supports this redesigning by acting as a steward (stewarding persons' visions), teacher and designer (bringing different views together for all of us to see the extent of the system (or ship)as compared to the merely being the captain of the ship).
In a way those who work in a learning organization are “fully awakened” people. They are engaged in their work, striving to reach their potential, by sharing the vision of a worthy goal with team colleagues. They have mental models to guide them in the pursuit of personal mastery, and their personal goals are in alignment with the mission of the organization. Working in a learning organization is far from being a slave to a job that is unsatisfying; rather, it is seeing one’s work as part of a whole, a system where there are interrelationships and processes that depend on each other. Consequently, awakened workers take risks in order to learn, and they understand how to seek enduring solutions to problems instead of quick fixes. Lifelong commitment to high quality work can result when teams work together to capitalize on the synergy of the continuous group learning for optimal performance. Those in learning organizations are not slaves to living beings, but they can serve others in effective ways because they are well-prepared for change and working with others.
Organizational learning involves individual learning, and those who make the shift from traditional organization thinking to learning organizations develop the ability to think critically and creatively. These skills transfer nicely to the values and assumptions inherent in Organization Development (OD). Organization Development is a “long-term effort at continuous improvement supported at all levels of the organization, using interdisciplinary approaches and modern technologies.”1 Organization Development is the mother field that encompasses interventions, such as organization learning. OD is about people and how they work with others to achieve personal and organizational goals. Many times achieving goals means making changes that require creative thinking and problem solving. French and Bell report that the values held by OD practitioners include “wanting to create change, to positively impact people and organizations, enhance the effectiveness and profitability of organizations, [to] learn and grow, and exercise power and influence.” (1995, p. 77) Although values do shift over time, the values held by OD practitioners mesh well with the characteristics of learning organizations as outlined in this paper.
The paper is organized according to the five disciplines that Peter Senge (1990) says are the core disciplines in building the learning organization: personal mastery, mental models, team learning, shared vision, and systems thinking.2 Even though the paper makes liberal use of Senge’s pervasive ideas, it also refers to OD practitioners such as Chris Argyris, Juanita Brown, Charles Handy, and others. What these writers have in common is a belief in the ability of people and organizations to change and become more effective, and that change requires open communication and empowerment of community members as well as a culture of collaboration. Those also happen to be the characteristics of a learning organization. The paper is influenced by team meetings in which the five authors prepared a class presentation on the topic of learning organizations. The team worked to emulate a learning community within the group. The paper reflects the learning, reflection, and discussion that accompanied the process.
Personal Mastery
Personal mastery is what Peter Senge describes as one of the core disciplines needed to build a learning organization. Personal mastery applies to individual learning, and Senge says that organizations cannot learn until their members begin to learn. Personal Mastery has two components. First, one must define what one is trying to achieve (a goal). Second, one must have a true measure of how close one is to the goal. (Senge, 1990)
It should be noted that the word ’goal’, in this context, is not used the same way it normally is in management. Managers have been conditioned to think in terms of short-term and long-term goals. Long-term goals for the American manager are often something to be achieved in the next three to five years. In personal mastery, the goal, or what one is trying to achieve, is much further away in distance. It may take a lifetime to reach it, if one ever does. (Senge, 1990) Vision is a more accurate word for it. Senge worked with Chart House International to prepare a videotape on Personal Mastery. In the videotape, the idea of lifelong learning is represented by the story of Antonio Stradivari whose quest was a particular musical sound that could be produced by a violin. Stradivari spent his entire life in the pursuit of that sound. He made constant refinements to the violins he crafted and produced instruments that are considered outstanding to this day. No one will ever know if Stradivari was fully satisfied with his last violin. Senge would say that Stradivari was not satisfied because of his obsession with continually trying to improve on the sound. (Senge, Self-Mastery, 1995) Senge refers to the process of continual improvement as ‘generative learning.’ (Senge, 1990)
The gap that exists between where one is currently functioning and where one wants to be is referred to as ‘creative tension.’ Senge illustrates this with the image of a rubber band pulled between two hands. The hand on the top represents where one wants to be and the hand on the bottom represents where one currently is. The tension on the rubber band as it is pulled between the two hands is what gives the creative drive. Creativity results when one is so unsatisfied with the current situation that one is driven to change it. (Senge, 1990) Another aspect of personal mastery is that one has a clear concept of current reality. Emphasis is placed on the word ‘clear’ here. One must be able to see reality as it truly is without biases or misconceptions. If one has an accurate view of reality, one will see constraints that are present. The creative individual knows that life involves working within constraints and will not waver in trying to achieve the vision. Creativity may involve using the constraints to one's advantage. (Senge, 1990)
Handy has a similar concept in his ‘wheel of learning.’ The wheel consists of four quadrants: questions, ideas, tests, and reflection. The metaphor of the wheel makes one think of something moving. What keeps the wheel moving is:
Subsidiarity: Giving away power to those closest to the action,
Clubs and Congresses: Places and opportunities for meeting and talking,
Horizontal Fast-Tracks: Horizontal Career-Tracks that rotate people through a variety of different jobs in the new, flattened organization,
Self-enlightenment: Individual responsibility for his own learning,
Incidental Learning: Treat every incident as a case study from which learning can occur.
