February 28, 2024 • 28 mins
Unlock the secrets of a thriving workplace where innovation flourishes and competitive edges are sharpened. Join us as we sit down with cognitive science aficionado Dr. Ryan Smerek to dissect the fascinating parallels between individual development and organizational evolution. We delve into the neural networks that define human learning and mirror the sophisticated adaptive systems within top-tier companies. Drawing from Dr. Smerek's expertise, we decode the cognitive science metaphors shaping our understanding of learning, from the conceptual mind as a computer to the intricate dance of intuitive and reflective thinking. This episode is your ticket to unraveling the complexities that drive both personal growth and large-scale organizational change.
Dr. Ryan Smerek [Guest] is an Associate Professor & Associate Director of Academic Affairs at Master of Science in Learning & Organizational Change at Northwestern University where he teaches classes on learning and development, organizational learning, design thinking, cognitive design, and people analytics. He is the author of “Speaking Up at Work: Leading Change as an Independent Thinker,” and “Organizational Learning and Performance: The Science and Practice of Building a Learning Culture." Both books integrate compelling stories with scientific research about how to make a positive difference in organizations.
Travis C. Mallett [Host], received the Masters of Liberal Arts (ALM) in Management from Harvard University Extension School, where he has also earned Professional Graduate Certificates in both Organizational Behavior and Strategic Management. Travis previously received undergraduate degrees in Electrical Engineering, General Mathematics, and Music from Washington State University. He also served as an Engineering Manager at Schweitzer Engineering Laboratories, where he led a team responsible for developing and maintaining SEL's highest-selling product line. An innovative force in engineering, Travis holds numerous patents and has authored papers and books across diverse subjects. His passion for continuous learning and organizational excellence propels him to explore and illuminate the intricacies of management theories. Through his podcast, "The Management Theory Toolbox", he offers valuable insights on effective leadership, business innovation, and strategic methodologies.
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Episode Transcript
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Speaker 1 (00:00):
That balancing of having some exploratory learning
experiences, where you'rebreaking out of that doing
things cheaper, faster, morelively, but you're looking at
what might be possible or howcan we develop and learn and
grow as individuals.
Speaker 2 (00:16):
Welcome back to the Management Theory Toolbox, your
top destination for uncoveringthe why behind the management
and business concepts.
If you're a business owner,management consultant, executive
, business student or someonesimply toying around with the
idea of starting a business,then you want to know the
behind-the-scenes managementtheory, rooted in the latest and
(00:38):
most robust management research, then you're in the right place
.
I'm your host, travis Mallett,and today we're venturing into
our very first organizationalbehavior topic, learning.
Let's review our journey so far.
We began in episode one byexploring the concept of
emergence in nature, which ledus to think of organizations as
(01:00):
dynamic living systems.
We found in episode two thatthis living system idea is
described by a technical termcomplex adaptive systems.
And what's a complex adaptivesystem that we're all familiar
with?
That's right, the human brain.
In fact, organizations andbusinesses mirror many of the
(01:22):
features of the neural networkswe find in our brains, and we
took that analogy a bit tooliterally in episode seven to
uncover the ideas behind highinvolvement management, a
powerful set of managementpractices that have captured the
attention of researchers overthe past couple decades.
So what's next?
(01:42):
Let's continue to use thisanalogy of organizations as
neural networks to fuel ourjourney.
What's one of the most importantand striking features of the
human brain.
What's that?
You say Consciousness.
Well, okay, that's probably thecorrect answer, but we're not
ready to open that can ofphilosophical worms just yet.
(02:03):
So what's the next mostimportant feature of the human
brain?
That's right, the ability tolearn.
That's the adaptive part ofcomplex adaptive systems.
Aside from consciousness, theability to learn, or the ability
for the brain to reorganizeitself and its connections, to
adapt, retain information andcreate new mental models, is one
(02:26):
of the main features we thinkof.
That makes us different frommachines.
Even today, with all theadvances in machine learning,
the human brain is still farsuperior at adapting to a
variety of scenarios than eventhe most sophisticated machine
learning algorithm.
So here's where it getsinteresting.
(02:47):
In the human brain we have allthese neurons and synapses
happening connections, gettingstronger, weaker, adapting as we
learn and change our behavior.
Meanwhile, organizations arealso like neural networks.
When an organization encountersa business problem, teams often
get reorganized, new processesare developed and people
(03:09):
interact with different membersof the organization.
The result Organizationsthemselves can learn and adapt,
creating new connections andpathways for information flow in
much the same way as our brains.
But as has become our refrain onthis show, and as we discussed
at length in episode eight,learning is more complicated
(03:31):
than you think.
The people making up anorganization are also learning
and adapting.
Sometimes they're learning fromthe organization.
Other times the organization islearning from individuals who
influence changes within theorganization.
Both are always happeningsimultaneously.
Sometimes it's hard to knowwhere individual learning begins
(03:53):
and organizational learningends.
It's the emerging of minds, thedance of individual and
organizational learning, whichis the title of this episode.
Why is this important?
Learning, both individual andorganizational learning is the
bedrock of innovation, researchand development and improving
(04:14):
operational efficiency.
But perhaps even moreimportantly, learning is a key
part of developing andmaintaining competitive
advantage.
But that's why we're going tobe spending several episodes
unpacking this concept.
To help us better understandthis issue.
We're joined by Dr Ryan Smerick, who has authored several books
(04:34):
on the topics of individual andorganizational learning.
Hi, ryan, and welcome to theshow Next when you travel.
So before we get started, goahead and introduce yourself and
tell us a bit about yourbackground and work.
Speaker 1 (04:46):
Sure, I am Ryan Smerick.
I'm an associate professor andassociate director at Northwest
University in the master's andlearning organizational change
program and I teach a lot ofdifferent topics learning and
development, individual learningand development, organizational
learning.
I teach a class on cognitivedesign that human biases and
waves overcome, that.
(05:07):
I teach people analytics.
And I've published two booksone organizational learning
performance that dives intoindividual learning and how to
build learning culture, and thena recent book about speaking up
at work, leading change as anindependent thinker that looks
at individual stories ofspeaking up at work and being a
lone voice and what thatexperience is like and what
(05:28):
individuals learned in thatprocess and what management
psychology literature teaches usabout being a dissenter and
speaking up.
