Harvard Business Review ON Knowledge Management Articles 4-6

Harvard Business ReviewONKnowledge ManagementArticles 4-6 Presented by Laila Haidar Undergraduate in Management Information Systems

Overview • Teaching Smart People How to Learn • Chris Argyris (Published May-June 1995) • Putting Your Company’s Whole Brain to Work • Dorothy Leonard and Susan Straus (Published July-August 1997) • How to Make Experience Your Company’s Best Teacher • Art Kleiner and George Roth (Published September-October 1997) • Occurring Themes • My Critique • Additional Information • References 09-29-2005

Teaching Smart People How to Learn • Human behavior patterns block learning in an organization • Why well-educated professionals are prone to these patterns • How companies can improve the ability of their managers and employees to learn 09-29-2005

Teaching Smart People How to Learn “Success in the market place increasingly depends on learning, yet most people don’t know how to learn” Learning Dilemma: • Companies have difficulty addressing this issue • Some companies are not aware this issue exists. 09-29-2005

Misunderstanding Learning Two mistakes made in the effort of becoming a learning organization: • People define learning too narrowly as mere “Problem Solving” • The common assumption that getting people to learn is largely a matter of motivation Teaching Smart People How to Learn 09-29-2005

Types of Learning Teaching Smart People How to Learn 09-29-2005

How Professionals Avoid Learning Teaching Smart People How to Learn 09-29-2005

Behavior Theory • Espoused Theory: How people think they behave • Theory-in-use: How people actually behave Teaching Smart People How to Learn 09-29-2005

Theory-in-use • Governing Values of theory-in-use: • To remain in control • To maximize winning and minimize losing • To be as rational as possible • The purpose of all these values is to avoid embarrassment or threat, feeling vulnerable or incompetent Teaching Smart People How to Learn 09-29-2005

Defensive Reasoning and the Doom Loop • Encourages individuals to keep private the premises, inferences, and conclusions that shape their behavior and to avoid testing them in a truly independent, objective fashion • Performance evaluations are tailor-made to push professionals into the doom loop Teaching Smart People How to Learn 09-29-2005

Your Fired Teaching Smart People How to Learn 09-29-2005

Learning How to Reason Productively • Managers must become aware of their defensive reasoning and its results otherwise any change will just be a fad • Change must start at the top • Connect the program to real business problems • Learning to reason productively can be emotional, but the payoff is great Teaching Smart People How to Learn 09-29-2005

Conclusion • Effective learning is the product of the way people reason about their own behavior • Companies need to make the ways managers and employees reason about their behavior a key focus of organizational learning and continuous improvement programs Teaching Smart People How to Learn 09-29-2005

Putting Your Companies Whole Brain to Work • Managers can successfully foster innovation using different approaches of creative abrasion “Productive Process” • Different people have different thinking styles • Rules for working together to discipline the creative process 09-29-2005

Innovate or Fall Behind How managers avoid personal disputes resulting from the creative process: • Comfortable Clone Syndrome: Coworkers share similar interest and training, everyone thinks alike • Unable to manage employees with a variety of thinking styles Putting the Company’s Brain to Work 09-29-2005

How we think Cognitive Differences • Varying approaches to perceiving and assimilating data, making decisions, solving problems, and relating to other people, these approaches are preferences • Every one has a preferred habit of thought that influences how they make decisions and interact with others Putting Company’s Brain to Work 09-29-2005

Left Brain vs. Right Brain Analytical Logical Sequential Intuitive Values-Based Nonlinear Putting the Company’s Brain to Work 09-29-2005

Assessment Tools/ Diagnostic Instruments All instruments agree on the following points: • Preferences are neither inherently good nor inherently bad • Distinguishing preferences emerge early in our lives, and strongly held ones tend to remain relatively stable through the years • We can learn to act outside our preferred styles • Understanding others’ preferences helps people communicate and collaborate Putting the Company’s Brain to Work 09-29-2005

Myers-Briggs Type Indicator ® I = Introvert E = Extravert S = Sensing N = Intuitive T = Think F = Feeling P = Perceiving J = Judging Putting the Company’s Brain to Work 09-29-2005