The driver of the wheel should be the leader of the organization who sets the example for others to follow. (Handy, 1995.)
Individuals who practice personal mastery experience other changes in their thinking. They learn to use both reason and intuition to create. They become systems thinkers who see the interconnectedness of everything around them and, as a result, they feel more connected to the whole. It is exactly this type of individual that one needs at every level of an organization for the organization to learn. (Senge, 1990) Traditional managers have always thought that they had to have all the answers for their organization. The managers of the learning organization know that their staff has the answers. The job of the manager in the learning organization is to be the teacher or coach who helps unleash the creative energy in each individual. Organizations learn through the synergy of the individual learners. (Senge, “The Leader’s New Work,” 1990)
Mental Models
Mental models are the second of Senge's five disciplines for the learning organization.(Senge, The Leader’s New Work, 1990) Much of the work involving mental models comes from Chris Argyris and his colleagues at Harvard University. A mental model is one's way of looking at the world. It is a framework for the cognitive processes of our mind. In other words, it determines how we think and act. A simple example of a mental model comes from an exercise described in The Fifth Discipline Fieldbook. In this exercise, pairs of conference participants are asked to arm wrestle. They are told that winning in arm wrestling means the act of lowering their partner's arm to the table. Most people struggle against their partner to win. Their mental model is that there can be only one winner in arm wrestling and that this is done by lowering their partner's arm more times than their partner can do the same thing to them. Argyris contends that these people have a flawed mental model.
An alternative model would present a framework where both partners could win. If they stop resisting each other, they can work together flipping their arms back and forth. The end result is that they can both win and they can win many more times than if they were working against each other. (Senge, 1994) Argyris says that most of our mental models are flawed. He says that everyone has ‘theories of action’ which are a set of rules that we use for our own behaviors as well as to understand the behaviors of others. However, people don't usually follow their stated action theories. The way they really behave can be called their ‘theory-in-use.’ It is usual:
To remain in unilateral control,
To maximize winning and minimize losing,
To suppress negative feelings, and
To be as rational as possible by which people mean defining clear objectives and evaluating their behavior in terms of whether or not they have achieved them. (Argyris, 1991)
People act this way to avoid embarrassment or threat. (Argyris, 1991) Argyris says that most people practice defensive reasoning, and because people make up organizations, those organizations also do the same thing. So at the same time the organization is avoiding embarrassment or threat, it is also avoiding learning. Learning only comes from seeing the world the way it really is. (Argyris, 1993) Argyris believes that we arrive at our actions through what he calls the ‘ladder of inference.’ First, one observes something i.e., a behavior, a conversation, etc., and that becomes the bottom rung of a ladder. One then applies his or her own theories to the observation. That results in the next rung on the ladder. Subsequent rungs on the ladder are assumptions we make, conclusions we draw, beliefs we come to have about the world, and finally the action we decide to take. As we climb farther up the ladder, we are becoming more abstract in our thoughts. Unfortunately, our flawed mental models usually cause us to make mistakes in this process of abstraction, and we end up with inappropriate actions. This entire process becomes a loop. We generalize our beliefs and assumptions to the next situation we encounter and use them to filter the data we are willing to consider. Hence, every time we start up the ladder for a new situation, we are handicapped from the beginning. (Argyris, 1993; Senge, Fieldbook, 1994)
Teams
WHAT IS A TEAM AND WHY ARE THEY IMPORTANT?
