Double-Loop Learning Requirements in Indian Organisations

More than a decade ago, an OD interventionist was asked to look into the possibility of addressing a large industrial organisation’s effectiveness. The call from the scion came in the wake of a successful turnaround the consultant facilitated at one of its sick units with no capital intensive machinery or import of manufacturing process. That was the method of behavioral science applied for sure. However, at the company’s parent unit, profit and relative health hid many a malaise. On first visit to the campus township, the consultant was given a walk through its plant layout and production process. The perceptive consultant brought two symptomatic features among many to do the top management’s attention. Both were to with the concern for quality.

1.       Heaps of foundry sand were lying in the yard. On asking work supervisors as to what purpose the sand served within, there was no ready response. On the orders of the enthused leadership, the sand was ordered to be removed, and lo and behold tons of molten scrap which could be reused in the plant’s foundry were recovered. The work-in-process inventory was actually lying in the yard, covered in sand. Later it turned out, that six months of purchase of foundry material were saved in this ‘surprise detection’.

2.       Going through the machining sections, the consultant observed that go and no-go gauges used to check thickness of the machined part were not at the work-station. On gentle enquiry, the workman conceded that they were stashed away in his work locker. He brought the incomplete set of gauges to demonstrate safe-keeping (albeit incomplete). On checking for thickness with the available ones, the machined part was found to be deviant from productions standard. The workman’s habit went ceremoniously unchecked, and ‘visual’ quality inspection was now the de-facto empowerment when in fact cost of repair and rework went unaccounted, in the demand to fulfillment cycle.

Today, the above can be said to be rationalized as the creeping effects of unchecked work habits. The only difference was that when the phenomenon was investigated deeper, the root cause was traced to a curious syndrome of a dysfunctional social hierarchy that juxtaposed power relations and access to a parallel economy. Influential supervisors made sure that rework jobs were outsourced to small scale units where private wealth of regular managers at the plant was reaping from the inefficiencies of the main plant. An ethical fallout of such a political minefield was waiting to explode. Like the Abilene paradox, the risk of avoiding the obvious truth became greater than the risk of stating the obvious at the workplace.

At another location, again involving a sick-unit, I was myself witness to a socially mind-blind take-over. While the acquirer went about reconditioning the sick-plant for production, the original workforces of the local unit were being re-inducted in staggered manner. Two of them took me aside and said they were accounting the inventory in stock for over two months without being paid despite an appointment order. They attributed this to the absence of a Personnel Officer from the parent company during the take-over phase. On bringing this to the notice of the ‘covenanted’ Plant Manager, he was aghast and ordered immediate payment of the salaries in cash! The staff members lay prostrate at my feet in an unforgettable sight for me. They then invited me over to their personal homes for tea, in what I witnessed as the powerlessness of a community robbed of dignity and honor by an unethical and unscrupulous former management who allegedly milked their company finances and decamped to their havens in a stealth operation of hideous texture. A sheer look at the abandoned air-strip, colonial trappings of the residential colony and the fine crockery that the local cooks and servants preserved, was a sheer undercurrent of exploitative capitalism.

Both of the above stories are true. Masking the identities of these organisations, does not obfuscate the truth. The purpose of narrating them is to drive home the usefulness of understanding how phenomena such as these go unchecked and undetected in organisational routine, before they blow-up with damaging consequences to not only the exploiters, but those who are the survivors of such seemingly incomprehensible ‘dharam-sankats’. Let us assume for a moment, that such dilemmas exist in your own organisations. What can you do about them? Here’s what you could do to make the undiscussables discussable.

1.       Encourage the parties involved to examine the inconsistencies and gaps that underlie the reasoning behind their actions.

2.       Make explicit the rules that ‘must’ be in their reasoning to produce the actions they subscribe to

3.       If any shock or surprise is expressed in this process, use this as observable data to surface the validity of what is being learned by the members

4.       Produce opportunities to practice stating the truth and designing for actions that enhance internal commitment to mutually beneficial goals.

a.       From being systematically unaware of the consequences of their actions, they become aware in a non-threatening way of how they affect the organisational system

b.      Enable them with education in thinking (cognition) and action (behavior) that enhances perceptiveness of unawareness

c.       Develop maps of defensive routines that produce unintended consequences and socialise the nature of single-loop and double-loop learning

5.       Develop a learning case as in the example below from the manufacturing plant that led to deep reflection of how the worker community learnt at the workplace.

In the short example below, I have brought to you episodic illustrations of phenomena you may quickly identify with in your day job. Leaders now confronted with a knowledge workforce cannot use unassailable power and position to ‘drive’ their points of view as though no other views exist.

Leaders who face ongoing patterns of blockages and ‘stuck’ issues need to look at the governing issues of their situation. Leaders are often unaware in India of their theories in use, due to the deep hierarchy that goes unquestioned and untested for its relevance to order and effectiveness. They are slow to get feedback.