Herrmann Brain Dominance Instrument Putting the Company’s Brain to Work 09-29-2005

How We Act • Understand Yourself • When you identify your style you will gain insight of your preferences in thinking and communication • Your style can repress the very creativity you seek from you employees • Forget the Golden Rule • Don’t treat people the way you want to be treated • Tailor the communication to the receiver instead of the sender • Create Whole-Brained Teams Putting the Company’s Brain to Work 09-29-2005

How We Act Continued • Look for the Ugly Duckling • Successful managers spend time getting members of divers groups acknowledge their differences • Manage the Creative Process • Set common goals • Make operation guide lines explicit • Set up agendas ahead of time • Depersonalize Conflict • People who do not understand cognitive preferences tend to personalize conflict, avoid it, or both Putting the Company’s Brain to Work 09-29-2005

Caveat Emptor “Buyer Beware” • Diagnostic instrument only measure one aspect of personality: preferences in thinking styles and communication • Preferences tend to be stable but life experience can affect them • Only trained individuals should administer diagnostic instruments Putting the Company’s Brain to Work 09-29-2005

Conclusion • Today’s complex products demand integrating expertise of individuals who do not naturally understand one another • The intersection of different thought processes will drive innovation Putting the Company’s Brain to Work 09-29-2005

How to Make Experience Your Company's Best Teacher • Discusses a tool called learning history 09-29-2005

Learning History • A written narrative of a company’s recent set of critical episodes Presented in two columns Experience is The Best Teacher 09-29-2005

Why Learning History Works • They Build Trust • It raises issues people would like to talk about but have not had the courage to discuses openly • Transfers knowledge from one part of the company to another • Builds a body of general knowledge about management Experience is The Best Teacher 09-29-2005

Conclusion • Learning history is often commissioned to analyze one event, but their lessons often supersede it • Experience is the best teacher in both individual and organizational lives Experience is The Best Teacher 09-29-2005

Occurring Themes • Managers and employees must learn to reason productively • Create a whole brain company • Experience is the best teacher 09-29-2005

My Critique Pros Cons • The Publications are outdated • There has not been any experiments done on the learning history tool • No guarantee that these methods work • Easy to Read • Many Examples 09-29-2005

Additional Information • An Interview with Chris Arygris • Article about MBTI® • Creating a Learning History 09-29-2005

An Interview with Chris ArygrisMay 1999 1 Where are organizations now. And where are they headed with respect to learning? “… In all fairness, there are Hr and training people who understand the difference between single and double loop learning. They say they haven’t been able to concentrate much on double loop learning and that they didn’t they had permission and enthusiasm from top management.” Additional Information 09-29-2005

Article about MBTI® February 2005 2 Additional Information 09-29-2005

Creating a Learning HistoryMarch 1995 3 A new philosophy and approach to assessment is embodied in learning history work. At the Learning Center, we are very careful in using the word "assessment." We now write “learning histories.” We include a learning historian as part of the team. The learning historian's job is to capture and tell the story. That is the language we use. It is amazing how this approach resolves a lot of psychological and emotional problems associated with assessment. People don't want to be assessed. They want to share. They want others to know what they've done - not in a self-serving fashion, but so others know what worked, and what didn't work. They want their story told. Additional Information 09-29-2005

References • A chat with Chris Argyris. By: Abernathy, Donna J.. Training & Development, May99, Vol. 53 Issue 5, p80, 5p (Using the Universities Academic Search Premier) • AMA Adds Myers-Briggs Qualification Program To Portfolio, Will Launch New Conference. Lifelong Learning Market Report, 2/4/2005, Vol. 10 Issue 3, p1-2, 2p (Using the Universities Academic Search Premier) • http://scholar.google.com/scholar?hl=en&lr=&q=cache:QxhvNSQSV0EJ:https://dspace.mit.edu/retrieve/2285/SWP-3966-37617962.pdf+art+kleiner+george+roth 09-29-2005

Harvard Business Review ON Knowledge Management Articles 4-6