Speaker 2 (05:36):
Excellent.
Thank you for joining us.
So in today's episode we'reexploring the relationship
between individual andorganizational learning, and in
your book organizationallearning and performance you
talk about these three metaphorsof learning as an individual,
the mind is a computer, the mindis an author, and then also
intuitive and reflective minds.
Can you walk us through whatthose three metaphors are and
(05:58):
give us an explanation?
Speaker 1 (06:00):
Sure In some context for the chapter.
Really, the field oforganizational learning had
basically one dominant way oflooking at it was Chris Argers'
work on single loop and doubleloop learning.
And single loop is making smalliterations.
Now you think about a topic.
Double loop is deeperunderlying assumptions and it
(06:20):
was a very popular way to lookat it.
But there's a lot of learningscientists and if you were to
talk to a cognitive scientistabout single and double loop
learning they wouldn't know whatyou're talking about.
And my intent with the chapterwas to synthesize some of the
cognitive science of learningand additional fields to ground
the science of learning andorganization.
So I use those three metaphorsto synthesize three different
(06:43):
bodies of work.
The mind as a computer istypically what we think of.
What do you think aboutencoding, storing, retrieving
information and that kind ofgradual accumulation of facts?
And especially, this is reallysalient when you're new to an
organization.
I did a research project of newcollege presidents that were
outsiders to the organizationand one president said it took
(07:05):
me about six months beforeanything made sense because the
people would be talking aboutdifferent names and places and
people and they'd have no ideawhat they were talking about.
And that's the mind as acomputer synthesizes all that
research, as you think aboutyour explicit factual
information about the world oran organization.
The second one the mind as adeveloping author builds on a
(07:28):
lot of different fields, but oneof them is constructive
developmental theory.
How do we construct meaning sotibley out of some sort of
disoriental dilemma?
Something happens that'sconfusing, surprising, and we
have to make sense out of it andinterpret it.
And so it synthesizes.
The research in that area looksat informational versus
transformational learning.
(07:48):
When we have thesetransformational experiences,
that just our way of thinkingand in larger qualitative ways.
One example of this is if youget a bad performance review.
That's really confusing.
It's out of the blue.
There's lots of different waysyou can interpret that.
You can interpret it in a realdefensive way and maybe that
would be your automatic move toblame your boss or the
(08:09):
organization.
And there's other ways you caninterpret it, how you can take
the feedback and learn from it.
Maybe it's transformational,maybe not.
It could just be an impactfullearning experience.
But that whole metaphor isabout when you have those
disorienting dilemmas, how doyou make sense out of them?
What does research say aboutthat process?
The last one is the intuitiveand reflective mind, and this
(08:30):
was trying to make sense andarticulate that we do pick up
all these different, partlyunconsciously, but this implicit
learning, when we're absorbedin activity and an organization,
we just want to pick up thenorms and ways of being and ways
of seeing.
And so I talk about twodifferent and the intuitive and
reflective minds top downlearning and bottom up learning.
(08:51):
And top down learning is mostlythings that start real
explicitly and then they becomeimplicit.
There are simple things likelearning how it drives that.
You have to really beconsciously thinking about
everything and then over timeit's top down learning becomes
an intuitive reaction and bottomup learning is we're absorbing
(09:11):
all these implicit messages allthe time and bottom up learning
is trying to reflect on thatimplicit knowledge and why I
think the way I say.
One example might be anintuitive and reflective mind.
And a work example being askilled presenter.
If you're trying to work onyour presentation skills, you
maybe you have some veryexplicit rules like, okay, I
(09:32):
need to make eye contact withthe audience very explicitly,
and so you're thinking about avery top down learning way.
You have all these explicitrules in your mind.
The more practice you get thatbecomes intuitive.
You know how to respond quickly.
At the same time, maybe youhave some bottom up learning of
your intuitive expertise, likewhy didn't this presentation go
(09:53):
as well as I thought it did, orI got some feedback here that
was surprising.
That would be the kind ofbottom up learning of your
intuitive expertise.
So that area also synthesizesall the literature that talks
about and how we become veryfast, automatic.
You can think about games likechess and everything where a
pattern recognition is superfast but automatic, and so that
final metaphor synthesizes thatfield study.
Speaker 2 (10:16):
Going back to the mind as an author, I'm wondering
if there's some overlap withthe computer analogy.
I think it was Socrates whoemphasized discovery of innate
knowledge.
You can learn the Pythagoreantheorem just by thinking about
it, no empiricism needed.
That's what I'm getting as asense from the mind as an author
.
We have this experience, butthen it triggers lots of
(10:37):
self-reflection andrecategorizing previous
information that we already have.
Speaker 1 (10:41):
Yeah, I'd say there would be overlap here.
The one way I distinguish allof that is the mind as a
computer.
Emotions are not really centralin that process, whereas the
mind as a developing author atleast there's making sense of
our emotions, is more central inthat area.
But also trying to build on thecognitive science as a whole
(11:03):
that was studying and learning,at least in the 1970s, 80s or so
, was a very kind of coolnon-emotional process and that's
the field that's building on.
And then the mind as adeveloping author at least,
usually qualitative scholarsthat are looking at these big
life events where you change howyou view the world based on
some sort of big emotionalexperience that you have.
(11:25):
So I agree there can be a lotof overlap in the metaphors.
Speaker 2 (11:29):
Also on the intuitive mind.
Can you talk just a little bitabout the conscious versus
unconscious aspect of that?
Sometimes we're consciouslyobserving people.
I want to do what Sean is doing.
I'm going to do it the way he'sdoing it, but there's also a
lot of times where we just dothat subconsciously and don't
even realize it.
Speaker 1 (11:46):
Yeah, I have an image in the book on the intuitive
and reflective mind to help,because we are absorbing
different things, especiallylanguage per se.
We don't set out explicitly tolearn it, but we pick up all
these grammatical reads.
That's just how it's said.
If you're trying to explain itto a foreign international
student, it's very hard.
(12:06):
That's just the way it is.
We pick up all these readingsin a more intuitive way, on the
implicit level.
We can reflect on those andmake them.
I hesitate to use unconsciousand conscious.
I usually use the system one,system two, daniel Kahneman
language, because unconsciouscan connote that it's this
ineffable Freudian notion that Ican't really gain access to,
(12:30):
which wouldn't really be trueper se.
