THEORY, METHODS, AND TOOLS
Ideas such as these, which represent significant shifts in our predominant ways of thinking, can be daunting. The point of raising them is not to have people grasp them intellectually, nor to have people adopt them posthaste, but to find a way to pursue them meaningfully. It may be enough if they challenge all of us to think more deeply. If they stand the test of time, they will have to find their way into the way we conduct our work. How might this happen?
Buckminster Fuller used to say that if you want to teach people a new way of thinking, don't bother trying to teach them. Instead. give them a tool, the use of which will lead to new ways of thinking.
There are many tools and methods vital to developing learning organizations. Much of this book elaborates on methods and tools introduced originally in The Fifth Discipline, or presents new, complementary tools. All of these methods and tools help us enhance the capabilities that characterize learning organizations: aspiration, reflection and conversation, conceptualization.
Examples of methods and tools that help individuals, teams, and eventually larger organizations orient themselves toward what they truly care about (aspirations) include reflective practices for drawing out personal vision, and interactive practices for developing shared vision. Examples of the methods and tools of reflective conversation include "Left-Hand Column Cases", and dialogue exercises such as "Projector and Screen," and the use of blindfolds. Methods and tools for conceptualizing and understanding complex, interdependent issues include "system archetypes," and "management flight simulators" based on generic management structures such as new product development and service quality.
Thinking in terms of theory, methods, and tools sheds new light on the meaning of the "disciplines for building learning organizations." These disciplines represent bodies of "actionable knowledge" comprised of underlying theories, and practical tools and methods derived from these theories.
The synergy between theories, methods, and tools lies at the heart of any field of human endeavor that truly builds knowledge. In music, the theory of sonata form has given rise to methods for developing sonata structures, as well as many instructional techniques for helping students understand and practice writing sonatas. In medicine, the theory of cardiac functioning how a healthy heart functions and the irregularities that indicate a heart attack has led to a long-standing methodology for cardiac monitoring to track heart attacks in progress and to avert those that are starting. The method advanced significantly when electronic cardiac monitors were developed a tool which enabled much more precise and extensive monitoring.
Conversely, through developing practical tools and methods, theories are brought to practical tests, which in turn leads to the improvement of the theories. This continuous cycle of creating theories, developing and applying practical methods and tools based on the theories, leading to new insights that improve the theories is the primary engine of growth in science and technology.
The same basic connections between theory, method, and tools underlie each of the learning disciplines. Each embodies practical tools, which are grounded in underlying theory and methodology. In system thinking, the tool of system archetypes is based on a general methodology, developed at MIT over the past 40 years, called "system dynamics", for understanding how the feedback structure of complex systems generates observed patterns of behavior. The methodology, in turn, is based on the theory of complex feedback systems that has been developing in engineering for the past 150 years. One part of that theory describes complex systems involving reinforcing and balancing feedback processes.
In the discipline of working with mental models, the ''left-hand column case" (page 247) has proven to be a very useful tool to help managers begin to appreciate how underlying assumptions can sabotage conversations, especially when they go unrecognized and unarticulated. The tool derives from a general body of method which uses the actual ''data" of conversations to unearth the reasoning which leads us to act in defensive or self-defeating ways. The power of the methodology, in turn, derives from underlying theories about the nature of mental models (such as "the ladder of inference," page 242), and about the sources of defensiveness when we perceive threat or potential embarrassment. These theories have their origins in developments in linguistics and in cognitive and social psychology over the past sixty years.
Why is it important for tools to be based on underlying theories? After all, isn't the most important aspect of a tool its usefulness?
Yes and no. It is hard to argue with a tool that seems helpful. Not long ago, an experienced management consultant presented his methods at an MIT seminar. When asked at the end of his presentation about the theoretical bases of his methods, he said that there were none. They were just tools that he had developed over his years of experience, and they seemed to work. I left the seminar feeling uneasy. I believe there were several reasons for my concern.
First, such "theory-less" tools are not likely to significantly add to our store of generalizable knowledge. Without underlying theory you might get tools which might work in one situation, but you don't know why. They might fail in other situations, but you don't know why either. Ultimately, the tool's usefulness may depend on unreproducible aspects of a particular person's skill. A really good consultant can make the tool work. But all the rest of the people in your company haven't got the foggiest idea how to apply it effectively.
Second, with no underlying theory, we may not always appreciate the limitations of a tool, or even its counter productiveness if used inappropriately. In our rush to solve practical problems, we may grab at ready made solutions that neither address the fundamental causes of a problem, nor stretch our thinking in important new directions.
Herein lies the strongest reason to look for tools based on important new theories: only such tools have the power to change how we think. Most tools introduced into management to solve problems, however innovative they may be, are based on conventional ways of thinking. After all, without an underlying theory, how could they be otherwise? Such tools may be useful, but they will not be transformative. They often leave deeper sources of problems unchanged. To paraphrase Albert Einstein, our present problems cannot be solved at the level of thinking at which they were created.
For example, many useful "systems analysis" tools are available for diagramming, analyzing, and redesigning organizational work flow processes. Some of these tools have been applied and refined over many years. But virtually all of them are based on a static way of seeing the world. They recognize that ''everything in the system is connected,'' but they characterize that connectedness in terms of "detail complexity." They help to create a snapshot showing how a system works at a moment in time. This helps to rearrange the elements of that system into a more ideal picture.
But conventional static systems analysis tools offer no understanding of how the problems we have today have developed over time, especially if the causes are nonobvious. Nor will they help in understanding the likely consequences of our future efforts at change, especially where we might take actions that make things better today but worse tomorrow. Because they are a product of our present ways of thinking, static systems tools will tend to merely reinforce the notion that "somebody else" created our problems. They offer no penetrating insights into how our own actions may have caused our present problems or how our own perspective led us to the obvious "fixes'' that eventually made our problems worse. For this you need a dynamic, not a static, perspective.
Relying on our present ways of thinking, it is very difficult to develop tools
that change that way of thinking. For this we must find or generate new theory.
Although relatively rare, there are strong examples of the impact of managerial
tools and methods supported by bringing in a new body of theory to a field where
it had not yet been applied. For example, the total quality tools like control
charts derive their usefulness from the theory of stationary statistical
processes, a well-established field within mathematics.
