Learning Talk Summary

"Participation precedes learning."
-- Mary Catherine Bateson

This topic brought out an incredibly rich set of responses with ideas as simple as pizza and ice cream and as complex as international, real-time video links. I think you'll find some food for thought for your organization here. Thanks to everyone who shared their experiences. Joyce Wycoff

From: "Manzi, Felicia", MANZIF@coned.com
I've started a lunch-time book circle in my department, open to all. Something I did on my own to fill a personal need.

We're currently reading The Heart Aroused: Poetry and the Preservation of the Soul in Corporate America.

This is our 6th book. We meet once a week and discuss a chapter. Other books read: The 7 Habits of Highly Effective People, The Path of Least Resistance (Robert Fritz, Getting to Yes (Fisher, Urey).

From: L.M. 'Mike' Ocon, mikeocon@knoware.nl
Our IJsselsteins Disctivity School offers discsport workshops which offer organizations an opportunity to think together.

One might say 'a recreation day', what's new here?

What's new are 'the discsports'. Not volleybal, softball etc, but the discsports where all 9 of them are regulated by 'the spirit of the game', all 9 where an arbiter plays no role, all 9 where the conversation afterwards about things like bettering personal and group records, how well a team played together, the communication system in the 'double disc court' to eliminate the worst case situation, or in this weekend's case where we visited a club championship at the Agricultural University in Wageningen for individual events; distance, self-caught flight and accuracy the relation between high education and the nation state!

Next month the Atmospheric Researchers from the University of Utrecht will be getting together with us for a disctivity where we will also play World War Free, a game for , in this case, 80 participants to play together in the same game using 80 frisbees with artwork designed by themselves 'hotstamped' on the discs we'll be using that they each individually will be taking home when the event is over. The chaos in the first ten minutes of this game is fantastic and stuff to talk about for months afterward as it's wonderful to see how a large group solves a problem in such a short time and they always do!

From: "Butler, Rick Landes (Rick)", rickbutler@lucent.com
Following the CEO's weekly one-hour Monday morning staff meeting we hold the 'big table' meeting. The directors of each of our functional areas are asked to sit at the 'big table' and to work there for the rest of the morning rather than returning to their private offices. There is no formal agenda for the 'big table'. Discussion items come up based on what's happening in the business or if someone has an idea that they would like to bounce off others. We end up sharing, thinking and problem solving as a group in real time.

From: "Roggen, Nancy", NRoggen@us.imshealth.com
Just last Friday I hosted our first (hopefully in a series) Case Study writing session. The day long session brought together a max mix group of 26 people representing many different levels and functional areas in our organization. The goal of the day was to begin building case studies specific to our organization as learning aids for management development classes. We have a good start on that process.
Here's what I discovered:
1. People were very interested in the process and saw value in having time to step back from daily tasks to consider and examine a situation or issue in greater depth.
2. Busy people were interested and energized about the concept of creating a framework for productive discussion on organizational issues.
3. Four very different cases are in progress - with the teams committing to seeing the cases through to completion and volunteering new cases for development
4. We discussed some ways to use the finished cases.
* introduce culture and challenges to new employees
* foster conversations post merger
* complex cases can be used as the "certification exam" for our Management Development program
* increase cross functional awareness
* spark team process or service improvement discussions
* provide internal benchmarking resources
* kick off activity for a new project team
* process lessons learned for completed projects

From: Jay Arthur, lifestar@rmi.net
I've been working with a Wireless phone company. We've been doing 1-day root cause analysis of key problems with ordering, fulfillment, activation, and billing. Focused problem solving always pops out fresh ways to improve the business and understand customer requirements.

I've also been helping them examine their "mental models"-limiting beliefs about customer behavior that drives poor company behavior. The company values relationships and "talking" to customers; so they are experiencing unusually high volumes of customer calls. We've been exploring the Maytag repairman as a metaphor for the type of service they want to deliver.

From: "Langan, Terri", langan@foxvalley.tec.wi.us
We're a 2-year technical college with over 300 contract faculty.

One way we're "finding or making the time to think together, to have productive conversations together in the context of a culture in which 'there's almost an intolerance for thinking together and not doing?'" as faculty is through our formal mentoring program. The program matches teacher with teacher -- and I can say that as a mentor, I've learned as much as all my mentees have, I'm sure! We have wonderful conversations about teaching and learning, and things change for the better in our classrooms for our learners as a result.

