NEW SKILLS AND CAPABILITIES
We know that a genuine learning cycle is operating when we can things we couldn't do before. Evidence of new skills and capabilities deepens our confidence that, in fact, real learning is occurring.
The skills and capabilities that characterize learning organizations fall into three natural groupings:
- Aspiration: the capacity of individuals, teams, and eventually larger organizations to orient themselves toward what they truly care about and to change because they want to, not just because they need to. (All of the learning disciplines, but particularly the practice of personal mastery and building shared vision, develop these capabilities.
- Reflection and Conversation: the capacity to reflect on deep assumptions and patterns of behavior, both individually and collectively. Developing capabilities for real conversation is not easy. Most of what passes for conversation in contemporary society is more like a Ping-Pong game than true talking and thinking together. Each individual tosses his or her view at the other. Each then responds. Often, we are preparing our response before we have even heard the other person's view. In effect, we are "taking our shot" before we have even received the other's ball. "Learningful" conversations require individuals capable of reflecting on their own thinking. (These skills emerge especially strongly in the disciplines of mental models and team learning.)
- Conceptualization: the capacity to see larger systems and forces at play and to construct public, testable ways of expressing these views. What seemed so simple from my individual point of view looks much less so when I see it from others points' of view. But constructing coherent descriptions of the whole requires conceptualization skills not found in traditional organizations. (Systems thinking is vital for these skills, especially in concert with the reflectiveness and openness fostered by working with mental models.)
Like any new skills, the skills and capabilities required in building learning organizations shape what we can understand and accomplish. But they are unusual because they affect us deeply. They are not skills of specialization, like learning financial accounting for executives." They inevitably lead to new awarenesses because they bring about deep shifts in how we think and interact with one another.
