On 6 February, Leon Conrad quoted Ed Brenegar, who wrote
>In many cases, learning produces change which is not safe for
>people and their organizations. All the more reason to provide
>places of sanctuary where change can be dealt with collaboratively.
to which Leon replied,
>The idea of 'places of sanctuary' troubles me greatly. So does the
>idea of the 'safe learning environment'
and went on to sponsor the idea of spiritual danger versus physical
danger as the determining factor in whether safety was desireable or
not.
I'm finding the entire conversation fascinating, but am coming to
realize that the conversants are only beginning to probe at what for
me is the heart of the matter: just what does the word 'safe' mean
in the context of learning?
Does it mean, as Bill Hobler suggested in LO12381,
>safety of self
where the implication is safety from criticism? I admire Bill's postings
a lot, but this one leaves me scratching my head. Perhaps this is because
I don't immediately assign a negative valence to the word
'criticism'--another place where we need, perhaps, to seek some shared
meaning. For me, a 'critique' is a reasoned presentation of my stream of
thought from another person's perspective, and may be positive or
negative.
Or, perhaps, is a safe organizational learning environment one in which I
can be assured that regardless of the immediate outcome of the learning
from another's perspective (positive v. negative feed-back), there is a
mutual willingness to pursue apparent contradictions, explore the system
conditions for underlying causes, etc. This, to me, is what I learn from
the whole notion of "double loop" learning: that I don't have to feel
unsafe merely because I got something wrong, so long as I sense a culture
of further exploration from which I can continue to learn.
As a noted exponent of shorter posts, I'll leave it there .... for now.
I'll welcome thoughts and inquiries from others.
--Malcolm Burson<mooney@maine.maine.edu
Learning-org -- An Internet Dialog on Learning Organizations For info: <rkarash@karash.com> -or- <http://world.std.com/~lo/>