Volume 13, Number 1

Reflections
The SoL Journal

on Knowledge, Learning, and Change

FEATURE ARTICLES

30 Years of Building
Learning Communities
A Dialogue with Peter Senge,
Otto Scharmer, and Darcy
Winslow, Part 2

Choice As a Leadership
Capability
Rawlinson Agard

Is Moving Too Fast Slowing
You Down? How to Prevent
Overload from Undermining
Your Organization’s
PerformanceDavid Peter Stroh and Marilyn Paul

Commentary
Rabbi Marc Baker

From Automatic Defensive
Routines to Automatic
Learning Routines: The
Journey to Patient Safety
Michael Sales, Jay W. Vogt, Sara J.
Singer, and Jeffrey B. Cooper
BOOK EXCERPT

Teaming Is a Verb
Amy C. Edmondson

Photo courtesy of Michael Goodman

Published by The Society for Organizational Learning
www.solonline.org
ISSN 1524-1734

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PUBLISHER’S NOTE 13.1

For many leaders, the artof shifting mental models
and reframing problems
to come up with previously
unforeseen solutions is not yet
a matter of course. But while
problem solving in this way
may not be as widespread as
Frank Schneider
we would hope, individuals
and groups who are highly skilled in it are having a
growing impact in the world. This issue of Reflections
features examples of how choosing to let go of longheld beliefs and assumptions – and adopting new waysof thinking and acting – can lead to new possibilities.

Conscious implementation of these strategies, including individual commitment to take on only what one
can reliably accomplish, is key.

We begin with the second part of a conversation among
Peter Senge, Otto Scharmer, and Darcy Winslow (seeReflections 12.4 for Part 1). In it, these thought leaders
discuss possible scenarios for transforming capitalism bymoving from an “ego-system” to an “eco-system.” They
explore models for linking individual and collective
entrepreneurship, in the same way that artistic movements build on both personal and shared aesthetic
impulses. Peter, Otto, and Darcy conclude by looking at
what it might take to renew what we call “civilization”
from its roots.

We conclude with an excerpt from Teaming: How
Organizations Learn, Innovate, and Compete in the
Knowledge Economy by Amy Edmondson. In this provocative piece, Edmondson observes that in today’sorganizations, teams are not stable, fixed entities.
Fast-moving work environments need people whoknow how to team, that is, who can be flexible, makedecisions quickly, share knowledge openly – andthen move on to the next project. In this excerpt,
Edmondson describes the shifts in mindset that
this new way of working involves.

In “Choice As a Leadership Capability,” SoL Consultant
Member Rawlinson Agard describes his long journey
toward realizing his life’s mission. Through a process ofreflective inquiry, Rawle came to realize that his actions
were out of sync with his purpose. This realization led
him to leave his executive position and rededicate hislife to helping people reach their highest potential. His
story is an inspiration for those of us who question how
we can impact the larger systems in which we live.

In essence, the articles in this issue are all about choice.
The choices we make determine how much we live inalignment with our purpose, the impact we have on thesystems of which are a part, and the quality of leadership we provide in working with others. Our mental
models – the way we each see the world – are alsoa matter of choice. To shift them – and improve oureffectiveness in tackling the challenges we face –we need to make a choice to truly pay attention to
the world within and outside of us. As Albert Einstein
stated, “Problems cannot be solved with the same
mindset that created them.” Which choices are you
making today that will make a difference? O

In “Is Moving Too Fast Slowing You Down?” David Peter
Stroh and Marilyn Paul uncover the root causes of workoverload – something that is endemic in today’s work
environments. They describe how organizations unwittingly increase overload and suggest six strategies forboth reducing it and achieving sustainable productivity.

In “From Automatic Defensive Routines to Automatic
Learning,” Michael Sales, Jay W. Vogt, Sara J. Singer, andJeffrey B. Cooper describe how automatic defensive
routines in hospital settings can put patients at risk.
They demonstrate how a hospital’s complex and stressful environment can make staff especially vulnerable
to this kind of self-protective behavior. As an antidote,
Sales and his colleagues describe a simulation-based
program that helps healthcare teams adopt a ”seeklearning” rather than a “seek perfection” mindset.

Frank Schneider, Publisher

PUBLISHER’S NOTEEXECUTIVE DIGEST 13.1

30 Years of Building Learning Communities
A Dialogue with Peter Senge, Otto Scharmer,
and Darcy Winslow, Part 2
What story will children 75–100 years from now
tell about how our current generation managed thetremendous large-scale challenges we face? And
how can we – as individuals and communities – begin
to change our trajectory so that the narrative ourdescendents weave is one of renewal rather than ofdestruction? In part two of their dialogue on the roleof cross-organizational communities such as SoL and
the Presencing Institute in a changing world, Peter
Senge, Otto Scharmer, and Darcy Winslow look at theneed to renew civilization from its roots rather thanattempting to fix our broken institutions. They explore
ways we might join together to “open a crack to afuture that is different from the past” – and in theprocess create a genuinely ”flourishing” society.

Choice As a Leadership Capability
Rawlinson Agard
Many people in organizations today live a dual life:
they understand the power and importance of new
ways of leading – such as those based on the principles
of organizational learning – but they are hesitant torock the boat by introducing these concepts in theirorganizations. For many years, Rawlinson Agard foundhimself in this same situation. Even as he worked tobring large-scale change to the complex systems he
was a part of, he found that his actions and purpose
were out of sync. A health crisis prompted Rawle toreflect on his choices – and set a new course of actionthat would bring together the two disparate threads
in his career. In this article, he asks us to consider
our own choices as we strive to make this world
better for all.

Is Moving Too Fast Slowing You Down?
How to Prevent Overload from Undermining
Your Organization’s PerformanceDavid Peter Stroh and Marilyn Paul
Organizational overload is a problem confronting
people across all industries and sectors. People havetoo much to do in too short a time with too few resources to accomplish their goals. The result is thatmanagers find it difficult to sustain focus on and implement top organizational priorities. This article uncovers
the root causes of organizational overload and targets
the ways in which organizations unwittingly increase
overload and crises in their continuous efforts to accomplish more with less. In particular, it exposes theironies of a “can-do” culture that leads people to work
harder at the expense of achieving consistently strong
results. The authors conclude by recommending how
to build a “results and renewal” culture to achieve
higher, more sustainable performance.

From Automatic Defensive Routines
to Automatic Learning Routines:
The Journey to Patient Safety
Michael Sales, Jay W. Vogt, Sara J. Singer,
and Jeffrey B. Cooper
Patient safety in hospital settings is a major publichealth problem. Several distinctive challenges combine
to create a high-risk environment for patients that can
result in grave – and costly – personal and organizational
consequences. The authors hypothesize that defensive
behaviors among hospital leaders, managers, andstaff aggravate the dangers implicit in these settings.
In this article, they describe a multidimensional training
program, Healthcare Adventures™, in which the exploration of so-called “automatic defensive routines” figures
as an important focus. This intervention combines a simulation of a traumatic patient safety event with structured
reflection. Taken together, these kinds of learning opportunities support collaborative inquiry and appreciative
engagement, which in this case can improve outcomesfor patients.

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reflections.solonline.org

EXECUTIVE DIGEST 13.1

Teaming Is a Verb
Amy C. Edmondson
Organizations thrive, or fail to thrive, based on how
well the small groups within them function. In mostorganizations, the pace of change and the fluidity ofwork structures mean that success no longer comesfrom creating effective teams but instead from leading
effective teaming. Teaming occurs when people cometogether to combine and apply their expertise toperform complex tasks or develop solutions to novel
problems. Fast-moving work environments need people
who have the skills and the flexibility to act in momentsof potential collaboration when and where they appear;that is, people who know how to team. As summarized
in this excerpt from Teaming: How Organizations Learn,Innovate, and Compete in the Knowledge Economy, four
behaviors – speaking up, collaboration, experimentation,and reflection – are the pillars of effective teaming.

F E AT U R E | S E N G E , S C H A R M E R , A N D W I N S L O W

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F E AT U R E 13.1

30 Years of Building Learning
Communities

A Dialogue with Peter Senge, Otto Scharmer
and Darcy Winslow, Part 2
What story will children 75–100 years from now tell about how our current generation managed thetremendous large-scale challenges we face? And how can we – as individuals and communities – begin
to change our trajectory so that the narrative our descendents weave is one of renewal rather than ofdestruction? In part two of their dialogue on the role of cross-organizational communities such as SoL
and the Presencing Institute in a changing world, Peter Senge, Otto Scharmer, and Darcy Winslow lookat the need to renew civilization from its roots rather than attempting to fix our broken institutions.
They explore ways we might join together to “open a crack to a future that is different from the past” –and in the process create a genuinely ”flourishing” society.

DARCY: In late December 2012, Peter and I spent several days in the Yucatanwith a group exploring what the end of the 5,125-year Mayan “long count” on
December 21 might mean to us. We came from diverse contexts: education,
medicine, governance, science, conservation, spirituality, and business. We
were connected by our commitment to contribute to the evolution of ourown consciousness and the transformation of key institutions
that shape our society.
Peter Senge

Otto Scharmer

Darcy Winslow

We gathered knowing that December 21 and 22,
2012, represented not only the end of one cycle
but the beginning of a new one – a chance forhumans to start again. It was a profoundexperience, and it sparked a profound question. Let’s go out 75 or 100 years and imagine that two children are telling the story of
our evolutionary history and of our generation. What would that story sound like?
For our group in the Yucatan, the picture waspretty dire, when you actually put words tothe fact that we are killing for oil. The list justwent on and on. Then we posed the question, how
do we start to change our story? How do we start tochange our trajectory, our collective karma?

© iStockphoto

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R E F L E C T I O N S | V O LU M E 13, N U M B E R 1Peter and Otto, I would love to hear your thoughtson that question and what impact the SoL community and the Presencing community could have onthat dynamic over the next five, 10, or 15 years.

Transformation of Capitalism
OTTO: The other day I was in Brazil, invited by agreen institute for a talk and conversation about
the new economy and the transformation of capitalism. At the end, one guy said, “I have been listening to this conversation here, and it strikes methat what you do in your work is very difficult,because you try to bring together three different
discourses or groups of people that usually nevermeet. The first one is the world of awareness –learning from the future, spirituality, consciousness, and social entrepreneurship.”He went on, “The second one is the world ofprofound institutional change – the CEOs of the
big companies, the governments, and so on.
So another set of dynamics, another set ofmindsets, another kind of complexity.”
He ended with, “There is a third one, which istransformation of capitalism. It is not just institutional change. It is really how you transform thewhole system, the economy.”
His comment struck me as true, because I haveseen it so often. You have these three groups thatusually don’t have that much to do with eachother. We know that fault lines exist among thesethree groups. When you tell one story, half thegroup is excited. The other ones tune it out. When
you come to the other part of the talk, then thispart of the room lights up and the other ones
just roll their eyes.
So, I believe that in the future, we will not be
successful in taking our work to scale if we donot bring together these three discourses. In ourforthcoming book, Leading from the Emerging
Future: From Ego-System to Eco-System Economies,
Katrin Kaufer and I attempt to contribute toward
the integration of these three discourses.1
Where we can make real progress in the next
10 years or so is by developing the context but
also holding the space for different types of
conversations that allow these three groups
to connect with, rather than rolling their eyes
about, each other.
PETER: So are there places or instances that standout for you where you see those three starting tocome together?
OTTO: We have seen small beginnings, for example, in the Presencing Institute Global Forum. The
Global Forum, which we held in 2011 in Boston
and in 2012 in Berlin, and will hold again in Boston© iStockphoto

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in 2014, is an experiment in creating an open space.
It is not just addressing the smaller community
we have been working with lately; it is really an
invitation to anyone who is inspired by this transformation of capitalism, institutions, and self.
The response we have received is encouraging.
So many people express being annoyed with thecurrent politics and all of that. But underneath is alonging for a different kind of connection with thesystem, with each other, and with ourselves. So far,
we as a global community have not responded at
the level of scale and level of creativity that iscalled for today.