Intuitive would be this sort ofautomatic reaction.
It builds on the common workand key standards of its work on
system one and system two, withthe prototypical example being
the expertise literature thatreally looks at chess, for
example.
You have these thousands ofhours of practice and it just
becomes this automatic reaction,automatic pattern recognition,
(12:54):
but at the same time a lot of ityou can turn into explicit
language.
That makes perfect sense.
Speaker 2 (13:00):
All right, now that we have a better understanding
of individual learning, how doesthat relate to organizational
learning and maybe you can talkabout how we build a learning
culture in an organization?
Speaker 1 (13:10):
Sure, I think it fumes the foundation of creating
a learning culture and theorganizational learning setting.
In this book I talk about fivedifferent organizations that I
would categorize that have alearning culture and I think
there's lots of different socialnorms that support that.
One of them that's predominantin organizational learning
literature is that balance ofexploration and exploitation, or
(13:30):
you can say learning andexecution.
But, as I talked about in thebook, I used WD-40 of the story
to talk about building alearning culture and Gary Ridge,
the CEO there, and really tryto build a learning culture, a
learning organization, and theywere what you call a tight-foon
zone, meaning they just did thesame thing over cheaper, faster,
more reliably and were caughtin these real execution-focused
(13:54):
mindset which is very importantat certain points of lifecycle
in any organization.
But it's that balancing ofhaving some exploratory learning
experiences where you'rebreaking out of that doing
things cheaper, faster, morereliably, but you're looking at
what might be possible or howcan we develop and learning grow
as individuals.
(14:15):
I try to use that to make thepoint that it's not just all
about exploration, all learning.
It's not like organizationsshould become like graduate
school seminars, but there's abalance and tension instead of
100% of our time in these sortof executions, making things
cheaper, faster, more lively.
We do some exploration thathelps us adapt in the future.
That was the case for WD-40because they had the one product
(14:38):
.
It was in over 90% ofhouseholds and they were having
some existential threats fromcompetitors that were starting
to make similar products andthey needed to move to this more
exploration, learning cultureto help them envision a new
future that would help themsurvive and grow.
That story is also told amongeven this exploration
(14:58):
exploitation trade-off.
People talk about differentanimals and how they might
exploit one food source and notexplore other areas, and it
threatens their ability to adaptlong-term.
That's one norm.
There's lots of others I talkabout in the book, about
fostering some kind oftransparency and psychological
safety on your team to helpemployees share insights.
(15:19):
Psychological safety is a keyone that helps de-risk your
experience to engage in thesekind of more exploratory
behaviors, exploratory actions.
Speaker 2 (15:28):
As those individuals learn, it's clear that the
organization of which theycomprise also learns.
But are there instances wherean individual is not strictly
speaking learning but still canor should incite some sort of
change in learning in theorganization?
Speaker 1 (15:46):
One of the distinctions that I often draw
on and mention in classes hereis the learning in versus
learning by an organization.
Learning in an organization iswhat you typically think of.
I learned something new, somekind of new skill.
When I leave the organizationit goes with me, it resides
within my mind.
Learning by an organizationwould be say I implement some
(16:07):
kind of new routine, process,new structure and what we use.
That's still the way things aredone in the organization.
That would be the learning byan organization that you have a
new routine, a new structure, anew process.
That stays with theorganization.
Speaker 2 (16:22):
So you also talk about cultivating a capacity for
independent thinking, and I'mcurious when should we conform
to the structures and processesand beliefs of the organization,
and what are some clues for usto know how to pick our battles?
Speaker 1 (16:35):
Yeah, that's a great question.
So this is the Speaking Up atWork book, but as I think about
cultivating capacity forindependent thinking, I explore
the critical thinking, buildingexpertise, following your
curiosity, taking a scientificmindset, value and reason and
truth.
It could be speaking up aboutmaintaining integrity to
professional norms as well.
(16:56):
So those are almost always agood, but you don't always want
to be a naysayer and you couldcertainly be wrong as well.
I interviewed 50 people abouttheir experience speaking up
about different issues.
Sometimes it might be anautomatic reaction.
I just think this is a bad move.
I didn't really necessarilyconsciously deliberate that I
was going to pick this battle,but it just came up out of
(17:17):
nowhere and I needed to saysomething.
Other times I may have a chanceto think about whether this is
worse speaking up about, andthere'll be lots of different
things.
One of them is perceived senseof advocacy or fertility.
It's not going to matter if Isay anything.
Everybody's already decided butthere can be a certain value
expressive worse of at leastsaying your piece, at least
(17:37):
sharing your perspective onwhether you think a strategy is
a good idea or not.
If you're in the deliberationphase, maybe it's 10 people all
going for yes votes were doingthis In that deliberation phase,
it's worth saying I hesitated.
For these reasons I think thismight be a bad move In that
moment.
It would be a good thing toshare that, just to induce a
(17:58):
conversation about things.
But it's obviously when you gointo a mutation phase.
We decided we're doing it.
At that point it doesn't makesense to keep making a nace
there.
But it could be.
If you're, say, a whistleblowerI had some examples of
whistleblowers in the book andthat is not really for the good
of the organization per se.
But if the hearing is just alarger set of hyper norms
(18:19):
whether it's human rights ornon-projural ethical activity
that you're hearing to thishigher level.
One example was a whistleblowerin South Africa.
He was asked to illegallytransfer funds overseas that she
knew was unethical and againstthe law.
As she spoke up about that, shewas fired for that.
It had a difficult timerebuilding her life, but in that
(18:41):
case she wasn't hearing it.
Some of it was a repersonalconscience and what she would
tell her own kids.
Yes, this blew up into ascandal and she was doing these
unethical activities.
Some of it was also for thebenefit of the South African
economy that she knew thatoffshoring $50 million way
beyond the legal limit it wouldhurt the larger economy.
(19:02):
So there's also that broaderconcern of whistleblowers.
It's not necessarily for thebenefit of the organization per
se, but the hearing does somesort of larger ethical set of
norms.
I've been thinking about it.
Speaker 2 (19:13):
You mentioned picking your battles in connection with
your values.
That makes a lot of sense to me.
One of my longtime managers hewas very clear that one of his
primary values was the people onhis team.
