Learning to Alter Mental Models
by Peter M. Senge
Table of Contents
Introduction
Revising Mental Models
Scenario Planning
Perils of Problem-Solving
Leveraging Intrinsic Motivation
Organizational learning is not a fad; it connects in substantive ways to the practice of strategic management.
Most executives justify their interest in organizational learning in one of three ways: 1) they want their organization to be able to adapt to change; 2) they turn to organizational learning in desperation when other efforts to enhance strategic planning and management fail; 3) they want to reduce or eliminate the paradigm blindness plaguing their organizations.
The first justification is the most pervasive. Most business executives know that traditional, hierarchical, authoritarian, bureaucratic organizations tend to be slow to adapt. Even if they perceive environmental changes, they have a hard time motivating themselves to take action. They tend to change only in times of crisis, when there is rarely enough time to adapt significantly.
Studies show that Fortune 500 companies survive somewhere between thirty and forty years. Clearly, adaptability should not just be a concern during a passing business cycle recession. It is a fundamental, long-term issue. And yet, most large successful organizations show very little evidence of being highly adaptable.
The question of adaptation is essential in learning. An adaptation-based justification for learning almost always gets the attention of business executives. The only people who ignore it are those who are not concerned whether their organization will be around in ten years.
The shortcoming of such justification, however, is that it is almost completely non-operational. Ultimately, managers shrug their shoulders and say, "Great; learning is important. But what do I do differently tomorrow?" An adaptation-based justification may get management's attention, but it does not address what changes are needed or how to make them.
The management at Shell Oil came to define organizational learning as the process through which management teams change their mental models of the company, its markets, and its competitors.
Obviously, this definition includes concerns regarding adaptability, but goes beyond them. The term "mental model" is not expressly defined, but in essence, it is equivalent to the concept of paradigm-an integrative set of ideas and practices that shape the ways people view and interact with the world.
Shell's definition of organizational learning directs attention to a specific domain of work. It does not exactly tell management what to do, but it suggests that they narrow their focus rather than look at everything. Shell's planners, in particular, focus on management teams.
At Shell, the management team is broadly defined-not limited to the executive committee or executive team-as a group of people who need one another in order to take effective action. That focus allows Shell management to focus on the evolution of the mental models that are incorporated in the minds and behaviors of people who need one another to take effective action. The same approach can be taken in any organization. The effort to improve mental models can be focused in many ways, based on the needs of the organization.
The Shell definition of management team has grown out of tangible changes in the way Shell does planning. They have operationalized the definition; they have worked long and hard to put into practice disciplines for challenging and continually improving the mental models of their managers.
One tool Shell uses is scenario planning, a process that creates hypothetical alternative futures. Rather than looking toward the future as if there is only one possibility, scenario planners imagine and define multiple alternatives. Shell is well known for its pioneering work in scenario planning. When Shell started doing it in the late 1960s, they made no connection between scenario planning and organizational learning. They discovered the connection through trial and failure.
In the early 1970s, Shell got very good at developing anatomically correct, technically excellent scenarios. Their planners made presentations on these different scenarios worldwide, throughout the company.
For example, they endeavored to communicate one particular scenario to their managers-that the industry may be on the verge of changing dramatically. As early as 1972, they had a scenario that looked remarkably like what eventually did happen-the formation of OPEC at the end of 1973. They worked very hard, trying to get their managers around the country to take the scenario seriously. They accomplished nothing. And since many of the scenario planners believed in the chance of an OPEC-like development, they were extremely frustrated.
Then, suddenly, they had a major insight. They realized that they had it all wrong. They had fundamentally misunderstood the purpose of their work. As planners, they thought their job was to create plans. In this case, they thought their job was to create the most beautifully articulated and effectively presented scenarios. The real purpose of planning, they realized, is to alter the mental models of managers.
They suddenly understood that the reason the managers did not take the scenario seriously was because it described a world that was inconsistent with their experience. They had no mental model for turbulence and unpredictability, for market controlled by the sellers. Their way of thinking about the world was so embedded in their experiences that they could not comprehend the scenario. That is when the scenario planners realized they had missed the whole point of the exercise.
The point of the exercise was to alter the mental models, not to present scenarios. Ironically, Shell's strategic planners were not very strategic; they focused on what they thought their job was rather than what was important. They realized that a strategic focus was the best way to enable their management teams to perceive changes in their environment, make sense of those changes, and modify, adapt, and evolve their plans.
Today at Shell, planning in any of the operating companies involves creating multiple plans. The planners think through how they would manage under different future scenarios. They must bring their assumptions-their mental models-out into the open, where they can be challenged and revised. That is how they define organizational learning.
The problem with the mental-models definition is that for most people, it still leads to a reactive stance. Managers get locked into a mindset. They tend to filter out all kinds of information that does not fit their current paradigm. To avoid this pitfall, managers have to become paradigm-busters. But before they can change them, they must recognize them.
A problem-solving orientation can be a great source of limitation. Managers often think of themselves as problem solvers, but does that orientation engender change? Problem solvers are fundamentally reactive-they wait until a problem is defined, then seek a solution.
A problem-solving outlook tends to limit creativity in certain ways. When executives are trying to solve a problem, they focus their efforts on defining the problem, on understanding its extent. By thinking about solving problems, rather than dissolving them, executives often reinforce a problem's existence. Another major limitation to problem solving is that, as a mindset, it tends to produce episodes of abrupt change rather than continuous, proactive, evolutionary change. The extreme form of problem-solving in businesses is crisis management, which produces enormous and rapid change. In fact, many corporations view crises as the only things that will produce change.
This false belief has led to a common leadership strategy in America-create a crisis. Planners try to convince people that there is a crisis looming just over the horizon. If that doesn't work, they amass more data and say, "it's coming soon; you had better pay attention." If that approach doesn't work, they go out and create the crisis, solely in order to produce change.
A problem-solving orientation tends to extract an emotional toll from the people in the organization, and clearly cramps imagination. There are two great energies of change in human affairs: fear and aspiration. A problem-solving orientation tends to reinforce fear; crisis certainly does. People become addicted to waiting until a problem develops before taking action, becoming more dependent on the problem, the crisis, the reaction, and the individuals who excel at that approach.
Leveraging Intrinsic Motivation
A true definition of organizational learning goes beyond adaptation and problem solving. Learning is about adaptation, true, but it is hard to explain how people learn to walk or talk based on theory of adaptation. Sooner or later, people have to recognize the concept of intrinsic motivation.
As human beings, we may use trial and error and elaborate feedback processes that are obviously the very essence of learning, but we excel at learning things because we want to learn them.
All things considered, my working definition of organizational learning involves an organization that is continually enhancing its capacity to shape its future, to produce the outcomes its members truly desire. How can organizations begin to tap, channel, harness, and build on people's intrinsic motivation to learn?
First, the organization has to redefine learning. Real learning involves the development of capability and capacity to do what one aspires to do. However, that is almost the antitheses of the perception of learning that pervades our "educational" process.
What does it take to build a learning organization? All learning involves two activities: thinking and doing. Begin by thinking about the things that can enhance the organization's capacity for learning-things that will make the organization more adaptable, challenge mental models, and create aspiration. Then select tools and methods that will accomplish those goals.
A great philosophy about mental models, coupled with methods and tools like scenario planning, can get people thinking about making changes and doing things differently.
Peter M. Senge, contributing editor to is director of the Center for Organizational Learning at MIT's Sloan School of Management, (617) 253-1575. He is the author of The Fifth Discipline. This article was adapted from his presentation at last year's International Planning Forum Conference.