Change from the Periphery
PETER: Otto, there’s a puzzle that I’d like to pursue with you a little. One of the things I’ve heard
you say many times, and it always made so muchsense to me, is that if you want to find change,
look to the periphery. As we talk about reinventing capitalism, most people would say, “You haveto go work in the Congress. You’ve got to go workin the center of power.” I’m curious how yourthinking about that process is evolving.
OTTO: Well, that question is on my mind almost
every day. I would say we are not trying to reinvent
capitalism; we are trying to transform capitalism.
The problem with capitalism is that nature, labor,
and money are considered commodities. Case inpoint: environmental destruction, poverty, inequity,and financial bubbles are all taking place at unprecedented levels of scale. But as Karl Polanyi
pointed out in his book, The Great Transformation,
nature, labor, and money are not commodities.
He calls this the “commodity fiction” – we pretend
they are commodities, but in fact they are not. We
need to rethink the issue and realize that they are
not commodities but rather commons. Commons
that, if cultivated well, could help us to transform
our economy from “me” to “we,” from “ego” to “eco.”That’s the narrative that Katrin and I spell out inour new book. Where do you find the seeds of theeco-system economy? It’s exactly where you said,Peter – in the periphery, in the local living economy. In the local economy, the commons areright in our faces, so it makes sense for us to takeresponsibility together. For our global commons,it’s a much more complex story.

So far, we as a global community
have not responded at the levelof scale and level of creativity
that is called for today.
Part of answering the question of how much you
focus on the center and how much you focus on
the periphery, of course, is also individual. Where
has life put me? What are the opportunities? What
are the invitations I’m receiving to create meaningful change? For me, many of these invitations
and opportunities have been on a grassroots
level, which I have enormously enjoyed.
I also find that when you go inside mainstream
institutions such as MIT, global companies, or
the Chinese government, and you work with theyounger, emerging generation of leaders, they
are naturally in sync with a new way of operating
and thinking. They look at leadership and transformation from a consciousness point of viewin a way that I never would have expected. For
example, over the past 10 years, I have neverexperienced a push back against mindfulnessbased leadership practices. And for the past five
years, you cannot find a single thinking person
who would doubt that, as a global system, weare moving into an era of disruptive change. It’s
something that we almost take for granted today.
But 10 years ago, it was very different.
Those are a few data points that tell us about the
opening of a crack to a future that is different fromthe past. To connect to this opening and to allow a
different future to emerge, we need to work fromboth inside and outside the old system. It’s noteither-or.

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So far, we have not succeeded in creating aplatform that gives the next generation of change
makers a home base to tap into these communities,
to connect with methods and tools, and to advancetheir own skills in a way that is not restricted by
the old skeleton of institutions of higher education.
That may be our biggest failure so far. And yet, it issomething that is very much in reach and something where we could create a real breakthroughin the next five to 10 years.
How do you feel about that? How can we create
a new platform for doing this kind of work – individual and yet also collective entrepreneurship– to shift the system from “ego” to “eco” in real,practical ways?

What if we imagined we werepart of an artistic movement?
An Artistic Movement
PETER: When [Mexican arts educator and social
entrepreneur] Claudia Madrazo and I were talking
the other day, we came up with a really simple
way to talk about this. What if we imagined wewere part of an artistic movement?
If you look at history, there are few more generative phenomena that occur again and again inhistory than artistic movements. They are very
distributed. They are organized by ideas and practices. They are living embodiments. They are spontaneous. They are full of many individuals whoare iconoclastic and do not work together. It
depends on the medium, of course. If it’s theater,
it is different than if it is writing or poetry or
painting. Nonetheless, these movements haveenormous coherence.
For Christmas, our son Nate’s girlfriend got me abook containing all of Gustav Klimt’s work. She
found it in an old bookstore in Boulder that has
all these wild books. She only saw one corner ofthe book sticking out. She went over and started

pulling on the corner. And what comes out isthis book that I think weighs 20 pounds. It’s theheaviest book I’ve ever held.
I became a huge fan of Gustav Klimt when I lived
in Austria as a student. I used to go to the Belvedere
Museum and spend afternoons there. I thought
he was an amazing person.
At the same time, my wife, Diane, got a book on
Van Gogh. She loves Van Gogh. And all of a sudden
we’ve got our books turned open to two paintings.
In Diane’s book was a painting that you would recognize right away. It was a typical Van Gogh painting of a field of flowers. The other was a paintingof Klimt’s of a bunch of flowers covering a wall ofan Austrian country estate. And it was the same
painting! They were done about 25 years apart.
Van Gogh’s was a little earlier, 1890 or so, andKlimt’s was from 1912.
But you look at these and you go, this is an artistic
movement. Here are two totally different artists,
two totally different cultural contexts, who are notconnected that much by art historians. You would
never confuse Van Gogh’s style with Klimt’s stylein general. And yet you look at these works andsay, “Wow! Their ability to manifest light and thevibrancy of something alive with totally different
styles is stunning!”
That to me became a powerful example of thisfield we are a part of. And that is a metaphor
I could really work with, the metaphor of being
an artistic movement. There is something that is
animating each of us, that shows up in our own
consciousness, in our own work in particular ways,
particular models, particular practices. But it’s
not coming from there. It’s coming from something bigger.
To me, this perspective has so much potential.
First off, it totally transforms the individual-collective
dilemma. It’s very individual and it is very collective.
Obviously, it couldn’t be one or the other. Neither
could be missing from this way of understanding.

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5Second, it reminds us of something that I think
we don’t talk about enough, which is the aesthetic
aspect of our work. I was with Otto for a conversation in Berlin with people affected by the Holocaust. And Otto, for about 15 minutes at the opening, you exhibited an extraordinary aesthetic
sensibility. You just stood there and just kept sensing and expressing what was real for you at thatmoment until the whole space started to open.
And once it opened, amazing things started tocome out.
I would call that the work of an artist. That’s
aesthetic sensibility, in the moment, where you
have a lot of ideas but you have to set all of yourideas aside so that you can pay attention, directly
and creatively.
Great artistic movements have a kind of epic quality, right? So whatever you would call that movement that linked Van Gogh and Klimt, it’s epic. It
is shifting culture in real time at a grand scale.

© iStockphotoI think we need all of those. We need to harmonize the individual and collective. We need to pay
attention to the aesthetic. We need to recognizethat this field is kind of an epic thing; it is occurring
on a scale that none of us could possibly manufacture because it is not coming from any of us.

Shared Intentions
OTTO: That so resonates with how I understandall of our work. I think I am in the tradition ofsomebody who tries to create. I have always been
inspired by the Bauhaus story, probably the mostinfluential architecture and design school ever.
It happened in a similar situation to where we are
now – a completely screwed-up environment,
when all of the ideals kind of crashed and burned
as a result of World War I.
A few people got together and created a school.
They didn’t agree with each other on everything.
They were very individual, yet they had a common
set of principles and beliefs and intentions. They
teamed up with master practitioners of the various
crafts. They changed the paradigm. Their intention

We need to recognize that thisfield is kind of an epic thing; it isoccurring on a scale that none ofus could possibly manufacture
because it is not coming fromany of us.
was to bring design to the masses, to linkadvanced design with technology and to getbeyond the old artistry, which was just for elites.
The first year was dedicated to the famous Vorkurs(pre-course), where you had both theoretical,

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abstract classes with some of these masters andalso hands-on workshops with all the crafts andmaterials. So the Bauhaus group created an education that brought together the very abstractand intellectual with the very hands-on and practical in a creative environment that connected
these two poles. It happened in a real place andwith a real community. People from this community then went out into the world. Even when the
Nazis closed down the place, the movement went
global and shaped the architecture in cities allaround the world.

Science is the religion of thecontemporary world in the sensethat it is the voice we most often
look toward to tell us our current
version of “the truth.”
The way in which a small group created a school
as a birthplace for a new paradigm that could belearned and applied in practical ways and thenbrought into the world – and how that movement
then shaped and had a deep influence across the20th century – always inspired me.
In our case, it is more complex. It is not just architecture that needs to be reinvented; it’s the wholeof society. But, in a way, it is also simpler, because
all the pieces are already there – they just are not
put together yet. That calls for another kind ofcreativity that no single person can do alone. Buta few people can do it together when pullingaround the same intentions.
PETER: For me, there is an imagery that has a lotof meaning: you start to feel you are in this riverand this river is carrying you. You did not create
the river, but your intentions and capabilities
got you into it. It starts with awareness. This can’t
be faked. Right now, I think this awareness is getting more acute. When you just keep paying attention to that river, then at some point you can say,
“We think we understand a little bit of what thisfield is all about.”

I think you are right – this is not the work of justone person but of a group of people who can startbuilding some boats to start to navigate in a different and more effective way. And they sharewhat they are learning with one another.
OTTO: There is a line by Nietzsche that I have always loved: “To see science from the viewpoint of
the artist and art from the viewpoint of life.” That’s
exactly what we are talking about. It’s a sciencefrom the viewpoint of the artist, the entrepreneur,the creative human being, and it’s the creative act
as seen from the viewpoint of the river, from theviewpoint of life.
I always thought that little line captured a seedof possibility in science that is dormant. Is that thereason why we hang out at MIT? Maybe we haveto look at science and the evolution of science assomething that is just beginning and that has yet
to take this creative consciousness turn.

A System of Living
DARCY: Peter, if I can pick up on your boat analogy and the example Otto just shared from thearchitectural world, if we look at critical systems– the economy, education, marine ecosystems,
the world of business – what ones do you think
we need to focus on in the future, both in and ofthemselves, the interconnections among them,and the impact that they can make on the shifts
we believe need to happen?
PETER: When I consider a question like this,
there is an almost automatic frame – systems thatmatter like education, business, government, andso on. But you could back up and say, “Well, there
is a system of science; there is a system of art.” And
if you use the word in the broadest sense, you
might say there is a system of living. Those really
are what sit behind institutional embodiments. So
we operate our schools based on a whole bunchof assumptions embedded in our culture. People
want to change the school without changing theculture. That is not going to happen.

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7© iStockphotoIt’s how we live that shapes all those institutions.
Obviously, science is the loudest voice today. It
is the religion of the contemporary world in thesense that it is the voice we most often looktoward to tell us our current version of “the truth.”
Lost is art. It just gets lost because in contemporary
culture, we’ve made it a specialty. We’ve made it
something that just artists do. We’ve forgottenthat for most of human history, our culture was
our songs, our dances, our stories. That was theheart of everything. What defined a culture wasits art. It was participative and it was inclusive.
It didn’t mean there weren’t some people who
had certain gifts. It just meant that it was foreverybody. It’s been so marginalized that wehave lost that perspective.
But you might say that art is the system that sits
behind the systems of how we live, how we create,
how we understand.

OTTO: That’s very close to Aristotle, who talked
about three ways we can relate to reality: First,
theoria, which is basically science. Then poiesis, ormaking things, creating. And third is praxis, which
is another type of action that holds the goal in
itself. It is not action in order to make something;
it is creative activity, like if you play because ofplay itself, not in order to accomplish something.
So it’s that type of action.
PETER: Which is the key to life and it’s the key
to everything, right? If you want to say, what’s one
magic change you could wish for that could havethe biggest impact on culture, it would be for
us to learn how to invest meaning in what we domoment-by-moment. Then we would not have tokeep chasing things. Our addiction to consumerism is a big, long, symbolic dance to get meaning
and fun and enjoyment by acquiring things, because you no longer have the confidence that you
can create meaning and fun and enjoyment bywhatever you are doing right here, right now.