It was his number one priority,the thing that he valued the
most.
So I did have a fewconversations with him about how
do you pick your battles onsome of these things, which is I
(19:34):
started going into managementand he said what I've always
done is, if it's going tonegatively affect my people,
that is when I speak up, that iswhen I fight tooth and nail for
my people, and so what you justsaid made a lot of sense to me
in just connecting it.
Oh, that's why you did that.
It makes a lot of senseconnecting with his values, yeah
, and that relates to one of thestories I tell him.
Speaker 1 (19:54):
That Chapter, on cultivating a capacity for
independent thinking, was amanager who he was.
An organization that had aforce ranking system.
All of his employees were allgood to great performers, but a
few people, because of the forceranking, were going to be
forced into this lower category.
He thought that was reallyunfair.
He spoke up at a big meeting.
He was not even on the table,he was in a backseat, a junior
(20:16):
in an organization, but hereally wanted to speak up.
But he thought this policy wasunfair, not for now.
One of his employees would havea quote black mark on their
record and he waspaternalistically scolding.
Spoken down to that.
All organizations do this,don't you know that?
But the organization was asocial service organization that
would help people in need andhe really thought that's his
(20:37):
word about.
I should be helping one of myemployees that are going to be
unfairly treated like this.
So it was a battle he chose topick, but he eventually was
successful in not having thatperson rank lowly.
But they didn't clearlyarticulate that we're going to
deviate from this policy, but hewas able to be successful.
You need to have a lot of inthe sort of descent literature
(20:59):
and some of the key studies.
Having this healthy sense ofself worth that you can do that
and take the risk of lookingstupid and being spoken down to
is a challenge.
Speaker 2 (21:09):
So now on cultivating a capacity for independent
learning.
I think some listeners mightimmediately think when they hear
that phrase, think of thatcoworker who is just my way, or
the highway I've got to figureit out.
I'm going my own direction,nobody's going to tell me what
to do.
I'm sure you have a lot morenuance than that and maybe this
is leading.
The question too much hinges onthat capacity, or you're
(21:31):
developing your capacity andyou're not always exercising it.
But maybe tell us a little bit,flesh that out.
What is this capacity forindependent thinking?
Speaker 1 (21:39):
Sure, I talk about the ash line judgment studies,
where they have one line at sixinches long and then you've got
another card and it says A, band C.
One of those lines is sixinches, the other is like 12
inches, the other is like twoinches.
It's really obvious which lineit's and you're in the
experiment and the night peoplebefore you all say that the two
(22:02):
inch line is the same length asthe six inch line and you're
befuddled and I just don't seeit that way.
The six inch line is the sameas the six inch line.
One of the examples I use inthe first chapter is a board
kind of rushing to approve a $30million capital campaign.
One person thinks wait a minute, this is a bad idea.
We don't have anywhere near thefunds for this.
(22:22):
It could change the wholemission of our school race,
tuition et cetera.
And she speaks up about that todelay things and get more
assurances about how we're goingto be able to do this.
Being one out of 30 or so tospeak up, you really put
yourself at the center of thespotlight there.
You can be despised.
It depends how you do it.
If you do it in a very arrogantkind of scolding way, you'll be
(22:45):
more despised.
But you can certainly do it ina way that's expressing your
values, in a way that induces aconversation about some of the
risks that you see.
But I think you could be wrongif you're one out of 30, or you
could be right In her case.
There were other people thatshared her concern but did not
want to speak up because theywere afraid of the headmaster
there.
So you're likely to help breakthat conformity or group
(23:08):
thinking away.
I remind you of Chris Ardress'swork.
He has a well-known HBR articleTeaching Scouts People how to
Learn, where he makes similarpoints at the individual level.
But there's that distortion ofreality in a lot of ways Not in
a various way, but to not reallysee reality clearly.
And that always came home to me, chris Ardress.
I read a story about hisprofessional life.
(23:31):
He was so dominant in thisfield of organizational learning
and he had a professional rolebefore he moved into more
academic roles and when he leftthey gave him this beautiful
party and said how wonderful hewas and how much they're going
to miss him.
And he said he went back a fewyears later to the organization
and they said oh, we're so happyyou left, we all couldn't stand
(23:54):
.
We couldn't stand you as amanager or management style.
He's like why didn't you evertell me any of this and you
could see that sort of formed alot of his work.
That's had a big impact on thefield of organizational learning
.
But it can be hard to get goodinformation, good feedback, and
which makes it really hard tolearn.
That's mostly at the individuallevel and organizational level.
(24:16):
That would be true as well.
But there's also a at theorganizational level getting
that accurate reality feedbackabout how a product is doing or
what are the trends.
There's a real survival valueof knowing, getting an accurate
picture of things.
So back in the picture of themarket.
Speaker 2 (24:33):
All right, let's go ahead and wrap this up.
Thank you for joining us andbefore we sign off, can you tell
our listeners how they can findyou and your work?
Sure.
Speaker 1 (24:40):
You can find me on LinkedIn, the Northwestern
University faculty website, mywebsite wwwryansmerrickcom.
The two books, organizationallearning and speaking up to work
, are both on Amazon as well.
All right, thank you, sure.
Yeah, no, happy to have youtalk.
Speaker 2 (25:00):
So, just to summarize , learning, both individual and
organizational, is thecornerstone of growth and
adaptability into today'sdynamic business landscape.
As individuals, we navigatevarious metaphors of learning
from the mind as a computer andcoding, and retrieving
information to the mind as anauthor, crafting meaning from
(25:22):
our experiences, balancingintuition and reflection.
We absorb implicit knowledgewhile consciously developing
expertise.
Within organizations, fosteringa learning culture is essential
.
This involves striking abalance between exploration and
exploitation, encouragingtransparency and psychological
(25:44):
safety, and valuing independentthinking.
However, picking our battleswisely, aligning with our values
and knowing when to conform orchallenge norms are crucial
aspects of cultivating ourcapacity for independent
thinking.
Ultimately, whether at theindividual or organizational
level, learning fuels innovation, resilience and success.
(26:05):
It's not just aboutaccumulating knowledge, but
about continuously evolving,adapting and pushing boundaries.
This week, maybe take some timeto examine these different
levels and types of learning inyour team and workplace.