To this question--"What are leaders in organizations doing to support and legitimize individuals and teams engaging in productive conversations and thinking together during paid work time?"--I can say that the college not only supports the mentoring program; but, among other things, it also supports a "Kaizen" award for teams that work together to innovate and solve problems, an annual 2-week Summer Institute for faculty, and a Teaching Innovation Project (TIP) competitive internal grant process managed by faculty for faculty who want to improve teaching and learning in all kinds of ways throughout the college.

From: LorenEk@aol.com
Nice question! For one interesting angle on answers, see April 2000 issue of Fast Company on re-designed office spaces to increase creative collaboration: "Designed to Work" (p 254) and "Office of the Future" (p. 272). These suggest possibilities to overcome the "Dilbertized" cubicles that discourage learning conversations. Proxemics -- the spatial arrangements -- tend to powerfully determine the rules for
interaction, yet are rarely questioned. Herman Miller and others are now raising -- and answering -- questions about office interactions.

From: Shane Putman, sputman@microsoft.com
Microsoft is a unique organization in my experience. Bill Gates' and Steve Ballmer's hiring philosophy has always been to 'hire smart people and figure out where they can contribute the most.' [paraphrased] As a result, the hiring process is lengthy and grueling. However, in my years at Microsoft, I have yet to work with someone that wasn't competent as what they were doing. (Also a unique experience). I am a member of the Product Support Services (PSS) division. We average some sort of reorganization or shift of focus every 6-8 months. At no time are those changes delivered to us in a neat, bundled package. Our executives set before us a goal and direction. How we implement processes or directives to attain those goals are wholly at our discretion. The responsibility for reaching those goals are also passed down the management chain. This is purposely done to allow maximum creativity and ownership of the initiatiative throughout the organization.

Summary: We hire smart people. Let's just tell what we want to accomplish and let them do it."

This environment DEMANDS close collaboration and a culture of 'thinking together.' Each employee has the opportunity to directly impact the business and is expected to actively seek occasion to make significant individual and group contributions to the goals of the organization. Our culture has purposely been formed to foster group interaction and collaboration on new ideas. Our management team expects new ideas to bubble up from the ranks. When viable recommendations are made, they are implemented immediately without an extensive period of analysis and retrospection. Is this method perfect? Hardly. We make mistakes.

However, we can retract the mistakes even more quickly than we implemented them and make appropriate adjustments. We don't have many three-ring binders containing standardized processes and corporate propaganda, but we move VERY quickly and take full advantage of each employee's unique skill set and experiential learning.

From: Ken Dutch, Ken.Dutch@abnamro.com
Unfortunately, there's not a lot that I can hold up from my current situation in the way of "thinking together." I find instead that there is a feeling that the interdependence that comes from sharing ideas openly is potentially dangerous for each individual's chances for advancement within the firm. It can strangle an organization at a turning point, when accepted orthodoxy needs to be chucked in dealing with a new business challenge. But even away from those kinds of crises, companies can make consistently lower quality decisions by depending on rugged intellectual individualists. Dr. Joseph Stiglitz, former Chief Economist for the World Bank, recently summed it up well:

Smart people are more likely to do stupid things when they close themselves [cut] off from outside criticism and advice. If there is one thing I've learned in government, it is that openness is most essential in
those realms where expertise seems to matter most. If [the two agencies he was criticizing in a narrow context] had invited greater scrutiny, their folly might have become clearer, much earlier.

The question is whether over time individuals that unilaterally share their ideas have any impact on their instituions. I keep trying, if only because I find that every time I give away an idea there seems to be another one there to replace it. At some point, perhaps, that replacement time may lengthen out to where I'm nervous about possibly draining the well. Hopefully, at that point I'll have the confidence to trust that my experience is valuable to the firm I'm with, so that I don't feel threatened by the next batch of young sharps nipping at my heels.

From: Andrew Finlayson, news@team.bayinsider.com
Pizza...the company pays for it after a shift to give people down time together but also a chance to talk shop without memos or formal meeting structures.

Hottest day of the year ice cream...another chance to break people out of the ordinary office routine and give a place for everyone to congregate.

It may sound like only once a year doesn't matter, but you can't do it more often or it is no longer special.

From: "Samuels, Neil D", samuelnd@bp.com
In the R&D part of BPAmoco, one thing that leaders are doing to encourage such conversation is spending money to change the workspace. The office redesign project is to encourage collaboration, innovation and productivity.

It will balance the need for personal space with abundant, inviting, and technologically-enabled collaborative space. This may include real-time video links between our London and Houston offices so people can share coffee (tea) and have a conversation despite being separated by 6000 miles.