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That spirit of life as a creative process is itself theroot of the word “sacred.” The verb “to sacralize”
is to make what’s happening right here, rightnow, whatever it is, that which matters. And in
philosophy, this spirit lies in the difference
between an instrumental versus an intrinsic
or sacred orientation.

No other generation had thispossibility before for making
large-scale change.
Instrumental is when you say you do this in orderto get that. Everything you do is an instrument toget something else, as opposed to being sacredin itself. Moving from one to another orientation
would be a key cultural shift for us. The American
philosopher Eric Hoffer said, “You can never getenough of what you don’t really need to makeyou happy.” We are always chasing after something new, which will never succeed in making
us happy because we forgot that the chase itself
is all that matters.
Anyhow. So systems sitting behind systems.
That’s interesting. Hmm! And a school dedicatedto living. I like that!

A “Flourishing” Society
DARCY: I want to pick up on something that you
touched on there around the sacred, to sacralize.
I was thinking about change and how people deal
with change. How do we start to articulate thischange that’s required, without it being perceived
as having to sacrifice? When we talk about thesesystems that need to transform or the systems behind the systems, how can we do so in a way thatengages people versus immediately putting themon their heels and becoming all about sacrifice?
OTTO: Well, we know how not to do it, and thatis by scaring people and bombarding them withdata about how bad things are. That method is
not working. Science is clearly necessary but not
sufficient. The answer to your question probably

has to do with the poiesis and praxis, to tap intoa different, more creative energy rather than
avoiding something you don’t want.
So that’s, I think, a big challenge. Today we havethese global institutions. We have capitalism in aform that has moved into the heart and the centerof society and is embodied in and influencing justabout everything. It wasn’t like that before. So
that’s a particular frontier that we face. And it
makes me excited, because no other generation
had this possibility before for making large-scalechange. We have many of the pieces that you
need to really make some headway.
The challenge will probably be one of the mostsignificant undertakings by many, many people
over the next years. The question is whether or
not we succeed in putting these pieces together
and building examples and platforms and momentum to not only innovate at the margin but basically renew what we call civilization from withinor from the roots.
PETER: Picking up on that last comment, when
Ma Hongda, the man who has run Master Nan’s
Great Learning Center in China for many years,
and I were talking in October, he said, “We really
don’t have civilization now.” I appreciated thatcomment. There is no civilization now. The things
that define civilization by and large have been
pushed out of the mainstream of society.
So this is a simple and abstract answer to yourquestion, Darcy. Things will not change until
there is something more attractive. It’s that simple.
There has to be an emergent sense that it’s notreally about “giving up.” Exactly the opposite. It’s
about going back to our collective and individual
capacities regarding things that matter, thepraxis, the theoria, the poiesis.
If you had the option of choosing civilization or
no civilization, what would you choose? It has toget to that kind of clarity so that we could actuallychoose a path of civilization once again. Of course,
first you have to build an awareness that that’s an

F E AT U R E | S E N G E , S C H A R M E R , A N D W I N S L O W

option. Then, you have to have some ideas how
to move along that path. And then you need somecommunities to support one another. It is what
author John Ehrenfeld calls the pursuit of agenuinely “flourishing” society.

100-percent belief that you shouldn’t waste anything. It’s obviously not about effort, that you’ve
got to be uptight and tense and get the rightanswer and all of that. Quite the opposite. You
just have to pay real attention.

I can’t help but think that a lot of what needs tohappen is happening now. And part of the job
is probably just continuing to get clearer in our
expression and in our actions. One simple image
for me is that we are at a point where we can nolonger waste any effort. That doesn’t mean wehave the answer. It just means we can no longer
waste any effort.

Ever since I’ve started to understand this concept,
I’ve been finding it more and more in different
places in Master Nan’s writing. In interpreting one
sutra, he says, “If you are having good thoughtsthat are useful, you should cultivate them. If you
are having bad thoughts, you should stop cultivating them. Stop them and go back to their roots
and eliminate them at their roots.” That is kind of atranscendent message.

No matter what we are saying, no matter what weare doing, every single act, every single thought
has to be in line with this. You’ve met Dadi Janki.
Dadi Janki is the administrative head of the religious
group Brahma Kumaris. She is now 95 years old.
She says, “That thought. Is that the thought you
want? Well, then don’t have it. If it is not thethought you want, then get rid of it.” She has this

OTTO: Yes it is. “That economy. Is that the economy you want? If not, then get rid of it.” I love that.
It’s so true. All our economic problems start withthe way we think. That’s where the economictransformation will originate: from between ourears. [Laughter] O

ENDNOTE
1 Otto Scharmer and Katrin Kaufer, Leading from the Emerging Future: From Ego-System to Eco-System Economies(Berrett-Koehler, 2013)

ABOUT THE AUTHORSPeter Senge is the founding chair of SoL, a senior lecturer at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology,
and the author of The Fifth Discipline. He is also coauthor of Presence: Human Purpose and the Fieldof the Future, The Necessary Revolution: How Individuals and Organizations Are Working Together toCreate a Sustainable World, and the series of Fifth Discipline Fieldbooks, including the newly released
Schools That Learn.
Otto Scharmer is a senior lecturer at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology and the founding
chair of the Presencing Institute. He is cofounder of the Global Wellbeing and Gross National
Happiness Lab, author of Theory U: Leading from the Future As It Emerges, and coauthor of Presence:
Human Purpose and the Field of the Future and Leading from the Emerging Future: From Ego-System
to Eco-System Economies (July 2013).
Darcy Winslow is managing partner of the Academy for Systemic Change and founder of Designs fora Sustainable World Collective, LLC. She worked at Nike, Inc., for more than 20 years and held several
senior management positions within the business. Most recently, she served as general manager
for Nike’s Global Women’s Fitness Business and as senior advisor to the Nike Foundation.

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R E F L E C T I O N S | V O LU M E 13, N U M B E R 1

F E AT U R E 13.1

Choice As a Leadership Capability
R AW L I N S O N A G A R D

Many people in organizations today live a dual life: they understand the power and importance of new
ways of leading – such as those based on the principles of organizational learning – but they are hesitant
to rock the boat by introducing these concepts in their organizations. For many years, Rawlinson Agard
found himself in this same situation. Even as he worked to bring large-scale change to the complex systems
he was a part of, he found that his actions and purpose were out of sync. A health crisis prompted Rawle
to reflect on his choices – and set a new course of action that would bring together the two disparate
threads in his career. In this article, he asks us to consider our own choices as we strive to make thisworld better for all.

SoL Consultant Member Rawlinson Agard wrote the following piece in response
to our request for “Voices from the Field” contributions for the previous issueof Reflections. Because of limited space in that issue, we share his moving andinsightful story here in its entirety.
For the first 10 years of my managerial career, my concepts of managing
and leading did not match what I saw around me. Just out of graduate school,with four years in a senior advisory position to the cabinet of one of Canada’s
provincial governments, I returned to the Caribbean to work for the successor
Rawlinson Agard
company to Shell Trinidad Limited. Somehow, the theories espoused in the hallsof McMaster University and the leadership practices in this part of the oil industry did not fit together.
I spent the next seven years at three major corporations searching for the synergistic relationshipamong people, operating systems, and personnel policies that I learned about in my graduate studies.

A Certain Kind of Magic

People took inspiration from theIn 1991, I read Peter Senge’s book, The Fifth
Discipline. My colleague Ian Thomas and I
notions of mental models and thewere both management trainers, and we began
creation of a future that was
experimenting with the ideas and thinking thatreflective of what they trulyPeter espoused in this book. Consistent withthese approaches, we began modifying thedesired.
training work we were doing with supervisorsand managers. We were taken aback by the
responsiveness of participants. It was as if the material had a certain kind of magic. People took
inspiration from the notions of mental models and the creation of a future that was reflective of what
they truly desired. The stories kept coming back to us, detailing how people were using the training
with great success in their personal and professional lives.

F E AT U R E | A G A R D© iStockphoto/Ferran Traite Soler

The irony was that neither of us dared to use theseideas within our own work in the corporate environment. The dominant structures were so powerful that it often seemed like swimming against
the tide. However, as an independent consultant,I began to practice based on the principles ofthe five disciples and the constraints of learning
disabilities of organizations. We created the tagline “Standing in the Future, We Create the Present,”
and used the concepts around visioning andpersonal mastery with senior executive clientsin designing strategic management processes
and undertaking organizational change.

A Matter of Choice
I had always wanted to get to the source, to thepeople who were creating this work. It seemed
to me that the first step was gaining a deeper
understanding of what was behind the emerging
thinking that was taking place at MIT. My reentry
into the corporate oil and gas world provided thisopportunity. As vice president of human resources
and corporate services at Petrotrin, an integrated
oil company that resulted from the merger of

I came to realize that the notionof choice as a leadership capability
was fundamental to the ability
to lead change.
Texaco, British Petroleum, and Shell in Trinidad
and Tobago, I attended a SoL program in Boston.
Peter Senge agreed to meet me for a dinner
meeting. I later learned that, in doing so, Peter was
stepping out of his normal practice of not engaging
in parallel activities during the duration of a program. We met for hours. In our company wereFrank Schneider and Robert Hanig. I spoke formost of the evening, pontificating and looking
for some immediate quick-fix responses fromPeter. At the end of it all, his advice was simple:“Rawle, your challenge is a matter of choice.”
It would take me some years to understand the
profound meaning of that advice. Even at one of

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R E F L E C T I O N S | V O LU M E 13, N U M B E R 1

the most successful points in my career, when
I held two senior executive positions – one inpetroleum and the other as deputy chair at a massive water utility – my actions and purpose were
not in sync. My energies were directed to bringing
change to both complex systems, yet the way I
was relating to the world was based on fragmentation and traditional hero worship. I was constantly
seeking to balance the wholeness of systems
thinking with stakeholders’ expectations of immediate maximization of assets. It was probably themost frustrating period in my career. It would besome time before I came to realize that the notionof choice as a leadership capability was fundamental to the ability to lead change.

I had found my purpose:
supporting people in being theirhighest possibility individuallyand collectively.
Learning from Adversity
The next five years would probably be the mostrewarding in my work life. I continued to build
a relationship with SoL, becoming a Corporate
Member representing Petrotrin. I thought I had
finally come to the source of the thinking aboutorganizational learning, the place from which all
this knowledge would flow. The experience ofworking with a team was insightful. We attempted
to use the human resources function to transforman organization without having defined a sharedvision; in a sense, we were seeking to bring aboutchange from outside the system while being partof the process. Some of our people went to SoL
programs in support of this transformation effort.
In the final analysis, our aspirations were notrealized. However, many of us learned lessonsaround organizational readiness, sponsorshipfor change efforts, and the challenges ofcreating shared vision.
But a great benefit was emerging for me personally.
During this effort, I became gravely ill and ended
up spending almost a year in treatment in North

America. Frank Schneider came to the hospitaland spent three days with me in reflective inquiry.
He was an excellent listener.
During those conversations, I recognized the true
meaning of choice. One evening, it suddenly hit
me. All the struggles with the varying systems
in which I had worked and attempted to change,
all the doubt, all the contradictions, all that I had
encountered before were in fact in service ofthe next 15 years of my journey. I had found my
purpose: supporting people in being their highest
possibility individually and collectively. I now truly
understood what Peter meant when he talked
to me about choice at dinner that night.
Then and there, I knew that I was not going backto Petrotrin. What was I going to do? I was notcertain, but I knew that I could not continue to live
a dual life. The world’s future needed the spirit ofpeople learning to learn to be human beings, andI could help them create that possibility. Robert
Hanig became my coach. I deepened my relationship with the SoL community, eventually becoming a Consultant Member.