Are there some processes thatare stuck in old ways of doing
things that need to adapt orlearn from the in-visit
(26:28):
environment?
Are you creating a two-waylearning channel between the
organization and your employees?
Are they receiving traininguseful for their jobs and for
integration into the largerorganization?
Have you developed enoughpsychological safety for
employees to speak up at workand thus teach the organization
(26:49):
a thing or two.
As usual, we don't have theanswers to these questions in
this podcast.
They are unique to you and yoursituation, and it's your
responsibility to take thismanagement theory and grapple
with it in your individualcontext.
So together, let's embrace thedance of learning, both within
ourselves and our organizations,and watch as it propels us
(27:12):
forward towards greater heightsof achievement and fulfillment.
So with that, thank you fortuning in to the Management
Theory Toolbox, your topdestination for the
behind-the-scenes of managementand business theory.
In our next episode, we'regoing to continue our
exploration of individual andorganizational learning in part
two.
In the meantime, keep learning,keep growing and keep building
(27:37):
your management theory toolbox.
That balancing of having some exploratory learning
experiences, where you'rebreaking out of that doing
things cheaper, faster, morelively, but you're looking at
what might be possible or howcan we develop and learn and
grow as individuals.
Speaker 2 (00:16):
Welcome back to the Management Theory Toolbox, your
top destination for uncoveringthe why behind the management
and business concepts.
If you're a business owner,management consultant, executive
, business student or someonesimply toying around with the
idea of starting a business,then you want to know the
behind-the-scenes managementtheory, rooted in the latest and
(00:38):
most robust management research, then you're in the right place
.
I'm your host, travis Mallett,and today we're venturing into
our very first organizationalbehavior topic, learning.
Let's review our journey so far.
We began in episode one byexploring the concept of
emergence in nature, which ledus to think of organizations as
(01:00):
dynamic living systems.
We found in episode two thatthis living system idea is
described by a technical termcomplex adaptive systems.
And what's a complex adaptivesystem that we're all familiar
with?
That's right, the human brain.
In fact, organizations andbusinesses mirror many of the
(01:22):
features of the neural networkswe find in our brains, and we
took that analogy a bit tooliterally in episode seven to
uncover the ideas behind highinvolvement management, a
powerful set of managementpractices that have captured the
attention of researchers overthe past couple decades.
So what's next?
(01:42):
Let's continue to use thisanalogy of organizations as
neural networks to fuel ourjourney.
What's one of the most importantand striking features of the
human brain.
What's that?
You say Consciousness.
Well, okay, that's probably thecorrect answer, but we're not
ready to open that can ofphilosophical worms just yet.
(02:03):
So what's the next mostimportant feature of the human
brain?
That's right, the ability tolearn.
That's the adaptive part ofcomplex adaptive systems.
Aside from consciousness, theability to learn, or the ability
for the brain to reorganizeitself and its connections, to
adapt, retain information andcreate new mental models, is one
(02:26):
of the main features we thinkof.
That makes us different frommachines.
Even today, with all theadvances in machine learning,
the human brain is still farsuperior at adapting to a
variety of scenarios than eventhe most sophisticated machine
learning algorithm.
So here's where it getsinteresting.
(02:47):
In the human brain we have allthese neurons and synapses
happening connections, gettingstronger, weaker, adapting as we
learn and change our behavior.
Meanwhile, organizations arealso like neural networks.
When an organization encountersa business problem, teams often
get reorganized, new processesare developed and people
(03:09):
interact with different membersof the organization.
The result Organizationsthemselves can learn and adapt,
creating new connections andpathways for information flow in
much the same way as our brains.
But as has become our refrain onthis show, and as we discussed
at length in episode eight,learning is more complicated
(03:31):
than you think.
The people making up anorganization are also learning
and adapting.
Sometimes they're learning fromthe organization.
Other times the organization islearning from individuals who
influence changes within theorganization.
Both are always happeningsimultaneously.
Sometimes it's hard to knowwhere individual learning begins
(03:53):
and organizational learningends.
It's the emerging of minds, thedance of individual and
organizational learning, whichis the title of this episode.
Why is this important?
Learning, both individual andorganizational learning is the
bedrock of innovation, researchand development and improving
(04:14):
operational efficiency.
But perhaps even moreimportantly, learning is a key
part of developing andmaintaining competitive
advantage.
But that's why we're going tobe spending several episodes
unpacking this concept.
To help us better understandthis issue.
We're joined by Dr Ryan Smerick, who has authored several books
(04:34):
on the topics of individual andorganizational learning.
Hi, ryan, and welcome to theshow Next when you travel.
So before we get started, goahead and introduce yourself and
tell us a bit about yourbackground and work.
Speaker 1 (04:46):
Sure, I am Ryan Smerick.
I'm an associate professor andassociate director at Northwest
University in the master's andlearning organizational change
program and I teach a lot ofdifferent topics learning and
development, individual learningand development, organizational
learning.
I teach a class on cognitivedesign that human biases and
waves overcome, that.
(05:07):
I teach people analytics.
And I've published two booksone organizational learning
performance that dives intoindividual learning and how to
build learning culture, and thena recent book about speaking up
at work, leading change as anindependent thinker that looks
at individual stories ofspeaking up at work and being a
lone voice and what thatexperience is like and what
(05:28):
individuals learned in thatprocess and what management
psychology literature teaches usabout being a dissenter and
speaking up.
Speaker 2 (05:36):
Excellent.
Thank you for joining us.
So in today's episode we'reexploring the relationship
between individual andorganizational learning, and in
your book organizationallearning and performance you
talk about these three metaphorsof learning as an individual,
the mind is a computer, the mindis an author, and then also
intuitive and reflective minds.
Can you walk us through whatthose three metaphors are and
(05:58):
give us an explanation?
Speaker 1 (06:00):
Sure In some context for the chapter.
Really, the field oforganizational learning had
basically one dominant way oflooking at it was Chris Argers'
work on single loop and doubleloop learning.
And single loop is making smalliterations.
Now you think about a topic.
Double loop is deeperunderlying assumptions and it
(06:20):
was a very popular way to lookat it.
But there's a lot of learningscientists and if you were to
talk to a cognitive scientistabout single and double loop
learning they wouldn't know whatyou're talking about.
And my intent with the chapterwas to synthesize some of the
cognitive science of learningand additional fields to ground
the science of learning andorganization.