A team, say Robbins and Finley, is “people doing something together.” It could be a baseball team or a research team or a rescue team. It isn’t what a team does that makes it a team; it is a fact that they do it “together.” (Robbins and Finley, 1995, p. 10) “Teams and teamwork are the ‘hottest’ thing happening in organizations today...” according to French and Bell. (1995, p. 97) A workplace team is more than a work group, “a number of persons, usually reporting to a common superior and having some facetoface interaction, who have some degree of interdependence in carrying out tasks for the purpose of achieving organizational goals.” (French and Bell, 1995, p. 169)
A workplace team is closer to what is called a selfdirected work team or SDWT, which can be defined as follows: “A selfdirected work team is a natural work group of interdependent employees who share most, if not all, the roles of a traditional supervisor.” (Hitchcock and Willard, 1995, p. 4) Since teams usually have team leaders, sometimes called coaches, the definition used by Katzenbach and Smith in French and Bell seems the most widely applicable: “A team is a small number of people with complementary skills who are committed to a common purpose, set of performance goals, and approach for which they hold themselves mutually accountable.” (1995, p. 112)
Organization development (OD) focuses on the human side of organizations. It is believed that individuals who have some control over how their work is done will be more satisfied and perform better. This is called empowerment in OD. Put these empowered individuals together into teams and the results will be extraordinary, we are told. French and Bell put it this way:
A fundamental belief in organization development is that work teams are the building blocks of organizations. A second fundamental belief is that teams must manage their culture, processes, systems, and relationships, if they are to be effective. Theory, research, and practice attest to the central role teams play in organizational success. Teams and teamwork are part of the foundation of organization development. (French and Bell, 1995, p. 87)
CHARACTERISTICS OF SUCCESSFUL TEAMS
OD interventions are divided into two basic groups: diagnosis and action or process. Team building is one type of process intervention. In fact, French and Bell consider teams and work groups to be the “fundamental unitsof organizations” and the “key leverage points for improving the functioning of the organization.” (1995, p. 171)
A number of writers have studied teams, looking for the characteristics that make some successful. Larson and LaFasto looked at highperformance groups as diverse as a championship football team and a heart transplant team and found eight characteristics that are always present. They are listed below:
A clear, elevating goal
A resultsdriven structure
Competent team members
Unified commitment
A collaborative climate
Standards of excellence
External support and recognition
Principled leadership (Larson and LaFasto, 1989, in French and Bell, 1995, p. 98)
How does a group become a highperformance team? Lippitt maintains that groups operate on four levels: organizational expectations, group tasks, group maintenance, and individual needs. Maintenancelevel activities include encouraging by showing regard for others, expressing and exploring group feelings, compromising and admitting error, gatekeeping to facilitate the participation of others, and setting standards for evaluating group functioning and production. (Lippett, 1982, p. 9)
Lippitt defines teamwork as the way a group is able to solve its problems. Teamwork is demonstrated in groups by: (a)”...the group’s ability to examine its process to constantly improve itself as a team,” and (b) ”the requirement for trust and openness in communication and relationships.” The former is characterized by group interaction, interpersonal relations, group goals, and communication. The latter is characterized by a high tolerance for differing opinions and personalities. (Lippett, 1982, p. 207-208)
TEAM BUILDING AND TEAM LEARNING
A recent concept in OD is that of the learning organization. Peter Senge considers the team to be a key learning unit in the organization. According to Senge, the definition of team learning is:
...the process of aligning and developing the capacity of a team to create the results its members truly desire. It builds on the discipline of developing shared vision. It also builds on personal mastery, for talented teams are made up of talented individuals. (1990, p. 236)
Senge describes a number of components of team learning. The first is dialogue. Drawing on conversations with physicist, David Bohm, he identifies three conditions that are necessary for dialogue to occur: All participants must “suspend their assumptions;” all participants must “regard one another as colleagues;” and there must be a facilitator (at least until teams develop these skills) “who holds the context of the dialogue.” Bohm asserts that “hierarchy is antithetical to dialogue, and it is difficult to escape hierarchy in organizations.” (Senge, 1990, p. 245) Suspending all assumptions is also difficult, but is necessary to reshape thinking about reality.