Two Milestones
As I reflect on those years, I can think of a couple
milestones for SoL that have significantly impacted
us all: First, the reissuing of The Fifth Discipline;
and second, the evolution of this communityof learning into a global organization.
The creation of a revised and updated editionof The Fifth Discipline concretizes the significant
contribution to management thinking that thebook made when it was first published. While
this edition expands on the previous thinking
and material, the message has remained as pureand as powerful as it was 22 years ago. It shows
the work still to be done within organizations. In
addition, it highlights the universality of systems
thinking and organization learning as core domains of knowledge, thinking, and action. The
new edition signifies that we need to recommit
ourselves to building a world that is sustainable
and in harmony with its environment.

F E AT U R E | A G A R D

The second is the establishment of the Global
Association of SoL Communities (Global SoL). As
viewed from just 10o degrees north of the equator,
SoL can look distant and remote. Nevertheless, thework of SoL is applicable across ethnic groupings,
cultures, and geographic boundaries. When I reflect
on SoL and its journey, I am moved to think thatthe establishment of Global SoL is significant.
Looking up from the lower half of the globe, thenorth seems much richer, ordered, and technological. But there is so much potential in the emerging
economies that Global SoL needs a presence, if
only to hold the space for the development of abalanced world. The global network offers an opening to establish mutual learning across ethnic
and political boundaries.

SoL’s Emerging Work
The guiding ideas upon which Global SoL isfounded appeal to the universality of the humanexperience. In a very practical sense, I hope thatthe organization provides access to the unknown
and unrecorded work going on globally that gives
validity to these fundamental principles. This is
the emerging work of SoL.
The world today is complex and fragmented.
Leadership requires new capabilities. We now
possess the ability to destroy the environmental
systems that sustain human life and even humanlife itself. Dialogue, as an instrument of change
and sustainability, is a significant leverage pointin the future evolution of sustainable humansystems; it is a tool for creating choice, a generatorof alternatives, and a way to build shared understanding in the face of conflict and diversity.
Inherent in dialogue is the potential for creating
the highest human possibility. It provides a space
to create a future grounded in the wisdom of thepast and sensitive to the dangers of acting on
preconceived assumptions of continuous growth.
It is my deepest aspiration for Global SoL to nurture dialogue as a universal practice for producing
sustainable outcomes that provide the world
with a choice.
All civilizations go through a process of birth,
growth, and decline. Knowledge has always been
at a premium in each of these stages. Global
warming is probably the greatest universal challenge that the leaders of this century will haveto address, and it is a phenomenon that no single
country can overcome purely by its own efforts.
Only by collective leadership can humankind
confront the direct and indirect consequencesthat are likely to emerge if we fail at mastering thisconundrum. The growth and expansion of Global
SoL can serve as a platform for maximizing open
access to knowledge in its many dimensions:human, scientific, technological, and so on. Thisis a necessary condition of the globe’s future
success.

What Is Your Choice?
I have discovered that from an individual perspective, it is indeed a matter of choice. I now repeatPeter’s advice to me with heightened clarity andprofound realization of truth: “Life is a Matter of
Choice.” What is your choice? As we emerge in thenext century and we contemplate the worldwide
imperative of creating the post-industrial civilization, we must also give greater priority to choice.
Ask, “What choices do I make as an individual?”and “How do my choices contribute to making thisspace better for all?” Our ability to see dialogue
as an instrument of change and sustainability canprovide us with significant leverage in the evolution of our world. And only you can see the limitless possibility. So I ask you, what is your choice? O

ABOUT THE AUTHOR
Rawlinson Agard is the managing director of De Edge Consulting in Trinidad and Tobago. A SoL
Consultant Member for more than seven years, he is the lead consultant in the firm. Rawle isparticularly interested in and is an advocate of leadership as a self-directed capability.

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R E F L E C T I O N S | V O LU M E 13, N U M B E R 1

F E AT U R E 13.1

Is Moving Too Fast Slowing
You Down?

How to Prevent Overload from Undermining
Your Organization’s Performance
D AV I D P E T E R S T R O H A N D M A R I LY N PAU L
Organizational overload is a problem confronting people across all industries and sectors. People have toomuch to do in too short a time with too few resources to accomplish their goals. The result is that managers
find it difficult to sustain focus on and implement top organizational priorities. This article uncovers the root
causes of organizational overload and targets the ways in which organizations unwittingly increase overload and crises in their continuous efforts to accomplish more with less. In particular, it exposes the ironies
of a “can-do” culture that leads people to work harder at the expense of achieving consistently strong
results. The authors conclude by recommending how to build a “results and renewal” culture to achieve
higher, more sustainable performance.

David Peter Stroh

Marilyn Paul

Organizational overload is a troubling fact of today’s business culture. Market
pressures intensified by global competition and the economic crisis, as well as
the advent of technology that makes people accessible 24/7, have exacerbatedthe drive to produce results faster and with fewer resources. Recent research
reported in Harvard Business Review found that of 600 organizations surveyed,half suffered from overloading (insufficient resources to meet demands), multiloading (shifting and competing expectations that undermine focus), andperpetual loading (constant pressure that allows people little opportunity
to recharge their batteries).1
Organizational overload takes a dramatic toll on employees, who experiencea relentless sense of overwhelm and urgency. Our own research suggests thatmanagers today spend at least half of their time fighting fires, doing work others
should have done, trying to stay on top of email, and sitting in unproductive
meetings. Failed communications, missed deadlines, poor quality work andresulting rework, and customer dissatisfaction are growing problems for businesses. Stress-related illness, burnout, and low morale are increasing signs of
employee dissatisfaction. The more chaotic and unproductive the organization,
the more difficult people find it to do their best and most important work.

Although many managers blame individual employees for not working as productively as possible, wesuggest that organizations themselves can be the source of overload. Recognizing this possibility enables

F E AT U R E | S T R O H A N D PA U L

managers to create an environment where people
can collectively manage their time better and work
more effectively, efficiently, and sustainably.

Root Causes of Organizational Overload
It is tempting to conclude that the primary causesof organizational overload are market pressuresthat require people to do more with less and technologies that enable them to work around theclock. However, this analysis misses a key point:
while both of these factors affect all organizations,some organizations maintain high levels of energy
and focus, while others devolve into vicious cycles
of expanding workload, frequent crises, and diminishing productivity. Clearly, something about howorganizations respond to these challenges affects
their propensity to overload and, ultimately, theirproductivity over time.
While highly functional organizations respondto external pressures by focusing on their mostimportant work, overloaded organizations respondby unwittingly manufacturing more work through afocus on problem symptoms, inadequate planning,
disruptive resource allocations, and rework ofpoorly executed assignments. We call this phenomenon “phantom workload,” because much of it
would be unnecessary if people recognized at
the outset the root causes of overload.2
Those root causes emerge out of underlying
organizational norms. Organizations most vulnerable to overload exhibit a “can-do” culture thatemphasizes increased effort under the assumption

TABLE 1that greater effort always leads to better results.
The executive recruiting firm Korn/Ferry once
gave companies a hypothetical choice between
a candidate who would do a great job in 80 hours
per week and one who would perform equallywell in only 40. Nine out of 10 companies indicatedthat they would select the former worker to set
an example of hard work for others.3

Some organizations maintainhigh levels of energy and focus,
while others devolve into vicious
cycles of expanding workload,frequent crises, and diminishingproductivity.
Recent research challenges the core assumption of a “can-do” culture that greater effort
always leads to better results. Findings from highperforming athletes note that success comes fromalternating bursts of intense activity with periodsof recovery, and this approach is now being
used effectively to structure work and renewal
in several organizations.4 Other research indicatesthat multi-tasking reduces productivity and fails
to increase output, even among younger people
who have grown up in the digital age.5
By contrast, a “results and renewal” culture focuseson outcomes achieved through sustainable effort.
Effort matters to the degree that it produces results,

A Tale of Two Cultures“Can-Do”“Results and Renewal”

Being a good team player means always saying yes.

Being a good team player means making and keeping
agreements.

Because performance is based on effort, everyone
must always be “on call.”Contributions are measured by results on key strategic
initiatives – not constant availability.

People do their best work under pressure.

People do their best work when they can sustain
energy and focus over time.

We can always “pull the rabbit out of the hat.”

Pulling the rabbit out of the hat means we haveto plan more carefully going forward.

Failure is never acceptable.

Failure is an opportunity to learn.

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R E F L E C T I O N S | V O LU M E 13, N U M B E R 1

supports individuals and groups to work strategically, and leads to learning from mistakes insteadof repeating them. Table 1 (p. 15) lays out thedifference between these two cultures.

Burnout reduces productivity
and increases turnover, creating
an ongoing sense of crisis andadditional work for everyone.
In a “can-do” culture, three vicious cycles amplify
organizational overload and slow an organization
down.

1. Overload Creates More Overload
Though it may sound counterintuitive, overload
directly increases overload, with resulting highcosts for both individuals and organizations. Whenpeople are expected to do more than they caneffectively accomplish over long periods of time,
the resulting high stress erodes morale, motivation,and physical and mental health – all of whichmake it more difficult for employees to meet
expectations. In the long run, increased stressand its consequences eventually lead to burnout.
Burnout, in turn, reduces productivity and increases turnover, creating an ongoing sense ofcrisis and additional work for everyone.
In response to high demand, people tend to takeon more work than they can handle. At one company, for example, computer programmers wereF I G U R E 1 Overload Creates More Overload Directly

Overload and Resulting Crises

VICIOUS CYCLES 1
t 6OEFSFTUJNBUJPOPG3FTPVSDFT3FRVJSFEt 4USFTT0WFS5JNF
t 2VBMJUZ&SPTJPOt #VSOPVUt -PTU1SPEVDUJWJUZ

expected to work seven productive hours per day,when everyone knew that the more realistic estimate was five hours. Despite research indicatingthat productivity usually declines after 50 hours
per week and that engineers can only work effectively on two projects at a time,6 organizations inthrall to the “can-do” culture hold that no demandis unreasonable and employees should do whatever it takes to make things happen. Add to thisthe fear of losing one’s job in today’s economy,
which increases employee reluctance to challenge
unrealistic expectations, and we find people underestimating resource requirements, deliberately
or unconsciously, to prove they are responsible
team players.
When people underestimate resource requirements, lower quality and productivity become
the norm for two reasons. First, when everyone
has more to do than they can accomplish, theycollude around allowing things to fall through thecracks: not responding to emails, starting meetings late, breaking agreements, and missing
deadlines. When dropping the ball is acceptable,
people don’t hesitate to take on even more work
because they know they won’t be held accountable for lapses, and the cycle continues. Second,
managers tend to interpret the use of fewer
resources as a sign that an organization is learning to be more efficient, rather than as a red flagshowing that people are cutting corners anderoding quality. They feel justified in continuing
to tighten resource requirements, with the unintended effect of further lowering quality andgenerating additional problems.
Figure 1 shows how the direct consequencesof overload serve to increase overload, in aquintessential vicious cycle.

