Understanding complexity (and trying to deal with in order to innovate)

Editor's Notes

• #6: Simple problem solving / linearity / optimum answer/solution => CONTROL : algorythm/predictability READY TO USE ANSWER H Simon: bounded rationality, satisfying solution => NO CONTROL
• #7: How to be prepared to complexity?
• #8: FORMING A ‘BA’
• #9: Framasoft is a non-profit popular educational organization, a group of friends convinced that an emancipatory digital world is possible, convinced that it will arise through actual actions on real world and online with and for you! Open knowledge
• #13: Argyris & Donald Schön, Organizational Learning: A Theory of Action Perspective (Addison-Wesley, 1978): drawing/diagrma The theory’s foundation is that all organisational learning involves detecting and correcting error. When an error is detected and corrected and the organisation is then able to carry on where it had left off, or go on to achieve its original goals, that ‘error-detection-and-correction process’ is termed single-loop learning.  Single-loop learning, then, focuses principally on accomplishing existing goals, and solving familiar problems. It works very well when errors can be corrected whilst keeping things in the organisation largely constant. Argyris and Schön liken it to a thermostat that turns the heat on or off according to a predictable and familiar variable; the room temperature.  By contrast, double-loop learning involves error correction where things are not so predictable, namely ‘the modification of an organization’s underlying norms, policies and objectives’. Whilst single-loop learning is dealt with regularly and efficiently by most organisations, double-loop learning is far harder to adopt. To illustrate the concept, Argyris and Schön describe a hypothetical industrial firm which, in order to remain competitive, has set up a new research and development department and encouraged it to generate new consumer products which the firm will manufacture in place of the intermediate products upon which it has relied for many years. The consequent shifts in production processes, marketing, advertising and distribution, as well as in the entire image of the firm to staff and general public alike, are immense. All this conflicts strongly with the ‘corporate norm’ firmly established in the company; that represented by stability and predictability (ROUTINES). In this example, the establishment of the R&D department is the ‘error’ which must be fixed. Single-loop processes are useless, as nothing here is familiar or normal or predictable. For double-loop learning to work in such a situation, Argyris and Schön explain that the first step is to recognise the conflict between corporate norm and radical change. The next step is to examine this conflict in order to realise that the error will not be corrected ‘by doing better what they already know’. Chris Argyris looks to move people from a Model I to a Model II orientation and practice – one that fosters double-loop learning. He suggests that most people, when asked, will espouse Model II.
• #14: To sum up Model I
• #15: To sum up: productive reasoning To be able to implement Model II we usually need to slow down our reasoning and increase our capacity for analysis and reflection, otherwise we unwittingly revert to Model I.
• #17: Argyris and Schön (1974) present two models that describe different theories-in-use. Model I describes the behaviour of a group of professionals that they studied. It is based on the values of unilateral control of the situation, “winning” (proving oneself right), and suppression of any data that does not fit the actor’s assumptions. Such control can produce defensiveness that inhibits communication. Argyris and Schön believe that Model I describes features of a theory-in-use commonly employed by people in difficult situations. They go on to present Model II, “a model of theories-in-use that is free of the dysfunctionalities of model I” (page 85). The following summary draws on a presentation by Absolum (2006), based on the original models proposed by Argyris and Schön. Model II represents a consultative approach in which the participants in learning have “bilateral” control of the process, where winning is not being “right” but rather making better sense of the evidence, and where no dialogue is suppressed, even if it is painful. It requires people to pay close attention to their own behaviour and to the way they interact with others. Argyris and Schön suggest that “In general, Model-II learning tends to facilitate others’ learning, which in turn facilitates one’s own learning” (page 92). They say that in a Model II world, “research activities and learning activities would reinforce each other” (page 93).
• #18: Argyris and Schön (1974) present two models that describe different theories-in-use. Model I describes the behaviour of a group of professionals that they studied. It is based on the values of unilateral control of the situation, “winning” (proving oneself right), and suppression of any data that does not fit the actor’s assumptions. Such control can produce defensiveness that inhibits communication. Argyris and Schön believe that Model I describes features of a theory-in-use commonly employed by people in difficult situations. They go on to present Model II, “a model of theories-in-use that is free of the dysfunctionalities of model I” (page 85). The following summary draws on a presentation by Absolum (2006), based on the original models proposed by Argyris and Schön. Model II represents a consultative approach in which the participants in learning have “bilateral” control of the process, where winning is not being “right” but rather making better sense of the evidence, and where no dialogue is suppressed, even if it is painful. It requires people to pay close attention to their own behaviour and to the way they interact with others. Argyris and Schön suggest that “In general, Model-II learning tends to facilitate others’ learning, which in turn facilitates one’s own learning” (page 92). They say that in a Model II world, “research activities and learning activities would reinforce each other” (page 93).