Table 1  : Excerpt from Conversation between the Stores supervisor and the Plant Manager

Thoughts and Feelings Not Communicated	Actual Conversation
He is not going to like this topic and he will take offence to my bringing it up as part of my work	SS : Sir, I have checked to valve components in stock. We have two dozen in stock for the sluices on the effluent pipes, but most of them have rusted and not likely to be effective. Plant Manager : I am glad you made this list. When can we have the complete list?
I had better go slow. Let me slow down the pace of my disclosures.	SS : In the past the valves in stock were ineffective because of poor quality. The chances are that even these in stock will be rejected by the Maintenance department. My fear is that the Materials Department will have a difficult time sourcing the right valves from the local market. Plant Manager : I don’t understand. Tell me more
Like hell you don’t understand. You are exploiting me like our previous management. How can I be more gentle with you?	SS : sir, I’m sure you are aware of the reasons ( and explains a bit…) Plant Manager : No, I do not see it that way. It is my production and engineers who are key to the future…
There he goes again, thinking as a ‘corporate’ officer, just because he is in charge	SS : Sir, let us wait and see when production begins..

Models of theories-in-use

The construction Argyris developed in order to explain theories-in-use is shown in Figure 1.

Figure 1.  Model explaining the process of developing theories-in use.

Governing variables are values which the person is trying to keep within some acceptable range.  We have many governing variables.  Any action will likely impact upon a number of these variables.  Therefore any situation may trigger a trade-off among governing variables.

Action strategies are strategies used by the person to keep their governing values within the acceptable range.

These strategies will have consequences which are both intended -- those the actor believes will result -- and unintended.

An example may help to illustrate this process.  A person may have a governing variable of suppressing conflict, and one of being competent.  In any given situation he or she will design action strategies to keep both these governing variables within acceptable limits.  For instance, in a conflict situation he or she might avoid the discussion of the conflict situation and say as little as possible.  This avoidance may (he or she hopes) suppress the conflict, yet allow her or him to appear competent because he or she at least hasn't said anything wrong.  This strategy will have various consequences both for her or him and the others involved.  An intended consequence might be that the other parties will eventually give up the discussion, thereby successfully suppressing the conflict.  As he or she has said little, he or she may feel he or she has not left herself open to being seen as incompetent.  An unintended consequence might be that the he or she thinks the situation has been left unresolved and therefore likely to recur, and feels dissatisfied. To sum up, we can see that there are a number of elements to Argyris’  model which help explain how we link our thoughts and actions.  These elements are:

1.       Governing Variables (or values)

2.       Action Strategies

3.       Intended and unintended Consequences for self

4.       Intended and unintended Consequences for others

5.       Action strategy effectiveness.

Another possible response would be to examine and change the governing values themselves.  For example, the person might choose to critically examine the governing value of suppressing conflict.  This may lead to discarding this value and substituting a new value such as open inquiry.  The associated action strategy might be to discuss the issue openly.  Therefore in this case both the governing variable and the action strategy have changed.  This would constitute double-loop learning.  See Figure 2.

Figure 2.  Single and double-loop learning

Conclusion : Human Resource Leaders have reached a point of heightened strategic relevance. Their rising up to this occasion would imply mastering the art of facilitating outcomes in productive learning environments, which may run counter to exigent conditions of productive performance climates at first instance. Large organisations, are especially prone to experience the dysfunctions and defensive routines that creep through the untested climates of status quo aided by time and deceptive comfort in face-saving behaviors. Debate and challenge to status quo are paradoxical attributes of effective organisations. Else blow-ups and scandals will permeate the timescapes of our skilled slumber while unconsciously learning incompetent modes of organisational response.

References:

Argyris C (1990) Overcoming Organizational Defenses: Facilitating Organizational Learning, Allyn and Bacon.

If science provides critical insight, what prevents our learning from it?

What’s attitude got to do with learning?

As those who know me appreciate, it is not often that I let a raw view on Organisation Development (OD) pass me without scrutiny. Fatigue could tire me in patches, but, renew me when the content is about the process of OD. Recently, on a global forum, a senior in the field opined on the space of interaction between consultant and client. Here’s the opening premise, “ I do believe that optimism and idealism lead the consultant to be dismissive of reality as seen by the client. By being with the client in the depths of difficulty without being optimistic, just being with him, we are the enablers of his extricating himself out...not pulling him out with our pipe dreams. Like the Book of Job, where folks visited Job...just to be there with him.”.

Coming from a rather unorthodox consultant, I was only beginning to swallow the significance of that near meditative stance. I asked what came to my mind “Does the skepticism of science get perceived as pessimism? Does in converse a positive psychology approach preconceive the mood of the outcome/” Pat came the reply “Does the skepticism of science get perceived as pessimism? Yes. 
Does in converse a positive psychology approach preconceive the mood of the outcome?  -don’t know enough and try to stay away because it is so much unlike me.”