2. A Culture of Continual Crises
When people experience too much stress andcontinually try to compensate for insufficient
resources, they think less clearly. The result is acrisis culture in which unanticipated problems
show up at the last minute, tempers fray, quality
suffers, deadlines are missed, and upset customers

F E AT U R E | S T R O H A N D PA U L

must be appeased. Managers tend to deal withcrises in three ways: firefighting, pressuring managers of failing projects, and/or asking everyone,
including themselves, to work longer hours andforgo time for renewal. These quick fixes may
mitigate crises in the short run, but they also
make it more likely that new crises will emerge(see Figure 2).
In firefighting, managers allocate resources to
fix immediate problems. Although firefighting canwork in the short run by resolving problems andrewarding “firefighters” for their heroic efforts, it
usually ends up starting new fires. Firefighting
often entails rework, which adds to organizational
overload and stress. Allocating resources to fighta fire on one project tends to disrupt resources
assigned to other projects, which increases overload elsewhere in the organization. Moreover,people who learn that crises attract more resources
often wait until the last minute to deal with problems, which inevitably leads to more crises. Finally,
firefighting draws capacity away from the strategicplanning that can prevent future crises.
Putting pressure on managers of failing projects
can also work in the short run by emphasizing
accountability, encouraging closer monitoring,F I G U R E 2 A Culture of Continual Crisis

VICIOUSCYCLES 2
t 3FTPVSDF%JTSVQUJPOTt 3FXPSLt #MBNFBOE%FGFOTJWFOFTTt 3FDVSSFOUBOE-BTU.JOVUF
Problemst %JTUSBDUJCJMJUZ

Firefighting
Individual Blame and Pressure
Length of Work Week

2VJDL'JYFT

Overload and Resulting Crises

and giving managers more attention, but it sends
the message that overload problems are causedby poor performers instead of organization-wide
norms, policies, and processes. This focus leads
to a culture of blame and defensiveness. When

Although firefighting can workin the short run by resolving problems and rewarding “firefighters”
for their heroic efforts, it usuallyends up starting new fires.

17© iStockphoto

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R E F L E C T I O N S | V O LU M E 13, N U M B E R 1

people feel defensive, the quality of individualand collective thinking deteriorates. The resulting
unproductive meetings, tendency to react toproblem symptoms rather than deal with underlying causes, and recurrent problems further
increase overload.
In a culture of crisis, employees usually work longhours and allow themselves little time for selfrenewal. This pace can have short-term rewards,
as people keep at it by convincing themselves that
their intensive efforts are temporary. However,extended work hours can become addictive andeventually take a toll. The adrenaline and caffeinethat keep many people going are unsustainableenergy sources that can lead to serious healthproblems. Working nights and weekends combined with not taking vacations increase stressover time and undermine long-term productivity.
Technologies that enable 24/7 accessibility further
erode time for self-renewal. When people are constantly available on email or by text message, stressand distractibility increase. People often turn toemail when they are overwhelmed or fatigued,
thinking that responding to messages will givethem a hit of success, but the resulting short-term

F I G U R E 3 No Time for Management

Firefighting
Individual Blame and Pressure
Length of Work Week

2VJDL'JYFT

Overload and Resulting Crises

Fundamental Solution

Managing Clear Limited Priorities
Leading Product/Process Innovation
Balancing Resources

VICIOUSCYCLES 3t Less Management Time forStrategic, Developmental,
and Early Stage Workt -FTT&GGFDUJWF(PBM4FUUJOH
and Decision-Makingt -PTU'PDVTt 1FSGPSNBODF&SPTJPOt $VTUPNFS&OUJUMFNFOU

release of dopamine in the brain provides erroneous reassurance that they are doing something
constructive. A brief break to renew and refocus
on important tasks would be more productive.
In short, when managers spend too much time
firefighting, overseeing poorly performing projects and people, doing work others should havedone right the first time, dealing with recurrent
problems, sitting in unproductive meetings, andmanaging email, they reveal how organizations
can inadvertently increase overload.

3. No Time for Management
The same managers who report spending too
much time dealing with crises also say that they
spend too little time reflecting and planning,developing people, building new business,and leading innovations in product or process
improvement, that is, on the core management
activities that offer fundamental, long-term
solutions to the overload problem.7
Indeed, the quick fixes that unintentionally increase overload also directly undermine the abilityof managers to think and act strategically (seeFigure 3).
When managers spend their time creating quick
fixes in a culture of crisis, they have little time andfew personal or organizational resources left for
strategic planning, developmental and early-stage
work, and strategy execution. Instead, they tend to:t "WPJEIBSEEFDJTJPOTBCPVUQSJPSJUJFT
t 4FUBNCJHVPVTPSDPOGMJDUJOHHPBMTt "EEPSTIJGUQSJPSJUJFTJOTUFBEPGTUBZJOHthe course or eliminating what is no longer
workingt -FUBUUFOUJPOESJGUBXBZGSPNMPOHFSUFSN
initiatives for innovating and increasingsystem efficiencyt 5PMFSBUFTMPXMZFSPEJOHQFSGPSNBODF
In this context, problems tend to be addressedwith “one-off” solutions that are difficult to integrate
into a streamlined product portfolio or process.
The result is complicated product lines, systems,

F E AT U R E | S T R O H A N D PA U L

processes, and lines of authority, which lead to still
greater inefficiencies. Meanwhile, the expectationsof the “can-do” culture make it difficult to pushback on unrealistic or ambiguous expectations,increasing the likelihood of continued overload.
This trade-off between short-term and long-term
solutions to overload is the core irony of the “cando” culture: the effort people put into fighting
overload is exactly what makes it impossible toeradicate it (see “The Ironies of a ‘Can-Do’ Culture”).

Changing Organizational Culture
The most profound and challenging task facing
leaders in overloaded organizations is to change
their underlying beliefs and expectations fromthose of a “can-do” culture to those of a “results
and renewal” culture. One way of framing thisshift is to think in terms of “achieving more bydoing less.”
Culture change begins when senior executives
or key opinion leaders acknowledge that the organization cannot continue to operate the way it
has been. They are concerned that people are too
stressed, too many tasks are falling through thecracks, credibility and collaboration are strained,
systems are broken, customers are upset, newclient opportunities are being missed … andthere is no time to resolve these issues and achieve
strategic results. The champion may be a harddriving CEO who is not getting the results hewants, a visionary leader who recognizes that therest of her organization cannot keep up with her
new ideas, or senior executives concerned about
not having enough time to drive their organization’s highest strategic priorities.

19

The Ironies of a “Can-Do” Culture
1. People do more but do not necessarily accomplish more.
2. In their efforts to cut costs, organizations incur additionaland often hidden costs.
3. Trying to make the most of existing resources, organizations drain or waste the resources they have.
4. By trying to move too quickly on too many initiatives,
organizations slow down work on their most important
projects.
5. By using time-saving devices to take advantage of
24/7 online accessibility, people have less time and areless available than ever before.
6. Rewarding firefighting leads to more fires.
7. Addiction is confused with commitment.

The most profound andchallenging task facing overloaded
organizations is to change theirunderlying beliefs and expectations from those of a “can-do”
culture to those of a “results
and renewal” culture.

The champions sense that there must be an alternative way of working that will produce better andmore lasting results. They want to understand why
priorities are not being achieved and what theyand others need to do differently. Most important, they want the organization toachieve results that will have the greatest
positive impact on customers/clients,
support staff effectiveness, and ensure
financial viability.
© iStockphoto

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To achieve these goals, we recommend thatchampions follow a four-stage change process:1. Build a foundation for change
2. Understand why you and others are notgetting the results you want
3. Make an explicit choice about a new way
of working
4. Bridge the gap between what you want andthe current situation

When people learn that continuing
to work harder and harder will
not produce a different or better
result, they realize that they havea choice and that alternative ways
of working might be moreproductive.
1. Build a Foundation for Change
The first steps in moving toward a more sustainableorganizational culture are to make the businesscase for a new way of working and to engage aleadership coalition to catalyze change.
Begin by documenting the negative consequencesof the status quo. Consider the unsustainable
costs to your organization in terms of:t *OFGGFDUJWFOFTT e.g., poor quality work, missed
deadlines, angry customers, and failure todevelop new businesst *OFGGJDJFODZ e.g., people’s lack of focus andfollow-through, frequent unproductive meetings, recurrent unresolved problems, interpersonal conflicts, the inability to update outmoded
systems and processes, health costs, lowmorale, and turnoverAt the same time, articulate the significant benefitsof change. These may include:t *NQMFNFOUBUJPOPGJNQPSUBOUQSPKFDUTNPSF
quickly and with higher qualityt *ODSFBTFESFMJBCJMJUZBOEDVTUPNFSTBUJTGBDUJPO
t 1FPQMFXIPBSFNPSF available mentally andemotionally and thus more engagedt .PSFQSPEVDUJWFDPOWFSTBUJPOTBOENFFUJOHT
resulting in more effective problem solvingt 5IFFMJNJOBUJPOPGXPSLUIBUEPFTOUBEEWBMVF
The initial leadership coalition might be the senior
management team or a group of middle managers
who recognize the need to work smarter, notharder, and can influence upward by demonstrating the benefits of a new way of working in theirown divisions. Engaging senior managers earlyin the process is vital because they are the ones
who are ultimately responsible for strategy development and embody the culture. Organizational
overload prevents them from achieving the results
they want, so they have both the most at stakeand the greatest capacity to influence change.

2. Understand Why You Are Not Getting
the Results You Want
The next step is to understand the organization’s
responsibility for the very problems it is trying tosolve. It is tempting to think that change is notpossible because market pressures and technology
are not going away. However, managers can increase organizational effectiveness and efficiency
by reducing the overload they themselves create.
The three types of vicious cycles explored in thefirst section represent composites of how organizations manufacture their own overload and crises,
but every organization has its own particular
dynamic. At one small investment bank, senior
managers were concerned about the time theyspent redoing their staff’s poor quality work because
it took valuable time away from new businessdevelopment. They learned that the source of theirproblem was ironically their own strong commitment to customer responsiveness, which meant
they frequently asked staff to drop what they were
doing in favor of more urgent tasks. This behavior
in turn led staff to produce poor quality work.
In addition to uncovering the dynamics that lockoverload in place, organizations must surface theunderlying assumptions that reinforce it. Membersof the clinical informatics group of a major hospitalF E AT U R E | S T R O H A N D PA U L

21chain discovered that their diminishing credibility
with internal customers resulted from an unquestioned commitment to the company’s “can-do”
culture. Because they believed that “being a teamplayer means always saying yes,” and “if I pushback I might lose my job,” they frequently overcommitted and under-delivered.
Identifying the dynamics and exposing theassumptions that contribute to them is bothhumbling and freeing. When people understandtheir own role in their work challenges and learn
that continuing to work harder and harder will
not produce a different or better result, they realize that they have a choice and that alternative
ways of working might be more productive.

3. Make an Explicit Choice Abouta New Way of Working
Why don’t people change? One reason is thatthe current system has payoffs, no matter how
dysfunctional its behavior appears. A systemorganized around customer responsiveness pays
off in customer enthusiasm in the short run, eventhough it tends to undermine the organization’s
ability to deliver on these commitments overthe longer term. Similarly, the ways in which anorganization responds to crises pays off in shortterm crisis resolution at the expense of more
serious problems over time.
In addition, the costs of change can be significant.
Visionary leaders may need to think strategically
about sequencing priorities over time instead offollowing each new possibility they see. A harddriving executive might need to shift her focus
from doing whatever it takes to achieve results tocreating an environment where other people in
the organization can succeed. The tough decisions
required to limit priorities can create conflict andlead people to fiercely protect themselves against
perceived losses of status and jobs.
When people recognize that there is a case for the
status quo as well as a case for change, they are
confronted with a choice. Choice is the place to
get traction in shifting what people want, how© iStockphoto

they think, and how they act. They can choose to
move toward a more sustainable way of working– and enliven it by creating a shared vision of whatthat would look like. Alternatively, they can decideto conduct business as usual, while acknowledging they have a hand in creating the way it is.