From: mpmb, mpmb@gateway.net
I belong to a volunteer organization that takes 5 - 10 minutes a meeting to discuss questions asked without punitive punishment. Another larger part of the organization takes 2 entire days, per year and 30 minutes to an hour, in other meetings to discuss matters relative to it and the larger part still of the organization. At all times, everyone is given the chance to 'speak their peace' without judgement of right or wrong.

At the conclusion of these discussions, all in the room get to hear what the general consensus for the day or hour was. In the roundtable discussions, we finish with the topic before the allotted time runs out and we are able to chat on other topics close to our hearts regarding our experiences in the organization. We all learn something new; about the organization, different smaller meetings, and most importantly about each other and ourselves.

We accomplish a great deal because we are able to speak in complete freedom, freedom from negative judgement and we get to learn about constructive criticism and accept the fact that sometimes we are off-base in our thinking as individuals and as smaller groups.

From: Dar Richardson, dar.richardson@sitestuff.com
In regard to your question. The last project that I participated in used a couple of approaches. The first, was to formalize self directed work teams. Not all organizations are really into self directed work teams. The next approach was to use what was called technical work approaches that incorporated team collective thinking sessions. There were specific outputs that a team must produce. Just for your benefit, mind mapping was used to stimulate the rapid flow of ideas.

The point here is good or productive things don't just usually happen. There should be a model put into place that ensures group or organizational learning.

From: Susan M. Kuhn, susankuhn@igc.org
I run a publishing, marketing, and web operation for a trade association. We are shutting down production for a week (just after our annual conference so it will be slow anyway). I have asked staff to provide a list of the things they want to think about / plan / discuss and I will put together an agenda for the week, balancing personal time with various configurations of group discussions. We won't get through everything, so one of my goals is to schedule regular times to continue. I'd like to find a week later in the year to do the same.

From: Davanzo.Thomas@epamail.epa.gov
As one Office of some 40 people within EPA in Boston, we have done very focused training on dialog and communication. It's had a significant impact and provided people with specific training that encourages honest listening. It can cost a lot of time, but we think its worth it. Our planning process is now built on the topics and issues that we raised during and after these discussions.

From: Paul Veltman, paulie@voyager.co.nz
One of the most important and interesting books on the field of creativity I have come across to date is called 'Releasing creativity', by John Whatmore.

In this book management theorist Meredith Belbin's ideas on teamwork and team roles have been adapted to embrace the notion of the creative team. I'm usually very reticent in endorsing creativity books as they often fall short of the mark and fail to contribute something genuinely novel to the field.

However Whatmore's exploration of the creative team deserves close reading and much of the material in it will strike a chord with any of your readers who are looking for professional and collegial support in their creative work.

The idea of collaborative creativity is not new, but the idea of examining and assigning roles to different people engaged in different aspects of the creative process seems worth the attention of Thinksmart readers.n

From: Cosmulescu Sorin, scosmulescu@rodae.ro
LEARNING IS LIFE
In the company I belong to (industrial field) we organize frequent group discussions about the importance of learning, in order to continuously improve the business results.
Here are the usual methods to speed up the idea circuit.
1. BRAINSTORMING - Organize sessions to develop the idea reservoir.
- Select the best ideas.
- Update idea database.
- Apply the best solutions.
2. VALUE ENGINEERING
3. DELPHI METHOD
4. SYNECTICS
The basic supposition: Every person employed in the company is a potential creative manager.

Through free discussions the people in our organization are developing the corporate thinking system. The company directors do not impede the idea circulation and stimulate the suggestion system by giving bonus to the persons who issued the most valuable ideas.

LEARNING is the fuel that assures the working of the company functions. Otherwise how could the managers perform their business plan without the employees continuous learning and free discussions about new methods of management?

Let's make a comparison:
An airplane jet is taking off. The flight is going OK. Everything is on schedule. Suddenly one engine bursts and the jet is loosing altitude fast. There is one chance to save the situation (hundreds of lives): the skills that were learned in due time (as scheduled) shall assure the crew with the quick applying of the emergency procedures. Finally the jet is landing O.K.

Everybody is happy in the end.

WHAT SAVED THE CRITICAL SITUATION?
ANSWER: --> KNOWLEDGE
HOW IS KNOWLEDGE STORED IN THE CREW'S MINDS?
ANSWER: --> THROUGH SERIOUS LEARNING
LEARNING IS THE UNIVERSE FORCE.
TO DISCUSS BETTER LEARNING ASSURES PROXIMITY TO UNIVERSE STRUCTURE.