This may mean different things to different people. But it is worth a stop, on the lay-bye of the information super-highway...

Which way does one learn of the new winds?

Often we believe contrary to the real content of our argument, that we stand for a value, when in fact we do not understand the value. E.g. When a firm makes instrumental the value of fairness, would you expect it not to honor its commitment to a purchase expressed in writing? Well, yes they can if they do not understand the value of fairness. If they do not realise that they have expressed a commitment to a vendor, they would buckle in the face of a funds constraint, howsoever imaginary or real, only to obey the norm, that they are fair in their obeisance to their employer! 

Yes, norms that are not born of a shared understanding of values, do not make for value based practice. What chance does this firm stand to receive feedback on how it behaves, and of course to practice a reflection that value based practices actually demand? It is quite probable, that the same firm also espouses the value for transparency, as the social ‘system’ is skilled in its incompetence to understand norm based compliance from value based response! What seals the logic that seems right within the organisation? Performance evaluation is tailor-made to push professionals into a doom loop. The individual will trump the ‘organisation’ for short-term gain.

The attitude to learning is therefore a crucial piece. As Argyris first brought to our notice. What explains defensiveness in learning? Not attitudes about change or commitment to continuous improvement.  We really want to work more effectively.

Rather, the key factor is the way we reason about our behaviour and that of others. We tend to hold the company or organisation responsible in ways different than we hold ourselves responsible. Externalising blame is an ineffective way to protect the self, for escaping responsibility is an opportunity lost to grow – a waste in learning that often goes unchecked, uncontested and unverified. If science provides such insight, then critical reasoning cannot be selectively applied to problems that do not involve people!

SHRM Survey Finds Employee Engagement Is a Key HR Challenge

SHRM Survey Finds Employee Engagement Is a Key HR Challenge

In an information rich world, employees are smarter, and leaders humbler than they were before. Healthy dialogue is aided by valid and reliable data of how employees perceive the workplace.

Surveys that are credible respect confidentiality and honor privacy of respondents. They are also designed by experts who worked with Rensis Likert, like Ray Seghers. Surveys that allow users to customize aspects of demographics capture, item construction and of course dimension design are possible today thanks to Web 2.0 platforms put painfully together by experienced HR and OD experts. The ORG 360 that  Workplace Catalysts supports is a practical utility of this nature.

Data from the ORG 360 can be reported in customizable ways, and what is great is the way users can relate quantitative scale measurements with qualitative comments from employees. Actionable information helps users plan interventions and of course implementing them aids the achievement of performance objectives. The Performance linkage is premised on sound indicators of employee drives, business drivers and customer service outcomes.

Improvement efforts largely depend on what growth stage the organisation is in. A survey opinion makes smart employees feel involved in sustaining the future of the company, as they dialogue ways with enlightened leadership on effective ways of spending money and time. Surveys can move beyond rank and yank measures of publicity for the company to substantial results based on reliable data.

Need for Groups and Groups need for Individuals

When I found the words "Need to belong to Groups" it was first in Max Kostick's Personality and Preference Inventory (Copyright now with Cubiks, UK) . I first put that down to the simple Need for Inclusion that came from the Auschwitz turned Professor of Psychology - Will Schutz (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/William_Schutz), author of the Human Element. Today, as I reflect on the proceedings of the OD India community / network, the words of Dr. Vijay Padaki ring clearly. As he processed and offered to the group his observation, it appeared that our conversations had to do with our individual need to belong to a group of similarly interested people. It was for the group to evolve to know what kind of involvement it needed from the individual. Else, the excess of individual entitlement in groups would end up in a laissez-faire situation. Group command over the individual on the other hand would end up in a totalitarian system. The polarity is a worthwhile one to consider.

It also struck me that I had not named my blog Living in Groups accidentally. This 'emergence' was a conscious choice of living through the realization of the socially intelligent brain that neurologists today popularize. Man's social being is likely to be pronounced even further. The refrain that large corporations reduce the essence of individuals to mere 'resources' represented in 'numbers' in .xls files, the 'person' and her essence to life in corporations is at once at peril and tenuously placed for the future. While the rationalization of the organisation being bigger than the individual is a form of escape from the responsibility for fellow humans, the individual representing the decision of the large organisation stands the risk of being assailed by history as having aborted his creative capacity to nourish the balance between the individual and the organisation.

The OD community of the year 2011 that assembled at WIPRO in Bangalore found it reflectively humbling (or so I would think) to recognize that OD was a product of its time. The Human relations movement sought to correct the imbalance between the efficiency ethic of large organisation and nurturing humanism of the small unit of society - the family or small organizations. It is also ironic that we fall back on historical traditions such as OD theory and Systems theory to comprehend the interdependence of institutions, and the sheer complexity of adapting social systems. The unit of effectiveness (as in paradigms of measurement) stands effectively challenged by the cause- effect ambiguity of complex living systems. Well, there's an instrumental appeal to the famous Kurt Lewin quote "There's nothing so practical as a good theory". We're in search of that organisational theory for our times. We're on the edge of discovery, and the adventure is a spirit kindled by the attitude of curiosity.