Choice is the place to get traction
in shifting what people want, how
they think, and how they act.
Many of us find altering deeply ingrained beliefs
and habits painful. Research into changing habits
shows that people must make the same choices
time and again over a prolonged period to sustain
an initial commitment to working differently.8
When the next business opportunity presents
itself, people need to pause and consider how
taking it on would affect their current priorities
as well as those of others in the organization andat home. They may need to decide whether they
can make a reliable new agreement in the faceof the ones they have already made.

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4. Bridge the Gap
When organizations make a conscious, firm
commitment to achieving sustainable productivity in service of a few meaningful results,
several strategies help move them forward:t "QQSPBDIJOEJWJEVBMPWFSMPBEQSPCMFNTsystemicallyt $PODFOUSBUFSFTPVSDFTPOBDIJFWJOHBMJNJUFE
number of priorities at any one timet 4VQQPSUQFPQMFUPNBLFDPOTDJPVTBHSFFNFOUTt $VMUJWBUFTVTUBJOBCMFPSHBOJ[BUJPOBMFOFSHZ
t *ODSFBTFFNBJMBOENFFUJOHQSPEVDUJWJUZt 3FJOGPSDFUIFiSFTVMUTBOESFOFXBMwDVMUVSF

Approach Individual Overload Problems
Systemically
As we have said, overload problems are systemic:
they are created more by complex organizational
dynamics than by the failures of individuals. Therefore, when quality suffers, deadlines are missed,and customers complain, managers must look firstfor structural inadequacies. These might include
unrealistic or ambiguous goals, unclear or conflicting roles, unwieldy processes or procedures, andinappropriate rewards. Because the root cause ofmany project shortfalls is organizational, common
solutions such as time management training andindividual coaching often miss the point and failto solve the overload problem.

Overload problems are createdmore by complex organizational
dynamics than by the failures ofindividuals.
At the same time, it is important to recognize thatorganizational dynamics affect (and are exacerbated by) some people more than others. Some
individuals tend to make unreasonable demands,
while others find it hard to keep up because ofdisorganization or family commitments. People inboth groups can benefit from coaching on how to
set clear and realistic expectations, manage timeeffectively, remain focused, become more reliable,

and stay on top of important details. Effective
coaching is best structured around a provenbehavior change process that helps people makenecessary changes in patterns of thinking aswell as action.9

Concentrate Resources on Limited Priorities
Focus is critical to achieving high performance.10
People need a clear organizational strategy that
focuses priorities and translates into a limited
number of goals at any one time. For example,
people are more productive when they workon two key projects over six months followed byanother two key projects over the next six months
than when they are responsible for four major
projects over 12 months. It is also important tocommit to developmental goals that (1) generate
new sources of revenue in a dynamic and increasingly competitive environment, (2) increase theefficient use of existing resources through streamlining organizational systems and processes, and(3) help people continuously learn and grow.
The exact number of desirable annual goals varies
depending on the organization. Following norms
established by the U.S. Marines and Hewlett Packard, Hans Schulz, the CEO of the leading industrial
coatings company Balzers, asks people to designate three “must-win battles” per year. The CEOof another large company recognized for bothoutstanding economic performance and commitment to its people expects to accomplish
one key goal every four to five years.
In the course of identifying goals, people will often
defend their own priorities out of fear of losing
jobs or status. One way to address this tendency is
to structure a sequence of priorities, with initiatives
designed to build on each other. This means thata low-priority goal today might become a higher
priority later on, and vice versa. People not involvedin current high-priority initiatives can still provide
valuable support for existing projects. However,some projects will probably be pruned in theprioritization process, and individuals need toaccept that doing so is best for the organization’s
overall health.

F E AT U R E | S T R O H A N D PA U L

Once managers establish limited goals, theymust align them with resource capacity. Doingso means developing realistic estimates based on
past experience, including all aspects of the work
(e.g., preparation and completion time, time formanaging interdependencies and allowing others
to contribute, transitions, delays, and unforeseen
circumstances) and using back-casting (i.e., planfrom the desired end point backward rather thanfrom the present forward).11 Managers should inturn reconcile these projections with a top-down
assessment of available resources to ensure that
individual estimates do not exceed organizational
capacity. Clear goals supported by appropriate
resources are crucial to achieving the “results”
in a “results and renewal” culture.

Support People to Make Conscious
Agreements

player” as committing only to what they canreliably accomplish and pushing back responsibly
and creatively when that is not the case. It is not alicense to back down from challenging tasks, butrather a new challenge to confront tasks that risktaking people off purpose.
Taking on new priorities also challenges people toweed out projects that are no longer appropriate
to their goals. Regular weeding requires the cultivation of a learning orientation and eradication

Clear goals supported byappropriate resources are crucial
to achieving the “results” in a
“results and renewal” culture.

An organization sometimes needs to shift its
priorities to accommodate changes in the external
environment. The challenge is to make this shiftconsciously, as part of a process of adaptation,rather than assuming that people can take on yet
another initiative without deferring, adjusting thescope of, or eliminating current commitments.
In practice, this means that managers whodelegate new initiatives and people who agree
to implement them are supported in making conscious agreements. One senior management teamdeveloped guidelines for making reliable agreements that meet the following criteria:t /FXSFRVFTUTBSFDMFBSJOUFSNTPGUIFJSTDPQF 
relevance, standards, roles, and timelines.
t 5IFTFSFRVFTUTBSFDPNQBUJCMFXJUIDVSSFOU
work. Resource requirements and potential
impact on existing initiatives are understoodand needs to rebalance resources acrossthese initiatives are addressed explicitly.
t "MMQBSUJFTIBWFBOPQQPSUVOJUZUPOFHPUJBUF
expectations, consider alternatives, and makedeliberate trade-offs with respect to current
commitments.
© iStockphoto

In other words, people who take on new projects
are expected to interpret “being a good team

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R E F L E C T I O N S | V O LU M E 13, N U M B E R 1of the stigma of failure that hampers many organizations.12 When managers want to disengage from
unproductive projects, they have several options:they can ask themselves if they would take on the
project if it did not already exist, they can clarify
which priorities are being under-resourced tokeep this project alive, and they can determine
if the work is a candidate for outsourcing. Each ofthese steps supports the thoughtful governanceof organizational resources.

The best way to generateorganizational energy is to connect
people with a meaningful purposeby keeping the organization’s
mission, vision, and values in theforeground.
Cultivate Sustainable Organizational Energy
Though the stimulation created by organizational
overload may be exciting, it is not sustainable. The
best way to generate organizational energy is toconnect people with a meaningful purpose bykeeping the organization’s mission, vision, andvalues in the foreground. But it is also importantto create and support programs targeted toward
renewing people’s energy on the physical, emotional, mental, and spiritual levels. In-housewellness programs and work-life balance policies
reduce health costs, increase productivity,
improve morale, and attract talent. Suchefforts have increased productivity atcompanies like Wachovia Bank, Sony
Europe, and Ernst & Young.13

thought leaders take time away from the office toabsorb employee inputs on technology and business strategy. Engineers who reduced interruptions
by establishing formal quiet times during working
hours reported a 65% increase in productivity,14
and consultants in a high-powered professional
services firm who experimented with taking one
full work day or evening off each week reported
a 10% increase in a range of performanceindicators.15

Increase Email and Meeting Productivity
Email is still the Wild West of organizational life,and most meetings waste enormous amounts oftime and energy. Organizations increase the productivity of these resources when they manage
them collectively instead of expecting people
to master them on their own.
The most significant challenge to managing
email is the organizational assumption that people
should always be available by email or text message.
Email is used indiscriminately as the dominantmode of communication when it is best suitedfor brief messages around familiar routines. Other
simple techniques for managing email include
checking it only 2-3 times daily (and after establishing your personal priorities for the day),using the Subject Line feature descriptively, andlimiting the number of emails sent. People canFormal “time-outs” to reflect and regenerate are essential elements of a “results andrenewal” culture. Sonova Group, the world
market leader in hearing aids, found that thepractice of scheduling deliberate lulls after eachof its two annual product launches increased thetimeliness and quality of the releases. Microsoft
has annual “Think Weeks” where 40 of the company’s© HemeraF E AT U R E | S T R O H A N D PA U L© Comstock

be encouraged to use face-to-face, phone, orvideoconference conversations for challenging
and nuanced communications, such as launching
projects, dealing with conflict or emotionally sensitive information, managing recurring problems,and coaching junior staff. By contrast, approaching email as primarily a technical problem to becontained by limiting personal IT capacity andcreating server space for managing shareddocuments tends to mask the cultural issues.
Similarly, meetings are often a microcosm of the
problems associated with organizational overload.
Nothing is as wasteful and frustrating as a poorly
run meeting. When people try to rush throughtoo many agenda items, they often agree to things
they have no intention of doing, which meansthat problems recur and the same issues show
up as additional agenda items again and again(a dynamic identified by our colleague Jennifer
Kemeny). On the other hand, nothing is as productive as a well-managed meeting, particularly when
it harnesses the collective intelligence of diverse
stakeholders around a complex issue.

We recommend that organizations begin byauditing these two forms of communication andexamining their purposes, including what is andisn’t working about each, and listing ways to increase their productive use. This information canbe used to develop new organizational norms andprotocols that will transform emails and meetingsfrom frustrating impediments to powerful tools.

Reinforce the “Results and Renewal” Culture
The best way to promote a “results and renewal”
culture is to run limited experiments based on thefive strategies above. At the same time, an organization must commit to achieving outstanding results by managing all of its resources, including its
people, in sustainable ways. This commitment encompasses everyone, from the most senior managers, who must be supported in developing newvalues and attitudes – or shown the door – to employees, who are encouraged to share their own
stories, aspirations, and proposals for new ways ofthinking and acting. Strengthening or redesigningunderlying processes for strategic management,
problem solving, and human resource management

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Doing Less and Achieving More: A Case StudyManagers of a leading global health care supplier
recognized the need to reduce overload and increase
throughput in the new product development processof its US consumer health care organization. Project
hit rates on milestones were running at 43%, and thecompany recognized several problematic patterns:t 1FPQMFXFSFKVHHMJOHUPPNBOZQSPKFDUT XIJDI
resulted in extensive multi-tasking, high mental
changeover costs, lack of focus on strategic work,
slow ramp-up times, and relentlessly high workloads that led to burnout.
t #FDBVTFFYQFDUBUJPOTBMXBZTFYDFFEFEDBQBDJUZ managers were continually reprioritizing projects,
something that led to chaos.
t 1FPQMFUFOEFEUPTLJQPWFSFBSMZUBTLTPOBDIFDLMJTU
under the assumption that they could easily addressthese at a later time if necessary.
t -JLFXJTF UPTBWFUJNF EFWFMPQFSTXFSFEPXO
playing the likelihood and severity of risks at the
beginning of the process, only to be surprised
and unprepared later when full-fledged crises
emerged.
t ,OPXJOHUIFZXFSFFYQFDUFEUPEPNPSFXJUIMFTT people often asked for fewer resources than they
actually needed. They also overestimated what
others could actually deliver. As a result, everyone
was overloaded, and both higher-level managers
and stakeholders in related functions were not awareof the pervasiveness and seriousness of the problem.
t .BOBHFSTPGUFOKVNQFEJOUPIFMQKVOJPSQFPQMFPO
tactical work and at the same time delegated strategic assignments, such as process improvement, tojunior people who were not equipped to manage
them. The reversal of roles frustrated both managers
and those who worked for them.
The company is in the process of making several key
changes in how it prioritizes work and allocates limited
resources:t &YJTUJOHXPSLMPBETIBWFCFFODBSFGVMMZDBMDVMBUFE 
and senior management has determined thatpeople have 60% more work than they can manage.