So I use those three metaphorsto synthesize three different
(06:43):
bodies of work.
The mind as a computer istypically what we think of.
What do you think aboutencoding, storing, retrieving
information and that kind ofgradual accumulation of facts?
And especially, this is reallysalient when you're new to an
organization.
I did a research project of newcollege presidents that were
outsiders to the organizationand one president said it took
(07:05):
me about six months beforeanything made sense because the
people would be talking aboutdifferent names and places and
people and they'd have no ideawhat they were talking about.
And that's the mind as acomputer synthesizes all that
research, as you think aboutyour explicit factual
information about the world oran organization.
The second one the mind as adeveloping author builds on a
(07:28):
lot of different fields, but oneof them is constructive
developmental theory.
How do we construct meaning sotibley out of some sort of
disoriental dilemma?
Something happens that'sconfusing, surprising, and we
have to make sense out of it andinterpret it.
And so it synthesizes.
The research in that area looksat informational versus
transformational learning.
(07:48):
When we have thesetransformational experiences,
that just our way of thinkingand in larger qualitative ways.
One example of this is if youget a bad performance review.
That's really confusing.
It's out of the blue.
There's lots of different waysyou can interpret that.
You can interpret it in a realdefensive way and maybe that
would be your automatic move toblame your boss or the
(08:09):
organization.
And there's other ways you caninterpret it, how you can take
the feedback and learn from it.
Maybe it's transformational,maybe not.
It could just be an impactfullearning experience.
But that whole metaphor isabout when you have those
disorienting dilemmas, how doyou make sense out of them?
What does research say aboutthat process?
The last one is the intuitiveand reflective mind, and this
(08:30):
was trying to make sense andarticulate that we do pick up
all these different, partlyunconsciously, but this implicit
learning, when we're absorbedin activity and an organization,
we just want to pick up thenorms and ways of being and ways
of seeing.
And so I talk about twodifferent and the intuitive and
reflective minds top downlearning and bottom up learning.
(08:51):
And top down learning is mostlythings that start real
explicitly and then they becomeimplicit.
There are simple things likelearning how it drives that.
You have to really beconsciously thinking about
everything and then over timeit's top down learning becomes
an intuitive reaction and bottomup learning is we're absorbing
(09:11):
all these implicit messages allthe time and bottom up learning
is trying to reflect on thatimplicit knowledge and why I
think the way I say.
One example might be anintuitive and reflective mind.
And a work example being askilled presenter.
If you're trying to work onyour presentation skills, you
maybe you have some veryexplicit rules like, okay, I
(09:32):
need to make eye contact withthe audience very explicitly,
and so you're thinking about avery top down learning way.
You have all these explicitrules in your mind.
The more practice you get thatbecomes intuitive.
You know how to respond quickly.
At the same time, maybe youhave some bottom up learning of
your intuitive expertise, likewhy didn't this presentation go
(09:53):
as well as I thought it did, orI got some feedback here that
was surprising.
That would be the kind ofbottom up learning of your
intuitive expertise.
So that area also synthesizesall the literature that talks
about and how we become veryfast, automatic.
You can think about games likechess and everything where a
pattern recognition is superfast but automatic, and so that
final metaphor synthesizes thatfield study.
Speaker 2 (10:16):
Going back to the mind as an author, I'm wondering
if there's some overlap withthe computer analogy.
I think it was Socrates whoemphasized discovery of innate
knowledge.
You can learn the Pythagoreantheorem just by thinking about
it, no empiricism needed.
That's what I'm getting as asense from the mind as an author
.
We have this experience, butthen it triggers lots of
(10:37):
self-reflection andrecategorizing previous
information that we already have.
Speaker 1 (10:41):
Yeah, I'd say there would be overlap here.
The one way I distinguish allof that is the mind as a
computer.
Emotions are not really centralin that process, whereas the
mind as a developing author atleast there's making sense of
our emotions, is more central inthat area.
But also trying to build on thecognitive science as a whole
(11:03):
that was studying and learning,at least in the 1970s, 80s or so
, was a very kind of coolnon-emotional process and that's
the field that's building on.
And then the mind as adeveloping author at least,
usually qualitative scholarsthat are looking at these big
life events where you change howyou view the world based on
some sort of big emotionalexperience that you have.
(11:25):
So I agree there can be a lotof overlap in the metaphors.
Speaker 2 (11:29):
Also on the intuitive mind.
Can you talk just a little bitabout the conscious versus
unconscious aspect of that?
Sometimes we're consciouslyobserving people.
I want to do what Sean is doing.
I'm going to do it the way he'sdoing it, but there's also a
lot of times where we just dothat subconsciously and don't
even realize it.
Speaker 1 (11:46):
Yeah, I have an image in the book on the intuitive
and reflective mind to help,because we are absorbing
different things, especiallylanguage per se.
We don't set out explicitly tolearn it, but we pick up all
these grammatical reads.
That's just how it's said.
If you're trying to explain itto a foreign international
student, it's very hard.
(12:06):
That's just the way it is.
We pick up all these readingsin a more intuitive way, on the
implicit level.
We can reflect on those andmake them.
I hesitate to use unconsciousand conscious.
I usually use the system one,system two, daniel Kahneman
language, because unconsciouscan connote that it's this
ineffable Freudian notion that Ican't really gain access to,
(12:30):
which wouldn't really be trueper se.
Intuitive would be this sort ofautomatic reaction.
It builds on the common workand key standards of its work on
system one and system two, withthe prototypical example being
the expertise literature thatreally looks at chess, for
example.
You have these thousands ofhours of practice and it just
becomes this automatic reaction,automatic pattern recognition,
(12:54):
but at the same time a lot of ityou can turn into explicit
language.
That makes perfect sense.
Speaker 2 (13:00):
All right, now that we have a better understanding
of individual learning, how doesthat relate to organizational
learning and maybe you can talkabout how we build a learning
culture in an organization?
Speaker 1 (13:10):
Sure, I think it fumes the foundation of creating
a learning culture and theorganizational learning setting.
In this book I talk about fivedifferent organizations that I
would categorize that have alearning culture and I think
there's lots of different socialnorms that support that.
One of them that's predominantin organizational learning
literature is that balance ofexploration and exploitation, or
(13:30):
you can say learning andexecution.