Learning and Development in India - at a distance

Introduction

In February 2011, I was at a national seminar organized for Administrators, Deans, Vice-Chancellors and Heads of Departments of institutions for Higher Education in India. I was asked to speak on frameworks and models for Human Resource Development in such institutions. The host institution’s faculty had an average tenure of about a decade. At least one Faculty member in this institution had just secured a grant of a million Rupees for a significant longitudinal research in the behavioral sciences from its own Board of Research Studies. What struck me in these apparent coincidences were the lack of pomp, gaiety or false confidence and the sheer commitment to the institution’s main purpose. No, this was not an Ivy League college. Yet, to have supported a climate in which such processes were being cherished without precedent is a sign of things to come. The so called ‘next’ processes could come from unexpected places, I thought to myself. Are we open to such possibilities?

What may drive such Next practices?

There was a time after the book “In Search of Excellence” when ‘excellence’ as a word became a catch-all hook for phenomena that could be ill explained, and yet aspired for. In Search of Excellence is an international bestselling book written by Tom Peters and Robert H. Waterman, Jr. [1]. The fall from fame for companies featured in that book did not help reverse usage of the term ‘excellence’ either. Leaders began languaging a control over processes without necessarily having to demonstrate such ‘excellence’ in their own conduct – especially when it came to learning and development. The fear of loss of control led to being choosy in narrow areas of comfort. What it means to be a learner in an organisation has received lesser attention than what the organisation represented for agencies like supply-chains, stock markets, recruitment houses and investment analysts outside it (Dierkes M, Berthoin Antal A, Child J & Nonaka I, 2001). There is a dearth of understanding in research terms of what learning and change has meant for human beings inside organisations.

Outside business organisations, the signs are not as enthusing either. The Union database of Theses on Inflibnet of the University Grants Commission[2] covers the bibliographic Metadata of Doctoral Theses submitted to 238 Universities/Institutes in India. It has over 2, 32, 599 unique records from all subject areas. Theses titles therein are more suggestive of summer projects and a sense of entitlement rather than accomplishment and furtherance of methodical enquiry and authoritative explanation. If so, what’s next for learning and development? 

Drivers in Learning and development phenomena in India

1.       Scientific Temperament amidst Challenging Demographic structures: A demographic understanding of India is important to the conception and facilitation of learning and development. India will witness a 36% increase in population growth in the decade 2010-20, releasing a workforce of 602 million people, next only to China (847 mn) [3]. We have a flood of youth in the decades ahead, who need to be gainfully employed, and stay employable into the decades ahead for interlocked institutions to yield any good.  Within such a demographic trend are worrying factors we need to address –

a.        quality of education and continuous education beyond formal entry qualifications,

b.       quality of research especially with regard to fidelity to the scientific method, and

c.        the depth of practice or application that will differentiate competence of content-value from aspirations of face-value.

The resources required for high-quality research processes and outcomes will continue to be constrained, given the gestation period it takes to build the intellectual capital and the academic leadership that should nourish talent of the future. We are not only up against a lack of precedence in such services to match world-class standards. Neglecting the appropriateness of context specific applications would also mean insufficient concern and innovation for the price-sensitivities of Indians. The prospect of commercial interests adulterating research activity is just as much threat to ethics. The opportunity for academy-industry collaboration is open, possibly holding up promise eventually for the rest of the world. The discipline of enquiry and reporting of findings eventually have to be tempered by the method of science – across the demographic complexity of India. Patience born of persistence will typify the commitment to science in this regard.

2.       Technological Factors Shaping Civil Life: The technologies of hunting and then ‘cooking’ of raw food to increase the calorific value via the digestive system are known to have gifted our brains with evolutionary prowess. Technology as we know it today affects our lifestyles. Banking, travel, taxation, retail and telecom are some of the sectors that we in urban India have experienced differently due to technology. In the demographic spread as we are witnesses to in India, technology cuts and slices livelihoods unequally in a society unequal in its economic dividend. The embededness of technology in warfare led to the sticky metaphors of ‘smart’ missiles and ‘intelligent’ bombs. Our understanding of the creeping effects of technology in food-processing, sickness-care and agricultural sectors is lessened by the system that forces us, at times, to consume without sufficient awareness of the ecological considerations in such choices. (Goleman, 2009).

Social lags in comprehending such dimensions of technology imply a sensitive appraisal of market-oriented business models, so that development is deemed equitable in the economic sense and justiciable in the social sense. Workforce practices such as leadership development and followership would have to withstand and surpass such appraisals with successes unparalleled in human history.