Before a team can learn, it must become a team. In the 1970s, psychologist B. W. Tuckman identified four stages that teams had to go through to be successful. They are:
Forming: When a group is just learning to deal with one another; a time when minimal work gets accomplished.
Storming: A time of stressful negotiation of the terms under which the team will work together; a trial by fire.
Norming: A time in which roles are accepted, team feeling develops, and information is freely shared.
Performing: When optimal levels are finally realized—in productivity, quality, decision making, allocation of resources, and interpersonal interdependence.
Tuckman asserts that no team goes straight from forming to performing.“Struggle and adaptation are critical, difficult, but very necessary parts of team development.” (Robbins and Finley, 1995, p. 187)
Senge’s characterization of dealing with conflict draws on Chris Argyris. Argyris writes about how even professionals avoid learning, using entrenched habits to protect themselves from the embarrassment and threat that comes with exposing their thinking. The act of encouraging more open discussion is seen as intimidating, and they feel vulnerable. (Argyris, 1994, p. 346-7)) The missing link for Senge is practice. Team learning is a team skill that can be learned. Practice is gained through dialogue sessions, learning laboratories, and microworlds. (Senge, 1990, p. 245) Microworlds are computerbased microcosms of reality, in which one learns by experimentation . Examples are Logo, in which children learn the principles of geometry, and SimCity, in which one literally builds a city, making all the decisions and learning the consequences of those decisions. Simulation, Senge believes, is a tool for learning “How do things work?” and just as important, “How might they work differently?” (Senge, 1990, p. 338)
TEAM PRACTICES
Contributors to The Fifth Discipline Fieldbook declare that team learning is not team building, describing the latter as creating courteous behaviors, improving communication, becoming better able to perform work tasks together, and building strong relationships. (Senge, 1990, p. 355) Just as teams pool their knowledge and then examine it from many different angles, so have the practitioners of OD shared their different perspectives and experiences. One such OD “strategist” is Juanita Brown, who has coached organizations toward innovative ways to involve employees. Looking back on groups with which she has worked, she recounts those experiences where team building turned into team learning. She draws inspiration from the community development movement and from the study of voluntary organizations. Roots of this are found in the work of Miles Horton, Paulo Freire, the Scandinavian study circles, Saul Alinsky, M. Scott Peck, and Marvin Weisbord. (Senge, Fieldbook, p. 508-9)
Of particular interest is her description of the San Francisco Foundation, a funder of worthy causes throughout the Bay area, which she counseled through a period of extraordinary growth, change, and pressure. Foundations may promote innovative projects, yet they are seldom organized progressively themselves. The executive director, Martin Paley, wanted to shift the role of the Distribution Committee from administrative decisions to policy making, involve the community in a dialogue on project directions, and then for the first time publish explicit grant guidelines in a newsletter. He also faced the delightful problem of an extremely large bequest. Approaching it as an adventure, he hired Juanita Brown as a long range planning consultant. In addition, he attended a systems dynamics training session led by Peter Senge at M.I.T. (Sibbert and Brown, 1986)
Six ‘Commitment to the Community’ input sessions were held to open the foundation to new ideas. What they heard was that this foundation didn’t belong to the Distribution Committee or to the staff; it belonged to the community and community members wanted “damn good care” taken of it. They came to think of the foundation as a kind of community development bank. They learned that every meeting agenda is subject to change; that they had too much structure; and that people can learn from each other. (Sibbert and Brown, 1986)
Brown expressed her belief in the importance of dialogue as follows: “Strategic dialogue is built on the operating principle that the stakeholders in any system already have within them the wisdom and creativity to confront even the most difficult challenges.” The ‘community of inquiry’ can extend beyond employees to include unions, customers, suppliers, and other stakeholders, becoming a “dynamic and reinforcing process which helps create and strengthen the ‘communities of commitment’ which Fred Kofman and Peter Senge emphasize lie at the heart of learning organizations capable of leading the way towarda sustainable future.” (Bennet and Brown, 1995, p. 167)