But, as I talked about in thebook, I used WD-40 of the story
to talk about building alearning culture and Gary Ridge,
the CEO there, and really tryto build a learning culture, a
learning organization, and theywere what you call a tight-foon
zone, meaning they just did thesame thing over cheaper, faster,
more reliably and were caughtin these real execution-focused
(13:54):
mindset which is very importantat certain points of lifecycle
in any organization.
But it's that balancing ofhaving some exploratory learning
experiences where you'rebreaking out of that doing
things cheaper, faster, morereliably, but you're looking at
what might be possible or howcan we develop and learning grow
as individuals.
(14:15):
I try to use that to make thepoint that it's not just all
about exploration, all learning.
It's not like organizationsshould become like graduate
school seminars, but there's abalance and tension instead of
100% of our time in these sortof executions, making things
cheaper, faster, more lively.
We do some exploration thathelps us adapt in the future.
That was the case for WD-40because they had the one product
(14:38):
.
It was in over 90% ofhouseholds and they were having
some existential threats fromcompetitors that were starting
to make similar products andthey needed to move to this more
exploration, learning cultureto help them envision a new
future that would help themsurvive and grow.
That story is also told amongeven this exploration
(14:58):
exploitation trade-off.
People talk about differentanimals and how they might
exploit one food source and notexplore other areas, and it
threatens their ability to adaptlong-term.
That's one norm.
There's lots of others I talkabout in the book, about
fostering some kind oftransparency and psychological
safety on your team to helpemployees share insights.
(15:19):
Psychological safety is a keyone that helps de-risk your
experience to engage in thesekind of more exploratory
behaviors, exploratory actions.
Speaker 2 (15:28):
As those individuals learn, it's clear that the
organization of which theycomprise also learns.
But are there instances wherean individual is not strictly
speaking learning but still canor should incite some sort of
change in learning in theorganization?
Speaker 1 (15:46):
One of the distinctions that I often draw
on and mention in classes hereis the learning in versus
learning by an organization.
Learning in an organization iswhat you typically think of.
I learned something new, somekind of new skill.
When I leave the organizationit goes with me, it resides
within my mind.
Learning by an organizationwould be say I implement some
(16:07):
kind of new routine, process,new structure and what we use.
That's still the way things aredone in the organization.
That would be the learning byan organization that you have a
new routine, a new structure, anew process.
That stays with theorganization.
Speaker 2 (16:22):
So you also talk about cultivating a capacity for
independent thinking, and I'mcurious when should we conform
to the structures and processesand beliefs of the organization,
and what are some clues for usto know how to pick our battles?
Speaker 1 (16:35):
Yeah, that's a great question.
So this is the Speaking Up atWork book, but as I think about
cultivating capacity forindependent thinking, I explore
the critical thinking, buildingexpertise, following your
curiosity, taking a scientificmindset, value and reason and
truth.
It could be speaking up aboutmaintaining integrity to
professional norms as well.
(16:56):
So those are almost always agood, but you don't always want
to be a naysayer and you couldcertainly be wrong as well.
I interviewed 50 people abouttheir experience speaking up
about different issues.
Sometimes it might be anautomatic reaction.
I just think this is a bad move.
I didn't really necessarilyconsciously deliberate that I
was going to pick this battle,but it just came up out of
(17:17):
nowhere and I needed to saysomething.
Other times I may have a chanceto think about whether this is
worse speaking up about, andthere'll be lots of different
things.
One of them is perceived senseof advocacy or fertility.
It's not going to matter if Isay anything.
Everybody's already decided butthere can be a certain value
expressive worse of at leastsaying your piece, at least
(17:37):
sharing your perspective onwhether you think a strategy is
a good idea or not.
If you're in the deliberationphase, maybe it's 10 people all
going for yes votes were doingthis In that deliberation phase,
it's worth saying I hesitated.
For these reasons I think thismight be a bad move In that
moment.
It would be a good thing toshare that, just to induce a
(17:58):
conversation about things.
But it's obviously when you gointo a mutation phase.
We decided we're doing it.
At that point it doesn't makesense to keep making a nace
there.
But it could be.
If you're, say, a whistleblowerI had some examples of
whistleblowers in the book andthat is not really for the good
of the organization per se.
But if the hearing is just alarger set of hyper norms
(18:19):
whether it's human rights ornon-projural ethical activity
that you're hearing to thishigher level.
One example was a whistleblowerin South Africa.
He was asked to illegallytransfer funds overseas that she
knew was unethical and againstthe law.
As she spoke up about that, shewas fired for that.
It had a difficult timerebuilding her life, but in that
(18:41):
case she wasn't hearing it.
Some of it was a repersonalconscience and what she would
tell her own kids.
Yes, this blew up into ascandal and she was doing these
unethical activities.
Some of it was also for thebenefit of the South African
economy that she knew thatoffshoring $50 million way
beyond the legal limit it wouldhurt the larger economy.
(19:02):
So there's also that broaderconcern of whistleblowers.
It's not necessarily for thebenefit of the organization per
se, but the hearing does somesort of larger ethical set of
norms.
I've been thinking about it.
Speaker 2 (19:13):
You mentioned picking your battles in connection with
your values.
That makes a lot of sense to me.
One of my longtime managers hewas very clear that one of his
primary values was the people onhis team.
It was his number one priority,the thing that he valued the
most.
So I did have a fewconversations with him about how
do you pick your battles onsome of these things, which is I
(19:34):
started going into managementand he said what I've always
done is, if it's going tonegatively affect my people,
that is when I speak up, that iswhen I fight tooth and nail for
my people, and so what you justsaid made a lot of sense to me
in just connecting it.
Oh, that's why you did that.
It makes a lot of senseconnecting with his values, yeah
, and that relates to one of thestories I tell him.
Speaker 1 (19:54):
That Chapter, on cultivating a capacity for
independent thinking, was amanager who he was.
An organization that had aforce ranking system.
All of his employees were allgood to great performers, but a
few people, because of the forceranking, were going to be
forced into this lower category.
He thought that was reallyunfair.
He spoke up at a big meeting.
He was not even on the table,he was in a backseat, a junior
(20:16):
in an organization, but hereally wanted to speak up.
But he thought this policy wasunfair, not for now.