3.       Conception of viable boundaries for Learning and Development: The boundaries of the organisation are getting redrawn due to varying physical stations of the learner – home, project location, and base location for example. This blurring may imply that ‘developmental’ processes – whether for career, for training or organisational development, will mean newer kinds of recognition of learning needs and corresponding intervention. It requires greater and not lesser investment in understanding of what works in the context of the evolving learner – from the nouveau-urbanite, and the tele-commuting kind to the aspiring shopfloor apprentice or the assertive front-office sales agent. These dynamics of learning and development scenarios need observation, especially because information is impoverished if the learner has no means of justifying contexts for its particular use.

Patenting of proprietary Learning technologies and licensing of host platforms will see shrinking time horizons, given the sheer rate at which the shelf-life of useful information diminishes. The boundaries within which learning and development becomes strategic to a firm or a learner will be more determined by the perception of the firm’s market value. Within these boundaries of strategic impact, competitive advantage will assume inimitable form. Beyond these boundaries, related and yet distinct information could flow free and unrestricted, often emerging from proprietary content of a recent or distant past. The contours of L&D will thus take unprecedented form.

4.       Social Media as extension of personal identities: Social Networking technologies known more by brand names today like Facebook, LinkedIn, Twitter and the like are to be understood differently by L&D professionals. These media affect job crafting options. The commitment of professionals evidenced on such media is to be aligned with the interests of the organisation. Such media are fast with the young, or at least the young-at-heart. Youth are increasingly displaying their private selves in public domains. However, if that is where the digital natives begin, the journeys they take will be different in the information processing they accomplish, and in the affective dimensions they will demonstrate in their personal and professional roles. In India, lower ages can aid expression on social networks only if socio-economic coincidences – like privileges through parental income; access to formal education and internet infrastructure are present together. Firms that create appropriate infrastructure to enable employees to experience continuity to their identities via social media will represent an openness and willingness to accommodate the effects of evolving personal identities. Firms inept in responding to social media implications will learn from firms who will have struck the new balance without damage to their reputations. 

5.       Learning Motives in Knowledge Economies: While strategizing for differences made by human capital through learning and development, leadership needs to manage two dominant learner motivations.

a.        Consumptive knowledge motives – wherein learners learn or consume learning only if they anticipate application from effort made in learning (leading largely to single loop learning[4]) AND

b.       Declarative knowledge motives - wherein learners learn for the sake of or joy of learning new facts (likely to be leading to double-loop learning or openness to governing causes[5]).

There will be scarcer advantages going into the future by suppressing either of such motives. E.g. it is one matter to complain of lack of patenting and innovation amongst firms in India, if fundamental research is isolated only to be neglected. Deep specialists in particular subject areas cannot ignore the complementarities their expertise will have to bear with other specialists and generalists. Role based interfaces and behavioral interventions amongst such diverse talent will call for new learning design and implementation knowledge. Learning and development facilitators will also need dynamic connect with people involved with strategy making and implementation to be able to align services. Facilitating leadership to facilitate learning is core to the progress of knowledge economies.

6.       Coepitition and Cooperation amongst firms: Business deals are now marked more by the post competitive collaboration required to service the ultimate customer. Bidders for the same contract may find that one of them ‘X’ wins and asks others Y and Z to aid them implement the contract on less attractive, yet maintainable terms. Such contingencies or arrangements of business convenience are not well studied for its implications on learning and development of strategic relationships. While this may today be viewed as the province of strategy and large business deals, there may also be the case of rapid learning and maturing of consistent Ys and Zs who progress to take on more enduring and superior relationships with the ultimate client due to their systematic learning from the nature of relationship between X and the client.  Firms in innovative eco-systems will co-evolve together if they complement their learning and development processes, beyond identification of markets, positional assets such as goodwill and geographic scope, technological levers and legal safeguards to patents and proprietary knowledge. E.g. Health-care and information technology may combine to provide new services like tele-medicine from locations in and around Bangalore.

7.       Neuro-Sciences, the Human Brain and Learning: This point I make is to do with the model of the human being as we know it! What began as forays in the affective domain through Emotional Intelligence is now more about the social nature of our brains and alternate neural pathways that can lead to new habit formation and more successful behaviors. Recently, while at the Christian Medical College, Vellore, doctors shared with me the case of a patient who after suffering a stroke lost the ability to speak, but started singing a hymn when his wife at his bedside took to singing it herself in the hospital ward. How exactly the neural connections bypass speech areas and allow for singing are still being studied. From area-specific intelligences of the brain, we are now confronted with emerging knowledge of the plasticity of the brain and positive modeling of success behaviors. This adds to the ‘wholeness’ perspective or the meaningful relatedness to the whole. Unlike the distinct intelligences of spatial, speech, emotional, math and the like, we are now coming to recognize the holistic nature of man’s essential being. It is the model of the human being in all of this which will be the point of interest to learning and development professionals. 

