How to Teach Smart People How to Learn III

The idea at work

People often profess to be open to critique and new learning, but their actions suggest a very different set of governing values or theories-in-use:

• The desire to remain in unilateral control
• The goal of maximizing "winning" while minimizing "losing"
• The belief that negative feelings should be suppressed
• The desire to appear as rational as possible

Taken together, these values betray a profoundly defensive posture: a need to avoid embarrassment, threat, or feelings of vulnerability and incompetence.

Fortunately, it is possible for individuals and organizations to develop more productive patterns of behavior. Two suggestions for how to make this happen:

1. Apply the same kind of "tough reasoning" you use to conduct strategic analysis. Collect the most objective data you can find, Make your inferences explicit and test them constantly. Submit your conclusions to the toughest test of all: make sure they aren't self-serving or impossible for others to verify.
2. Model the desired changes first. When the leadership demonstrates its willingness to examine critically its own theories-in-use, changing them as indicated, everyone will find it easier to do the same.

ACTION POINT: Avoid defensiveness and self serving assumptions by critically testing them first.