EVALUATION
While much anecdotal evidence exists, there remains a lack of a clear understanding of how to really describe and measure team learning. As Senge stated:
Until we can describe the phenomenon better, it [team learning] will remain mysterious. Until we have some theory of what happens when teams learn (as opposed to individuals in teams learning), we will be unable to distinguish group intelligence from ‘group think,’ when individuals succumb to group pressures for conformity. Until there are reliable methods for building teams that can learn together, its occurrence will remain a product of happenstance. (1990, p. 228)
Shared Vision
What does it mean to have a shared vision? A shared vision begins with the individual, and an individual vision is something that one person holds as a truth. Throughout history there are many examples of people who have had a strong vision, some of these people are remembered even today. One example is John Brown with his vision of a holy war to free the slaves, which culminated in his attack on Harpers Ferry, Virginia, in 1859. According to Carl Jung, "Your vision will become clear only when you can look into your own heart.... Who looks outside, dreams; who looks inside, awakes." (Mindscape, 1995)
What is this vision that is found within our hearts? According to WordNet,3 a vision is a vivid mental image. In this context, vivid means graphic and lifelike. Based on this, it can be concluded that a vision is a graphic and lifelike mental image that is very important to us, i.e., held within our hearts. The vision is often a goal that the individual wants to reach. In systems thinking that goal is most often a long term goal, something that can be a leading star for the individual.
The shared vision of an organization must be built of the individual visions of its members. What this means for the leader in the Learning Organization is that the organizational vision must not be created by the leader, rather, the vision must be created through interaction with the individuals in the organization. Only by compromising between the individual visions and the development of these visions in a common direction can the shared vision be created. The leader's role in creating a shared vision is to share her own vision with the employees. This should not be done to force that vision on others, but rather to encourage others to share their vision too. Based on these visions, the organization's vision should evolve.
It would be naive to expect that the organization can change overnight from having a vision that is communicated from the top to an organization where the vision evolves from the visions of all the people in the organization. The organization will have to go through major change for this to happen, and this is where OD can play a role. In the development of a learning organization, the OD-consultant would use the same tools as before, just on a much broader scale.
What is a shared vision? To come up with a classification for shared visions would be close to impossible. Going back to the definition of a vision as a graphic and lifelike mental image that is very important to us, Melinda Dekker's drawing [see p. 2] is as good as any other representation of shared vision. The drawing will probably be interpreted differently by people, but still there is something powerful about the imagery that most people can see.
Reflection on shared vision brings the question of whether each individual in the organization must share the rest of the organization's vision. The answer is no, but the individuals who do not share the vision might not contribute as much to the organization. How can someone start to share the rest of the organization's vision? Senge (1990) stresses that visions can not be sold. For a shared vision to develop, members of the organization must enroll in the vision. The difference between these two is that through enrollment the members of the organization choose to participate.
When an organization has a shared vision, the driving force for change comes from what Senge calls "creative tension." Creative tension is the difference between the shared vision and the current reality. With truly committed members the creative tension will drive the organization toward its goals.
John Brown, mentioned earlier, had a vision of freeing the slaves. Obviously, this was not a vision that came out of his own mind. He must have taken the slaves’ vision and shared it with them. Clearly, if the slaves had truly preferred to stay enslaved, John Brown's vision could not have existed. The slaves’ sense of shared vision made it possible for them to die by Brown's side, but they did not die for Brown, they died for a shared vision.