Philosophically speaking, we are coming close to recognizing the responsibility of business in the holistic development of human resources. We should therefore look forward to unconventional themes like IIM (B)’s forthcoming January 2012 seminar “The Spiritual Challenge in Management: What is to be done?” with as much awe as humility[6], for such may mean revisiting or reprogramming paradigms about human potential.  Perhaps we need to be acknowledging the potential of our subconscious minds more than we did in formal organisations. Less said about certainty and uncertainty in this piece the better, I assume.

8.       Social Commitment and Development: Social learning is achieved through the interactions among people, behavior, and the environment. The individual learns behaviors by observing and imitating others. The rates at which individuals learn and respond will require mature understanding from professionals who engage in learning and development services. Firms that demonstrate commitment to social causes will do so through consistency in their espoused causes and the depth to which their commitment is fulfilled. If such causes do not involve the people being affected, development does not leave the experiential touchstone on which a firm’s identity is imprinted. Communities keep richer memories of institutional impact than what even the organized sector has managed to via its knowledge management systems in India. Symbolic processes, self-control, and self-efficacy are all important in social learning. Hence, reputation that involves brand – traditionally a responsibility of Marketing and Quality, identity – traditionally a responsibility of Leadership; and social responsibility – traditionally associated with Founder Membership – all will need newer coalescence merely to appear coherent with an organization’s stakeholders. Such newer loops in learning have to be mapped for organisational effectiveness.

9.       Measurement Issues: Learning and development efficacy will be highlighted when deficits and benefits to organisational performance are identified in the design of organisations. Professionals in L&D will be required to distinguish deficit cycles from benefit cycles in their organization’s history.  Deficits arising from patterned losses in organisational routine (of downturns in organisational performance that are systematically bypassed due to reasons such as fear of embarrassment or critique), are different from benefit cycles marked by successful improvements to signal performance upturns that are enabled by appropriate learning mechanisms which reduce defensiveness and detachment from issues of vital significance to the organization’s effectiveness.  Hence I foresee outcome oriented evaluation frameworks give way to comprehensive feedback into design of learning and development systems per se. That is as exciting a place to be as it is challenging. L&D leaders have a professional development opportunity in surpassing such challenge.

10.    Development as Value, Information is for Free: Value dynamics in learning and development commence, when a market emerges for developmental processes. Free services mark the abundantly available information byte. Simply put, we are likely to witness more and more entitlement to free information. The threshold departures in willingness to pay for valuable developmental processes will accompany the fulfillment of the learner’s Identity. Those services will be paid for increasingly where human interfaces will provide for experiential value. Innovation in reaching out to the learner ‘out there’ will make for business friendly developmental processes. Offerings from self-awareness processes to interpersonal contribution will stage a comeback, first with individuals through coaching, counseling and mentoring. Group and organisational awareness will follow. Such were abruptly disrupted by the delusional expectations caused by the march of the effortless keyboards and pretentious touch-screens. These offerings will be recalled with mixed feelings at varying degrees of acceptance by different generations. Boundaries of acceptance, offering and contribution to development will see unprecedented stretch.

Conclusion

Thus, what we have is a challenge of drivers on multiple fronts. Oversimplifications could deny us the reality we need to engage with. In closing, I come to that point of historical interest. It is about excellence. I came across the quote “Excellence is not a skill. It is an attitude." An accomplished academic from a US business school summarized in December 2010 what his wise students feel when they visit India on study-visits year after year “Indian business success is premised on short-term deal-making. They’re not thinking beyond 2-3 years. If you notice, everyone wants to exploit you as if tomorrow would never come. The porter, the shop-keeper, the cab-driver, the agent..." Do we really wish to excel in short-term deal-making? There's a lot about what management consulting and management 'practices' have done to diminish learning in organizations (Argyris, 1999). As Argyris puts it - it's down to our 'face-saving' tendencies - we do not wish as professionals to show ourselves up as feeling embarrassed, guilty or defensive. Alongside comes newer understanding of the domains of paradox, polarities, covert processes and shadow-cultures of firms that host individual and organisational learning patterns. We wish to avoid the 'blow-ups' that guilt so skillfully ‘covers up’ when our initiatives don’t seem to be producing the intended results.

It is tempting to assume that what got us here will take us into the future as well. We also need to be watchful for descriptions of ‘flexibility’ in the immediate-term that actually mask compromises in the goals and methods of learning and development. I bet most of us who think short-term, rarely reflect on such issues. Conscious leadership is probably the reset awaiting us into the future. Institutions that engage in second and third-order learning will have the edge. In recent times, the language of 'authenticity, 'vulnerability' and 'compassion' are doing the rounds on virtual networks. Surely, they've 'real' origins. What can we do to learn about this and make those insights actionable? Will not the future judge our current actions by those considerations? If we have the courage to examine near-death possibilities of inaction in contemporary India, will we not look at options more responsibly as did the seminar organizers on the need for HRD in institutions of higher education?

