I do not think that the sorts of learning described in the OL literature
is 'new'. For me Argyris and his school simply restated and refined two
intellectual traditions, both nearly 100 years old - that of Dewey, and
that of Vygotsky. Both of these traditions are, in some ways, in conflict
with the Piagetian model of cognition which most of us were brought up
with and in. Argyris also situated these cognitive theories solidly in
systems dynamics.
It is the 'uncertainty' that Marilyn reminds us of that is critical.
Everything to do with Taylorism, scientific management, and the economics
of diminishing returns is predicated on stability and equilibrium seeking.
OL is predicated on the need to APPROPRIATE (with the meaning of the word
you get by putting the emphasis on the second and last syllables)
disequilibrium rather than to seek to eliminate it (because we are unable
to eliminate it). In day to day work terms this requires us to make more
use of formerly rarely exercised cognitive strategies, and to replace our
existing equilibrium seeking theories of cognition with ones that assume
disequilibrium as an irremovable norm. Dewey and Vygotsky gave us such
theories.
The objection to this is 'things have always changed, so what's the
difference?.' The difference is that the unit of time in which cognition
occurs (a human lifetime) hasn't changed much, and the evolution of the
human brain has hardly changed at all, while the pace and extent of change
in the environment our minds perceive has accelerated dramatically. In any
event, my own frame of reference for this model of rapid change has it
that the phase started with Aristotle in the west, and somewhat earlier in
the east. It is just that the pace has only now reached a point where we
can no longer avoid coming to terms with it.
We can only cope with this by reconfiguring the ways in which our existing
cognitive apparatus TYPICALLY functions (which may turn out to be an
evolutionary step), and reconfiguring those parts of the environment over
which we have some control - which include the organisations within which
we work.
If you live in an environment which changes only slowly over the span of a
human life, then you don't have to worry about OL. If this is not the case
then your company, family, sports club, or whatever needs to become an LO.
By the way, my big problem with the sports coach metaphor is that it seems
to me that the stable, rule bound context of sport is the antithesis of an
environment in which OL is mandatory.
Phillip Capper
Centre for Research on Work, Education and Business
PO Box 2855
Wellington
New Zealand
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