t 1FPQMFOPXRVFTUJPOUIFOPSNUIBUiXFIBWFTJY
top priorities – but everything must launch on time.”“Wishful thinking” is being replaced by rigorous
project assessment. Saying “no” to projects is becoming acceptable because more people understandthe problems caused by failing to balance workloadwith capacity.
t $BQBDJUZNPEFMJOHCBTFEPOSFBMJTUJDSFTPVSDFFTUJmates enables management to accurately balance
expectations with capacity. All stakeholders are asked
to estimate their own resource requirements insteadof making assumptions about what others can do.
t 1SPKFDUTBSFQSJPSJUJ[FEJOTVDIBXBZUIBUnot all
projects are put on the development list in the firstplace. Projects placed in a “parking lot” expose thegap between what people want to get done andwhat they can do, thereby signaling the level ofadditional resources required to bridge the gap.
t 5FBNTBSFEFTJHOJOHIJHIQSJPSJUZQSPKFDUTUPCF
achieved as quickly as possible using sufficient
resources. Although fewer projects than before arein the pipeline, the number of completed projects overtime is greater. This means that, instead of trying toachieve six top priority projects in 12 months, thecompany might now plan to achieve three top priority projects in six months before targeting three
more top priority projects over the next six months.
t /FXQSPKFDUTBSFOPMPOHFSJOUSPEVDFEVOUJMPME
ones are cycled out.
t "MMTUBLFIPMEFSTBDSPTTGVODUJPOT JODMVEJOHTFOJPS
managers, are involved in understanding, supporting,and acting on the capacity-modeling project.
t "OJOJUJBMSFTVMUPGUIJTDBQBDJUZNPEFMJOHQSPKFDU
is that the company is achieving more of its mostimportant work. Meetings have become more effective, because agendas now focus on what is being
accomplished instead of what is not being done
due to insufficient resources. In addition, teams are
more effectively engaged in refining the productdevelopment process and optimizing capacity
management. O

F E AT U R E | S T R O H A N D PA U L

will help shape new ways of working and makeoverload a distant memory.
“Doing Less and Achieving More: A Case Study”
tells how one global health care supplier adapted
the four-stage change process to nearly double its
project “hit rate” on milestones, improving from
43% to more than 80% of milestones completed
on time.

Improving Strategic EffectivenessOverload is a deeply embedded way of life inmany organizations and a significant obstacle tostrategic clarity and execution. It increases organizational costs, reduces speed, renders people lessavailable, and hurts performance – all in the nameof doing exactly the opposite of what is intended.
However, organizations can improve their strategic
effectiveness by looking systemically at the root
causes and negative effects of overload, explicitly
choosing to shift how they operate, and implementing strategies to move from a dysfunctional“can-do” culture to a powerful “results andrenewal” culture. The outcome will be the elimination of overload and an organization thatworks effectively, efficiently, and sustainably. O

ENDNOTES
1 Bruch, H., & Menges, J. (2010). “The Acceleration Trap,” Harvard Business Review, April issue.
2 Paul, M., & Stroh, D.P. (2006). “Managing Your Time as a Leader,” Reflections: The SoL Journal on Knowledge,
Learning, and Change, Winter issue.
3 Gottlieb, C. (1987). “You’re Probably Working Too Hard,” Fortune, April 27 issue.
4 Schwartz, T. (2010). The Way We’re Working Isn’t Working, Simon & Schuster.
5 Crenshaw, D. (2008). The Myth of Multitasking, Jossey-Bass.
6 Henderson, R. (2009). “Building Growth in Troubled Times,” presentation available at http://www.hks.harvard.
edu/m-rcbg/heep/papers/Henderson_Building_Growth_spring09.pdf.
7 Charan, R. (2006). “Conquering a Culture of Indecision,” Harvard Business Review, January issue.
8 Duhigg, C. (2012). The Power of Habit, Random House.
9 Paul, M. (2004). It’s Hard to Make a Difference When You Can’t Find Your Keys, Viking Compass.
10 Bruch, H., & Ghoshal, S. (2002). “Beware the Busy Manager,” Harvard Business Review, February issue.
11 Hirschhorn, L. (2007). “Backcasting: A Systematic Method for Creating a Picture of the Future and How
to Get There,” OD Practitioner, Fall issue.
12 Edmonson, A. (2011). “Strategies for Learning from Failure,” Harvard Business Review, April issue.
13 Schwartz, T. (2007). “Manage Your Energy, Not Your Time,” Harvard Business Review, October issue.
14 Perlow, L. (1997). Finding Time: How Corporations, Individuals and Families Can Benefit from New Work Practices,
Cornell University Press.
15 Perlow, L. (2012). Sleeping with Your Smartphone, Harvard Business Press Books.

ABOUT THE AUTHORSDavid Peter Stroh is a founder and principal of Bridgeway Partners. He was a cofounder of Innovation
Associates and a charter member of SoL.
Marilyn Paul is a founder and principal of Bridgeway Partners. She was a senior consultant with
Innovation Associates and is the author of It’s Hard to Make a Difference When You Can’t Find Your Keys
(Penguin Compass, 2004).

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CO M M E N TA R Y 13.1

Commentary
RABBI MARC BAKERM

ost of us are familiar with Aesop’s fable, The Tortoise and the Hare, which,according to at least one interpretation, teaches us that the fastest runner does
not always win the race. Likewise, in the Bible, God created the world in six days
and the Sabbath on the seventh, for even the Divine Creator needed rest and renewal.
The sages of the Jewish tradition taught: “If you take on too much, you have taken on
nothing at all.”Rabbi Marc Baker

What is it about human nature that requires our wisdom traditions to continually
bombard us with a similar message about the relationship between pace or workload
and productivity?

Surely, we know somewhere in our heads and hearts that we cannot do it all and, that at some point, there is adiminishing return to what David Peter Stroh and Marilyn Paul call our “can-do,” 24-7 culture. Yet, the fact that weknow this is precisely what makes the phenomenon of “overload” and its deleterious effects on individual andorganizational performance so ironic.
As a school leader – in an environment that can often feel akin to working in a hospital emergency room – I havefound that interventions to reduce overload require people to change their beliefs and to act in ways that arecounterintuitive for those of us in a society so focused on productivity. Making this shift is incredibly difficult.
Through their systems thinking perspective on the overload phenomenon, Stroh and Paul make the case forchange by illuminating the unintended consequences and ripple effects of taking on too much with too few
resources. They emphasize the need for us to slow down and acknowledge the costs of our learned behaviors,
which include high stress, low morale, high turnover, avoidance of hard decisions, ambiguous or conflicting
goals, and overall eroding performance.
Their “Ironies of a ‘Can-Do’ Culture” sidebar on page 19 succinctly captures the core problems with overload.
One of Miriam Webster’s definitions of irony is “incongruity between the actual result of a sequence of eventsand the normal or expected result.” Day after day, those of us who struggle with overload live with these ironies,
this incongruity, and we know it. So, why is it so hard for us to change?

Rethinking Deeply Held Beliefs
In their books How the Way We Talk Can Change the Way We Work and Immunity to Change, Robert Kegan andLisa Lahey describe how people’s “hidden immune system” fights their noble impulses to change for the better.
Underlying values and beliefs that have helped many people survive (and made some quite successful) might
actually impede growth and change. This, to me, lies at the very heart of why it is so difficult to overcome our“can-do” mentality.

C O M M E N TA R Y | B A K E R

CO M M E N TA R Y 13.1

The fear of letting people down by setting boundaries and saying no is scary. What if I set limits and people stop
trusting me, needing me, praising me for accomplishing so much? A look-over-the-shoulder mentality pervades
many workplaces where a subtle or not-so-subtle competition takes place over who works the hardest, thelongest, the craziest hours – who lives the least balanced life.
Many professional cultures reinforce the unstated beliefs thatsaying no, acknowledging limits, and prioritizing rest and life
outside of work are signs of weakness, or that renewal andsustainability are inherently conservative, passive, and growthaverse. In fact, prioritizing rest and renewal, as Stroh and Paulprescribe, takes extraordinary courage, which leaders andorganizations need to expect and celebrate. Developing aculture that is sustainable, adaptive, generative, and selfrenewing requires vision, creativity, and the capacity toinspire and motivate people.

Underlying values and beliefs
that have helped many people
survive (and made some quite
successful) might actually
impede growth and change.

Many people learn their beliefs about what it means to be productive and successful as early as elementary
school, where a “race to nowhere” culture pressures students to be what one New York Times editorial called“super people.”1 These ideas are deeply ingrained in our society and our professional culture and, for manyof us, our sense of self.
With their results and renewal model, Stroh and Paul offer an important framework for unlearning and relearning a
new set of beliefs about productivity. Just as Stephen Covey’s concept of “sharpening the saw” serves the ultimate
goal of “effective living,” results and renewal principles lead to more than healthy, fulfilling, and sustainable living
and working (because these would not be enough in our results-oriented culture!). Counterintuitively, theseprinciples make people and organizations more productive. Less is actually more, and slower is ultimately faster.

Priorities and Focus
One of the fundamental misconceptions that Stroh and Paul address is the belief that people and organizations
truly can do it all. They remind us that leaders and institutions need to make difficult, sometimes painful choices
about what we can and cannot do. Saying yes to one thing necessarily means saying no to something or someone
else, whether we want to acknowledge it or not.
I loved Stroh and Paul’s description of Hans Schulz’s approach of asking people to “designate three ‘must-win
battles’ per year.” This implies, of course, that Schulz gives implicit permission for his people to lose – or at least not
to fight – many other battles. As I understand it, the work of prioritization and focus requires at least three steps:
First, people need the permission to prioritize that Schulz gives his employees and that Stroh and Paul call for.
Second, people need clarity about what their goals and priorities are and how they align with their organization’s
goals and priorities. Third, people need to develop the discipline to stay focused on these priorities, even at
the expense of others.
In my experience, different people and different organizations will struggle with one or more of these steps atdifferent times. Some will struggle mightily with winnowing a list of 20 goals down to three. Others will have no

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CO M M E N TA R Y 13.1

trouble identifying which battles they must win but will wrestle with triaging stakeholder needs, competing
demands, or even day-to-day tasks.
I have seen firsthand how tools such as the “conscious agreements” that Stroh and Paul describe can help individuals, teams, and organizations become more reflective, explicit, and communicative about their priorities. They
also empower individuals to help themselves and to help others stay focused and follow through on their mostimportant commitments.

Teams of Learners vs. Silos of “Gofers”
Ultimately, the only way our organizations will combat overload is by strengthening people’s capacities to work
together and support each other toward a shared vision. This includes not only what we aim to produce but
also how we aim to work together.
One of the most insidious effects of overload that I have observed is its impact on teams and their capacity tocollaborate effectively. So often, when work becomes stressful and demands pile up, people hunker down andteamwork erodes. Rather than being united by the centripetal force of shared vision, values, and good agreements, people are split into silos by the centrifugal force of overload.
The results of this go beyond individual burnout and lack of personal productivity. People get lost (hopefully not
trampled) on what leadership expert Ron Heifetz refers to as the “dance floor” and can’t even locate “the balcony,”
let alone climb up to it. That is, instead of seeing the big picture, people become gofers,2 chasing after the taskof the moment and putting out fires. As this happens, they get in each other’s way, lose sight of commitments
and priorities, and damage their own trustworthiness and the overall trust in their organization.
On the contrary, in a results and renewal culture, stress and workload can actually strengthen teamwork andleadership. They create opportunities for people to improve their relationships with one another by refocusing
and doubling-down on core commitments and priorities, acknowledging fears and vulnerabilities, asking for help,
and supporting one another in reaching collective goals. Organizations that prioritize learning and renewal evenin the face of mounting pressures to produce will remain generative, creative, and forward-looking toward a
productive, successful, and sustainable future. O

ENDNOTES
1 Atlas, J. "Super People," The New York Times, October 1, 2011.
2 Stephen Covey distinguishes between “gofer” and “stewardship” in The 7 Habits of Highly Effective People,
Simon & Schuster, 1989, page 173.