Systems Thinking
In the October 17, 1994 issue of Fortune magazine, Brian Dumaine named Peter M. Senge: "MR. LEARNING ORGANIZATION.” (Dumaine, 1992) Why is it that in a field with so many distinguished contributors, Peter Senge was referred to as the "intellectual and spiritual champion?" (Dumaine, 1992, p. 147) The reason is probably because Senge injected into this field an original and powerful paradigm called ‘systems thinking,’ a paradigm premised upon the primacy of the whole --the antithesis of the traditional evolution of the concept of learning in western cultures.
Humankind has succeeded over time in conquering the physical world and in developing scientific knowledge by adopting an analytical method to understand problems. This method involves breaking a problem into components, studying each part in isolation, and then drawing conclusions about the whole. According to Senge, this sort of linear and mechanistic thinking is becoming increasingly ineffective to address modern problems. (Kofman and Senge, 1993, p. 18) This is because, today, most important issues are interrelated in ways that defy linear causation.
Alternatively, circular causation—where a variable is both the cause and effect of another—has become the norm, rather than the exception. Truly exogenous forces are rare. For example, the state of the economy affects unemployment, which in turn affects the economy. The world has become increasingly interconnected, and endogenous feedback causal loops now dominate the behavior of the important variables in our social and economic systems.
Thus, fragmentation is now a distinctive cultural dysfunction of society.4 (Kofman and Senge, p. 17) In order to understand the source and the solutions to modern problems, linear and mechanistic thinking must give way to non-linear and organic thinking, more commonly referred to as systems thinking—a way of thinking where the primacy of the whole is acknowledged.
THE PRIMACY OF THE WHOLE
David Bohm compares the attempt to understand the whole by putting the pieces together with trying to assemble the fragments of a shattered mirror. It is simply not possible. Kofman & Senge add:
The defining characteristic of a system is that it cannot be understood as a function of its isolated components. First, the behavior of the system doesn't depend on what each part is doing but on how each part is interacting with the rest ... Second, to understand a system we need to understand how it fits into the larger system of which it is a part ... Third, and most important, what we call the parts need not be taken as primary. In fact, how we define the parts is fundamentally a matter of perspective and purpose, not intrinsic in the nature of the 'real thing' we are looking at. (Kofman and Senge, 1993, p. 27)
In his prominent book, The Fifth Discipline, Senge identified some learning disabilities associated with the failure to think systemically. He classified them under the following headings:
"I am my position"
"The enemy is out there"
"The illusion of taking charge"
"The fixation on events"
"The parable of the boiled frog"
"The delusion of learning from experience" (1990, pp. 17 - 26)
Although each of these contains a distinct message, illustrated how traditional thinking can undermine real learning by following up on one example: "the fixation on events."
According to Senge, fragmentation has forced people to focus on snapshots to distinguish patterns of behavior in order to explain past phenomena or to predict future behavior. This is essentially the treatment used in statistical analysis and econometrics, when trying to decipher patterns of relationship and behavior. However, this is not how the world really works: events do not dictate behavior; instead, they are the product of behavior. What really causes behavior are the interactions between the elements of the system. In diagrammatic form:
systems (patterns of relationships) ---> patterns of behavior ---> events (snapshots)
It is commonly recognized that the power of statistical models is limited to explaining past behavior, or to predict future trends (as long as there is no significant change in the pattern of behavior observed in the past). These models have little to say about changes made in a system until new data can be collected and a new model is constructed. Thus, basing problem-solving upon past events is, at best, a reactive effort.
On the other hand, systems modeling is fundamentally different. Oncethe behavior of a system is understood to be a function of the structure and of the relationships between the elements of the system, the system can be artificially modified and, through simulation, we can observe whether the changes made result in the desired behaviors. Therefore, systems thinking, coupled with modeling, constitutes a generative --rather than adaptive-- learning instrument.5
Thus, according to Senge:
Generative learning cannot be sustained in an organization if people's thinking is dominated by short-term events. If we focus on events, the best we can ever do is predict an event before it happens so that we can react optimally. But we cannot learn to create. (1990, p. 22) [emphasis added]
[Source: http://home.nycap.rr.com/klarsen/learnorg/]