References:

1.        Argyris A (1999) On Organizational Learning, Blackwell Publishing, MA

2.        Goleman D (2009) Ecological Intelligence, Penguin, London.

3.        Dierkes M, Berthoin Antal A, Child J & Nonaka I ( 2001) Handbook of Organizational Learning and Knowledge, Oxford.

4.        Peters, Thomas J., and Jr. Waterman, Robert H. (1984) In Search of Excellence: Lessons from America’s Best-Run Companies. New York: Harper & Row, Publishers

5.        EIU (2010) Global firms in 2020: The next decade of change for organisations and workers - A report from the Economist Intelligence Unit (sponsored by SHRM).

[1]First published in 1982 it is one of the biggest selling and most widely read business books ever, selling 3 million copies in its first four years, and being the most widely held library book in the United States from 1989 to 2006.

[2]IndCat: Online Union Catalogue of Indian Universities is unified Online Library Catalogues of books, theses and journals available in major university libraries in India. The union database contains bibliographic description, location and holdings information for books, journals and theses in all subject areas available in more than 123 university libraries across the country http://indcat.inflibnet.ac.in/indcat/

[3] Global firms in 2020: The next decade of change for organisations and workers is an Economist Intelligence Unit report, sponsored by the Society for Human Resource Management (SHRM). The Economist Intelligence Unit conducted the survey and analysis and wrote the report

[4] The single loop action strategy for learning is self-centric. The strategy is to design and manage the environment so that the actor is in control over factors relevant to self.

[5] The governing variables in double-loop learning are valid information, free choice and internal commitment.

[6] The conference will address and question a key issue of our times: the adequacy of the current paradigms of management for the future of mankind and our planet. http://www.iimb.ernet.in/hi/international-spirituality-conference

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Book Review - COVERT Processes at Work (Robert Marshak)

Covert Processes at Work – Managing the Five Hidden Dimensions of Organisational Change by Robert J Marshak (2006) Berrett-Koehler Publishers, CA.

‘Covert’ is an English word that signifies secrecy. Somehow, in common parlance, it has acquired the monstrosity of being negative, almost sinister. Hence, the motivations to read a book like “Covert Processes at Work” could be investigative intent, confrontative mission or plain exploration. The author of the book Robert J Marshak (Bob) is however a scholar from Washington at the American University and a practitioner of Organisation Development (OD), considered by many experts in the field to be a worthy successor to the legacy of the grey-beards in the profession. Ed Schein, the originator of process consultation, and a legend in OD himself, wrote the foreword to this book.

So what could then be the motives of the author? After all, this is the first book of its nature, and as co-creator of the Dealing with Covert Processes Workshop, Bob’s incisive thinking has acquired a pulpit like pedestal for those affected by and interested in organisational dynamics. Judith Katz along with Bob provide an interpretive model in their workshops that span the classical units of analyses frames – individual, group, organisational and societal. The focal system could be viewed through a prism of Lessons Learnt in Childhood, Beliefs, Assumptions and Values, Formal Theories or Explicit Systems of Thought, Paradigms and Cultures. The end of the prism that is delightfully insightful is the spectrum it addresses from the subconscious to the superconscious –

1.       Questionable, Illegitimate and unacceptable;

2.       Legitimate, proper and Acceptable; and

3.       Too good to be True

Bob unfolds a closely woven integration in a singular scheme of all hidden organisational dynamics. He asks the question “What do all types of covert processes have in common and what can you do about them?” The book reveals answers to this principal inquiry in a manner that resembles Bob’s synthetic prowess during diagnosis of complex organisational issues. These are teased through for us into repressed processes, denied processes, overt processes, unexpressed processes and untapped processes. At a certain level such elegance and simplicity may seem inconspicuous in its relatedness to a diagnostic scheme; unless the initiated mind cuts through to the inherent profundity it entails. So how is the book itself organized?

Chapters 1 and 2 lay the foundation to the scheme. The author goes on to highlight how and why paying attention to the overt alone does not yield sufficiency in outcomes. He introduces six covert dimensions in Chapter 1, namely – ‘out-of-everyday-awareness’ issues such as – Reasons, Politics, Inspirations, Emotions, Mindsets and Psychodynamics. He then presents the integration of these in a framework he calls the Covert Processes Model in Chapter 2. With this the reader could get to ‘how to go about seeing what is not there’ in the next chapter.

Chapter 3 presents and explains a formula for diagnosing covert processes. It offers a method – if you will - on developing hunches. It is principally about diagnoses of covert issues. There’s magic of cognition in that theorization that is best read than reviewed here. Chapter 4 is an extension of the diagnostic theme, although the primary treatment here is on communication, intentionally symbolic or unintentional. Here is where the reader delights in the paradox that implies that we should explore symbolic messages literally and literal messages symbolically. We’ve known from conventional change theory about private and public withdrawal of participants in organisational change. Symbolic communications serve as early indicators of these symptoms (symbols). Some may refer to such uncovering as consumptive knowledge.