One of his employees would havea quote black mark on their
record and he waspaternalistically scolding.
Spoken down to that.
All organizations do this,don't you know that?
But the organization was asocial service organization that
would help people in need andhe really thought that's his
(20:37):
word about.
I should be helping one of myemployees that are going to be
unfairly treated like this.
So it was a battle he chose topick, but he eventually was
successful in not having thatperson rank lowly.
But they didn't clearlyarticulate that we're going to
deviate from this policy, but hewas able to be successful.
You need to have a lot of inthe sort of descent literature
(20:59):
and some of the key studies.
Having this healthy sense ofself worth that you can do that
and take the risk of lookingstupid and being spoken down to
is a challenge.
Speaker 2 (21:09):
So now on cultivating a capacity for independent
learning.
I think some listeners mightimmediately think when they hear
that phrase, think of thatcoworker who is just my way, or
the highway I've got to figureit out.
I'm going my own direction,nobody's going to tell me what
to do.
I'm sure you have a lot morenuance than that and maybe this
is leading.
The question too much hinges onthat capacity, or you're
(21:31):
developing your capacity andyou're not always exercising it.
But maybe tell us a little bit,flesh that out.
What is this capacity forindependent thinking?
Speaker 1 (21:39):
Sure, I talk about the ash line judgment studies,
where they have one line at sixinches long and then you've got
another card and it says A, band C.
One of those lines is sixinches, the other is like 12
inches, the other is like twoinches.
It's really obvious which lineit's and you're in the
experiment and the night peoplebefore you all say that the two
(22:02):
inch line is the same length asthe six inch line and you're
befuddled and I just don't seeit that way.
The six inch line is the sameas the six inch line.
One of the examples I use inthe first chapter is a board
kind of rushing to approve a $30million capital campaign.
One person thinks wait a minute, this is a bad idea.
We don't have anywhere near thefunds for this.
(22:22):
It could change the wholemission of our school race,
tuition et cetera.
And she speaks up about that todelay things and get more
assurances about how we're goingto be able to do this.
Being one out of 30 or so tospeak up, you really put
yourself at the center of thespotlight there.
You can be despised.
It depends how you do it.
If you do it in a very arrogantkind of scolding way, you'll be
(22:45):
more despised.
But you can certainly do it ina way that's expressing your
values, in a way that induces aconversation about some of the
risks that you see.
But I think you could be wrongif you're one out of 30, or you
could be right In her case.
There were other people thatshared her concern but did not
want to speak up because theywere afraid of the headmaster
there.
So you're likely to help breakthat conformity or group
(23:08):
thinking away.
I remind you of Chris Ardress'swork.
He has a well-known HBR articleTeaching Scouts People how to
Learn, where he makes similarpoints at the individual level.
But there's that distortion ofreality in a lot of ways Not in
a various way, but to not reallysee reality clearly.
And that always came home to me, chris Ardress.
I read a story about hisprofessional life.
(23:31):
He was so dominant in thisfield of organizational learning
and he had a professional rolebefore he moved into more
academic roles and when he leftthey gave him this beautiful
party and said how wonderful hewas and how much they're going
to miss him.
And he said he went back a fewyears later to the organization
and they said oh, we're so happyyou left, we all couldn't stand
(23:54):
.
We couldn't stand you as amanager or management style.
He's like why didn't you evertell me any of this and you
could see that sort of formed alot of his work.
That's had a big impact on thefield of organizational learning
.
But it can be hard to get goodinformation, good feedback, and
which makes it really hard tolearn.
That's mostly at the individuallevel and organizational level.
(24:16):
That would be true as well.
But there's also a at theorganizational level getting
that accurate reality feedbackabout how a product is doing or
what are the trends.
There's a real survival valueof knowing, getting an accurate
picture of things.
So back in the picture of themarket.
Speaker 2 (24:33):
All right, let's go ahead and wrap this up.
Thank you for joining us andbefore we sign off, can you tell
our listeners how they can findyou and your work?
Sure.
Speaker 1 (24:40):
You can find me on LinkedIn, the Northwestern
University faculty website, mywebsite wwwryansmerrickcom.
The two books, organizationallearning and speaking up to work
, are both on Amazon as well.
All right, thank you, sure.
Yeah, no, happy to have youtalk.
Speaker 2 (25:00):
So, just to summarize , learning, both individual and
organizational, is thecornerstone of growth and
adaptability into today'sdynamic business landscape.
As individuals, we navigatevarious metaphors of learning
from the mind as a computer andcoding, and retrieving
information to the mind as anauthor, crafting meaning from
(25:22):
our experiences, balancingintuition and reflection.
We absorb implicit knowledgewhile consciously developing
expertise.
Within organizations, fosteringa learning culture is essential
.
This involves striking abalance between exploration and
exploitation, encouragingtransparency and psychological
(25:44):
safety, and valuing independentthinking.
However, picking our battleswisely, aligning with our values
and knowing when to conform orchallenge norms are crucial
aspects of cultivating ourcapacity for independent
thinking.
Ultimately, whether at theindividual or organizational
level, learning fuels innovation, resilience and success.
(26:05):
It's not just aboutaccumulating knowledge, but
about continuously evolving,adapting and pushing boundaries.
This week, maybe take some timeto examine these different
levels and types of learning inyour team and workplace.
Are there some processes thatare stuck in old ways of doing
things that need to adapt orlearn from the in-visit
(26:28):
environment?
Are you creating a two-waylearning channel between the
organization and your employees?
Are they receiving traininguseful for their jobs and for
integration into the largerorganization?
Have you developed enoughpsychological safety for
employees to speak up at workand thus teach the organization
(26:49):
a thing or two.
As usual, we don't have theanswers to these questions in
this podcast.
They are unique to you and yoursituation, and it's your
responsibility to take thismanagement theory and grapple
with it in your individualcontext.
So together, let's embrace thedance of learning, both within
ourselves and our organizations,and watch as it propels us
(27:12):
forward towards greater heightsof achievement and fulfillment.
So with that, thank you fortuning in to the Management
Theory Toolbox, your topdestination for the
behind-the-scenes of managementand business theory.
In our next episode, we'regoing to continue our
exploration of individual andorganizational learning in part
two.
In the meantime, keep learning,keep growing and keep building
(27:37):
your management theory toolbox.
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