San Francisco
We sometimes choose not to learn from history because it is situationally or politically convenient to do so (see previous entry). Still there are ample occasions when reliving history unnecessarily and unproductively actually does stem from a failure to learn. For example, Chris Agyris has for many years underscored the difficulties that smart people have learning new things within their professions. This assertion may seem paradoxical, but anyone who has worked at the highest levels of Corporate America understands the paradigmatic fixation of very smart leaders who sometimes can't see the forest for the trees. After all, wasn't the Enron leadership team dubbed "the smartest guys in the room?"
Argyris says that senior executives must look inward and reflect critically on their own views and behaviors if they are to become better learners and, as a result, more capable leaders. Argyris long ago coined the terms "single loop" and "double loop" learning to distinguish between knowing how to do something and knowing why you're doing it. Highly successful professionals get that way because they excel at doing certain things in certain ways, reluctant to change what got them to the dance in the first place. Without healthy reflection and self-examination, however, these philosophical and performance patterns calcify over time and make it more difficult to ask whether there are better ways to do things or question why these things are being done in the first place. Wasn't former Digital Equipment Corporation CEO Ken Olsen, the inventor of the minicomputer, credited with failing to see the next logical step in computing miniaturization by asking, "Why would anyone want a computer on their desktop?"
According to Argyris, because very smart, successful people "have rarely failed, they have never learned how to learn from failure." This finds these highly capable people getting defensive, shutting down and blaming anyone but themselves when their single-loop learning outcomes predictably fail. "In short, their ability to learn shuts down precisely at the moment they need it most." (Teaching Smart People How to Learn, Harvard Business Review, May/June 1991, p. 100) Fiol and O'Connor (2003) say that leaders who are honest about imagining failure or actually experienced some of it themselves can be more effective at resisting bandwagons that otherwise find organizations pursuing mindless or even dangerous strategies.
In his landmark book The Structure of Scientific Revolution (1962), Thomas Kuhn demonstrated the difficulty smart people have questioning the professional premises that define their self-identity and self-worth. It is no surprise, therefore, that so many scientific and technological innovations are achieved by relatively young people who have yet to buy into existing paradigms. Of course, their success creates new orthodoxies beyond which these innovators then find it difficult to travel. Salovey and Meyer (1990) and then Daniel Goleman (1998) say that critical self-examination is essential to creating self-awareness, which as the foundation of healthy emotional intelligence gives leaders the needed oxygen to continue thinking anew. Donald Schon (1987) underscored the success of leaders who thrive at being "reflective practitioners" in this context. Finally, Karl Weick (1995) tells us that reflection is the essential pivot point that translates sensemaking into actual learning. Otherwise, without considered learning, leaders are doomed to rerun the old scripts and not create new ones more appropriate for changing times.
One gets the sense in the Russia-Georgia situation (see previous entry) that Secretary of State Rice and other leaders here and in those two countries are locked into old scripts. It is difficult to discern whether these reportedly smart people are doing so for political expedience or because it is just so difficult reflect and create needed new scripts. After all, Secretary Rice is an expert on the former Soviet Union. It should be no surprise, therefore, that the hammer of single loop learning seems disconnected from the larger tool box of reflection and double loop learning, thus turning this and other challenges into good old-fashioned nails. Hey, it isn't easy or popular to be discerning and to resist dangerous bandwagon thinking that finds it so easy to condemn Russia without a moment of consideration about our role and that of Georgia in creating and worsening this current mess.
p.s. Aqua is one of this city's best restaurants, located in the Financial District near the fabled Tadich Grill. But Frascati's is a true find, nestled in a cozy Russian Hill neighborhood. We loved them both. However, Aqua's exceptional chef Laurent Manrique is something of a foamer. Supporters of molecular gastronomique certainly bring "interesting" ideas to the dinner table, such as foam, enzymatic infusion, methyl cellulose as a gelling agent, and liquid nitrogen for flash freezing. But one questions whether any of it qualifies as food. I did not know whether to admire the foam coating my Alaskan halibut or to scrape it off. I chose the former.
The "foamer" versus "forager" debate is like all bipolar "us against them" arguments. We love to form simplistic, mutually exclusive camps around, for example, liberals and conservatives, believers and nonbelievers, or functionalists and interpretivists. Doing so misses the point. In this case, foamers are experimenters. Most of them are not abandoning fresh, natural food. Their welcome curiosities are actually pushing cuisine in new, intriguing directions. And this assertion is made despite the fact that I may not prefer or enjoy much of what they offer. Hey, I support and encourage paradigm interplay, right? In this spirit of the new, Elena Arzak of Restaurant Arzak in Basque's San Sebastian made the case well when she told the QWR (Autumn 2008), "If I didn't create new dishes, what would be the point of being a chef?" Tradition and experimentation can and do together; in fact, they must.