Practice or action based themes commence in Chapter 5. The significance of such nuanced practice considerations stand starkly in the potential that fears, untested assumptions, unconscious reactions and under-the-table dealings of members have during organisational change. Practice is about reaching change effectiveness by using the basic 5 keys in this chapter to unleash hidden creativity, removing unspoken blocks, altering mindsets, and giving voice to ‘unspeakable’ visions of greatness as Bob terms them. Scholars may classify this section to be the mark of procedural knowledge.

Chapter 6 is an extension of Chapter 5 with special focus on engagement strategies to manage covert dynamics. Bob calls it ‘putting things on the table’ – by establishing legitimacy, creating enabling conditions, being strategic and using subtlety through astute judgment.

In fact, by the time I reached this part of the book several alternate or related theories whizzed through my mind. Prominent among them are that of Gestalt – the figure and ground aspects of sensory perception, and Neuro-Linguistic Programming  – the symbolic representations that language throws up to be opposed skillfully for their violations – whether they be universal generalizations, simple deletions, modal operators of necessity, presuppositions or lack of referential index. I would be delighted to integrate such ‘use of self’ into the diagnostic scheme that the Covert Process model holds out.

In quite organic connect Chapter 7 follows with how to recognize or rethink interventions. The significance of figure and ground come alive in the prominence Bob accords to the focal system that blocks it from seeing or sensing important issues. Hence the inferential consequence of rethinking and reframing interventions follows. In such a schema, the unity of awareness in purpose of intervention as shared between change facilitator and client system helps lay relevant ground rules that foster legitimacy and safety for change participants.

Chapter 8 is an extension of Chapter 7, in that it is about Reframing. The difference here is not so much about change in focal system beliefs, as much as it is about change in the way something would be interpreted in the system’s context. Bob quotes a giant’s intervention in such a scheme, when Edie Seashore says ‘Up until now”…i.e. if someone on behalf of the organisation says, “That is not possible here; there’s no way that can be done” Edie would say “Up until now”. This example suggests the spirit of reframing in that the dignity of the speaker is preserved, and the challenge is about the thinking process. 6 ways of addressing reframing are discussed in this chapter – primarily from a change facilitator’s point of view.

Chapter 9 is about Rethinking Organisational Politics. The seasoned reader may in fact consider this as a special case of reframing! However what is revealed is Bob’s own take from his own ‘prism’. Dealing with both political and management frames, Bob reveals another aspect of his synthetic mind. They hover around decision arenas, degree of participation, decision rounds (how many iterations), required degree of agreement, access to information, reciprocity, expected styles and types of sanctions. The dimensions he frames are as under.

1. Who decides
2. Decision Process
3. Time-frame
4. Nature of Change
5. Purpose of Change
6. How others are seen

Chapters 7, 8 and 9, are in my opinion, the author’s special contribution to the discipline of Organisation Development. It is here that his insights emerge like the nectar in the air that the nose never sniffed without being trained to do so. The savant and the processual components of behavioral sciences weaves into the book here like a stitch through an ailing body part, and quite like the integrative spirit of Eastern ‘wholeness’ in remedy despite the origin of analytical and almost partitive western diagnostic temperament. Like the good architect working to a plan, he elevates the foundation in Chapters 1 to 3, and raises the edifice deftly thereafter with structural material that houses the diagnostic and the interventionist aspects of classical Organisation Development.

Chapter 10 on Managing Covert processes is like the canopy or the rotunda to the book’s architecture. Written partly like an epilogue, or a good teacher’s summary (the OD practitioner’s Humanistic orientation); it is especially useful for the reader who takes the trouble of going through this book’s organisation. The telling punch is that premise from which the book begins – ‘remember that organisations are both rational and political systems’. The mitigation is however a phased collapsing of both these anchors through humane challenge, conscious judgment, multiple levels of diagnoses, clarity of purpose and  requisite thinking to suit the political thinking of the system when one frames reality.

Perhaps Bob’s pronouncement of psychological safety issues is a shade deeper than the consideration of ethics in such art of change management. If there were one more dimension he could have addressed deeply in the scheme – that would be it – ‘ethics’ as frames of reference in covert processes. Else, this book is compactly done, integrating complexity of theme with lucidity in explanation; elevating abstractions that are grounded in real case examples and theorizing to the extent that it holds out a qualitative promise from tireless and methodical application. It aids concrete grasp for the phenomenologically inclined reader; especially for the one in search of a product of evolved thinking in organisational dynamics. Ed Schein puts it well in the foreword when he says, that ‘in this book finally we have a coherent approach’ to all of what we hurriedly label as hidden agendas, unconscious desires, elephants-under-the-table, latent functions and shared tacit assumptions that seldom get to the table. No more as ‘covert’ as the title first suggested?