We sometimes choose not to learn from history because it is situationally or politically convenient to do so (see previous entry). Still there are ample occasions when reliving history unnecessarily and unproductively actually does stem from a failure to learn. For example, Chris Agyris has for many years underscored the difficulties that smart people have learning new things within their professions. This assertion may seem paradoxical, but anyone who has worked at the highest levels of Corporate America understands the paradigmatic fixation of very smart leaders who sometimes can't see the forest for the trees. After all, wasn't the Enron leadership team dubbed "the smartest guys in the room?"
Argyris says that senior executives must look inward and reflect critically on their own views and behaviors if they are to become better learners and, as a result, more capable leaders. Argyris long ago coined the terms "single loop" and "double loop" learning to distinguish between knowing how to do something and knowing why you're doing it. Highly successful professionals get that way because they excel at doing certain things in certain ways, reluctant to change what got them to the dance in the first place. Without healthy reflection and self-examination, however, these philosophical and performance patterns calcify over time and make it more difficult to ask whether there are better ways to do things or question why these things are being done in the first place. Wasn't former Digital Equipment Corporation CEO Ken Olsen, the inventor of the minicomputer, credited with failing to see the next logical step in computing miniaturization by asking, "Why would anyone want a computer on their desktop?"
According to Argyris, because very smart, successful people "have rarely failed, they have never learned how to learn from failure." This finds these highly capable people getting defensive, shutting down and blaming anyone but themselves when their single-loop learning outcomes predictably fail. "In short, their ability to learn shuts down precisely at the moment they need it most." (Teaching Smart People How to Learn, Harvard Business Review, May/June 1991, p. 100) Fiol and O'Connor (2003) say that leaders who are honest about imagining failure or actually experienced some of it themselves can be more effective at resisting bandwagons that otherwise find organizations pursuing mindless or even dangerous strategies.
In his landmark book The Structure of Scientific Revolution (1962), Thomas Kuhn demonstrated the difficulty smart people have questioning the professional premises that define their self-identity and self-worth. It is no surprise, therefore, that so many scientific and technological innovations are achieved by relatively young people who have yet to buy into existing paradigms. Of course, their success creates new orthodoxies beyond which these innovators then find it difficult to travel. Salovey and Meyer (1990) and then Daniel Goleman (1998) say that critical self-examination is essential to creating self-awareness, which as the foundation of healthy emotional intelligence gives leaders the needed oxygen to continue thinking anew. Donald Schon (1987) underscored the success of leaders who thrive at being "reflective practitioners" in this context. Finally, Karl Weick (1995) tells us that reflection is the essential pivot point that translates sensemaking into actual learning. Otherwise, without considered learning, leaders are doomed to rerun the old scripts and not create new ones more appropriate for changing times.
One gets the sense in the Russia-Georgia situation (see previous entry) that Secretary of State Rice and other leaders here and in those two countries are locked into old scripts. It is difficult to discern whether these reportedly smart people are doing so for political expedience or because it is just so difficult reflect and create needed new scripts. After all, Secretary Rice is an expert on the former Soviet Union. It should be no surprise, therefore, that the hammer of single loop learning seems disconnected from the larger tool box of reflection and double loop learning, thus turning this and other challenges into good old-fashioned nails. Hey, it isn't easy or popular to be discerning and to resist dangerous bandwagon thinking that finds it so easy to condemn Russia without a moment of consideration about our role and that of Georgia in creating and worsening this current mess.
p.s. Aqua is one of this city's best restaurants, located in the Financial District near the fabled Tadich Grill. But Frascati's is a true find, nestled in a cozy Russian Hill neighborhood. We loved them both. However, Aqua's exceptional chef Laurent Manrique is something of a foamer. Supporters of molecular gastronomique certainly bring "interesting" ideas to the dinner table, such as foam, enzymatic infusion, methyl cellulose as a gelling agent, and liquid nitrogen for flash freezing. But one questions whether any of it qualifies as food. I did not know whether to admire the foam coating my Alaskan halibut or to scrape it off. I chose the former.
The "foamer" versus "forager" debate is like all bipolar "us against them" arguments. We love to form simplistic, mutually exclusive camps around, for example, liberals and conservatives, believers and nonbelievers, or functionalists and interpretivists. Doing so misses the point. In this case, foamers are experimenters. Most of them are not abandoning fresh, natural food. Their welcome curiosities are actually pushing cuisine in new, intriguing directions. And this assertion is made despite the fact that I may not prefer or enjoy much of what they offer. Hey, I support and encourage paradigm interplay, right? In this spirit of the new, Elena Arzak of Restaurant Arzak in Basque's San Sebastian made the case well when she told the QWR (Autumn 2008), "If I didn't create new dishes, what would be the point of being a chef?" Tradition and experimentation can and do together; in fact, they must.