ABOUT THE AUTHOR
Rabbi Marc Baker is the Head of School of Gann Academy in Waltham, Massachusetts.

F E AT U R E | S A L E S , V O G T, S I N G E R , A N D C O O P E R

F E AT U R E 13.1

From Automatic Defensive Routines
to Automatic Learning Routines
The Journey to Patient Safety

M I C H A E L S A L E S , J AY W. V O G T, S A R A J. S I N G E R , A N D J E F F R E Y B. CO O P E R

Patient safety in hospital settings is a major public health problem. Several distinctive challenges combine tocreate a high-risk environment for patients that can result in grave – and costly – personal and organizational
DPOTFRVFODFT5IFBVUIPSTIZQPUIFTJ[FUIBUEFGFOTJWFCFIBWJPSTBNPOHIPTQJUBMMFBEFST NBOBHFST BOE
staff aggravate the dangers implicit in these settings. In this article, they describe a multidimensional training program, Healthcare Adventures™, in which the exploration of so-called “automatic defensive routines”
figures as an important focus. This intervention combines a simulation of a traumatic patient safety eventwith structured reflection. Taken together, these kinds of learning opportunities support collaborative
JORVJSZBOEBQQSFDJBUJWFFOHBHFNFOU XIJDIJOUIJTDBTFDBOJNQSPWFPVUDPNFTGPSQBUJFOUT

Michael Sales

Jay W. Vogt

Sara J. Singer

Jeffrey B. Cooper

Patient safety errors in hospitals are a significant public health issue in the United States and elsewhere.
As this sampling of statistics demonstrates, the data is sobering:t "DDPSEJOHUPBTUVEZCZUIF*OTUJUVUFPG.FEJDJOF  UP EFBUITPDDVSBOOVBMMZEVF
to preventable patient safety errors.1t )FBMUI(SBEFT XIJDIEFTDSJCFTJUTFMGBTithe leading independent health care ratings company,”
believes that these numbers dramatically understate the problem, estimating that “an average of
195,000 people died” annually in the early years of the century and that the data hasn’t changed
that much since.2t )PTQJUBMBDRVJSFETUBQIJOGFDUJPOTJOSFBDIFE  SFQSFTFOUJOHBOJODSFBTFPGGSPN3t "+PIOT)PQLJOTTUVEZestimates that in the United States, surgeons leave foreign objects suchas sponges and towels inside patients’ bodies after operations a minimum of 39 times a week; performthe wrong procedure on patients 20 times a week; and operate on the wrong body site 20 times
a week. The cost of these errors is more than $1.3 billion in medical malpractice payouts, and thereporting systems to capture these events are inadequate.4

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R E F L E C T I O N S | V O LU M E 13, N U M B E R 1

Something is tragically wrong when hospitals,
which are supposed to protect the vulnerable,
all too often put them in jeopardy. Teams of professionals in other high-consequence industries,
such as commercial aviation, deliver a morereliably safe experience to consumers than hospitals.5 Why have hospitals generally been unable
to overcome safety challenges? How should training programs be designed to help address this
disturbing situation?

Something is tragically wrong
when hospitals, which are supposed
to protect the vulnerable, all too
often put them in jeopardy.
Challenges to Team Learning
Obviously, hospital executives and administrators
want patients to be safe, and they want to avoid
the pain, cost, and damaged reputation associatedwith preventable errors. However, while hospitalmanagers are well placed to improve patient

safety, they often lack the training necessary
to provide leadership in this area. Those in nonclinical roles generally have little or no patientcare experience and are not exposed to the safetyissues confronting frontline workers. Clinicians
who assume substantial administrative responsibilities spend little time in actual patient care.
They may lack familiarity with clinical roles otherthan their own. In addition, clinician-managers
may not have received management training.
Further, patient care occurs within the context
of complex business, economic, and politicalenvironments that present hospital leaders andmanagers with a wide range of competingand sometimes conflicting priorities.
Healthcare managers often work in teams.
Relative to other industries, creating a team learning approach to safety is impeded in hospitals
in several ways:t )PTQJUBMNBOBHFSTEJGGFSFOUJBUFESFTQPOTJCJMJties can prevent them from managing hospitals
as systems.
t Technically proficient healthcare professionals
aren’t trained to work together in groups or in

Photo courtesy of Center for Medical Simulation

F E AT U R E | S A L E S , V O G T, S I N G E R , A N D C O O P E R

t

t

t

t

t
t

t

t

teams. They are trained primarily to rely on
their individual expertise to prevent failures.
Differences in training and focus across disciplines often yield different perspectives andinterpretations of events, which can make itchallenging for cross-functional groups towork together.
Hospital environments are not standardized
and are not designed as systems. New ways ofworking are often added on with little thought
given to how they integrate with the rest of
the system.
The extensive clinical training of clinicianmanagers may cause them to focus more on
promoting technical remedies than on cultivating a team learning orientation.
$POWFSTFMZ CFDBVTFNBOBHFSTXIPBSFOPU
clinicians lack clinical experience, they may
believe that interventions to promote patient
safety are beyond their expertise or influence.
.FEJDJOFJTBOJOFYBDUTDJFODF BOEFWFSZ
human body is unique.
1BUJFOUTBSFTJDL BOEGBNJMJFTBSFVOEFSTUSFTT 
which adds another layer of difficulty to criticalinformation exchanges.
.BOZJOGPSNBUJPOIBOEPGGTJOIPTQJUBMTUBLF
place between people with radically different
roles and training. The lack of standardizationin these transfers often leads to communication
breakdowns.
1FSTPOOFMJOIPTQJUBMTBSFVOEFSIVHFQSFTTVSF
to produce more with fewer resources.

These factors can turn healthcare institutions into
stressful environments that incline practitioners
and work units away from personal connection
and collective reflection. People are constantly on
the move, dealing with challenging and frequently
life-threatening problems. Interactions are oftentransactional, resources and staffing are constrained,
and people are encased in disciplinary and administrative silos. These conditions are fertile groundfor defensive, competitive, impersonal relationships.
Unnoticed and untreated, such defensivenesscreates a climate that inhibits hospitals from taking
a learning stance toward the systemic causes ofpatient safety problems.

Organizational Culture and Automatic
Defensive Routines
In the early 1970s, Chris Argyris and Donald Schön
introduced the “theory of action” perspective, ananalysis of the relationship between personal values,
attitudes, and behaviors and the dynamics oforganizational culture. By rigorously observing
people in action, they demonstrated that many of
us hold erroneous assumptions about the values
and attitudes that shape our behavior. For example,
I may firmly believe that I am open and inquisitive.
However, close inspection of my behavior demonstrates that I am actually defensive, that is, closed
to being influenced. We all have “espoused theories”
regarding the principles we believe are guiding
our actions, but the “theory-in-use” that can beinferred by analyzing what we actually do often
looks quite different.

Unnoticed and untreated,defensiveness creates a climatethat inhibits hospitals from taking
a learning stance toward thesystemic causes of patient
safety problems.
In organizational settings, the gap between what
we think of ourselves and what our behavior says
about us is “undiscussable” because, as far as we’reconcerned, it does not exist. Since we share withour coworkers an unspoken agreement not toanalyze our behavior, we collude in creating anorganizational resistance to awareness.
The mismatch between our espoused theory
and our theory-in-use is heightened whenever
we experience stress. Consequently, many people
manage stressful interpersonal conditions – andprotect themselves from uncomfortable selfreflection – by:t %PNJOBUJOHDPOWFSTBUJPOTt "TTFSUJOHPQJOJPOTBTGBDUTt "DUJOHPOUIFCFMJFGUIBUUIFZLOPXXIBU
others mean without testing their perceptions

33

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R E F L E C T I O N S | V O LU M E 13, N U M B E R 1

t "MMPXJOHPUIFSTUPEPNJOBUFBOJOUFSBDUJPOt 8JUIIPMEJOHGFFMJOHTBOEQFSDFQUJPOTt %JTDPVOUJOHUIFJNQPSUBODFPGXIBUPUIFST
have to sayt 1FSTJTUFOUMZBDUJOHJOXBZTUIBUTVQQSFTTOFHBtive feelings – their own and those of others
We are seldom aware of our use of these strategies.
They happen at pre-conscious levels. For example,
a nurse is guarded as she enters an interaction
with a superior. The manager subconsciously
senses that lack of trust and responds aggressively.
The nurse in turn feels that her guardedness wasjustified, without realizing that her readiness to besuspicious influenced her manager’s behavior.

Given that we fail to notice manyof our thought processes, we tend
to act according to “automatic
defensive routines” – habitual
defensive thoughts and actions
that we don’t consciously notice.

example, research indicates that healthcare leadership teams frequently react to the challenges ofpatient safety with a “seek perfection” rather than a“seek learning” response.6 Healthcare practitioners
tend to be self-reliant by training and impose very
high standards on their own performance. This
seemingly positive approach often has unintended
negative consequences. Given a “seek perfection”
orientation, practitioners try to avoid dependency
on others, not wanting to be judged incompetent
when others make mistakes, or fearing that others
will recognize and criticize their own mistakes.
When errors inevitably occur, perfectionists tend
to hide them to avoid blame. The pursuit of perfection thus amplifies defensive routines. Practitioners learn to be more defensive rather thanmore oriented toward patient safety.

A Patient Safety Leadership Culture

A “seek learning” orientation leads to a different
set of behaviors: people ask for feedback and learn
from it, reflect together, and search for systemic
solutions. Such a learning stance reinforces behaviors that result in structured, consistent, andpersistent organizational inquiry. Drawing on theliterature on leading organizational learning, wesuggest that to create such a culture in hospitals,
leaders must:t $POUJOVPVTMZEFNPOTUSBUFUIBUUIFZiSFBMMZ
care” about patient safetyt .BOJGFTUBXFMDPNJOHBOEOPOEFGFOTJWF
attitude when engaging in conversations about
patient safetyt &ODPVSBHFFWFSZPOFJOWPMWFEJOQBUJFOUDBSF
to speak up about their concernst 'BDJMJUBUFDPNNVOJDBUJPOBCPVUQBUJFOUTBGFUZ
in both formal and informal wayst 5BLFWJTJCMFBOEUBOHJCMFBDUJPOUPFNQIBTJ[F
the importance of patient safetyt .PCJMJ[FBOEDJSDVMBUFUIFJOGPSNBUJPOUIBU
is needed to support patient safetyt 4FFLJOQVUGSPNLFZTUBLFIPMEFSTUPHFUUIF
best thinking and to win support for systemchanges that support patient well being

As noted above, healthcare management teams
are particularly vulnerable to the organizational
pathology of automatic defensive routines. That
defensiveness puts patient safety at risk. For

These leadership behaviors help to increase interpersonal and intergroup openness and inquiry
and reduce the need for people to think and act

Given that we fail to notice many of our thoughtprocesses, we tend to act according to “automatic
defensive routines” — habitual defensive thoughts
and actions that we don’t consciously notice.
When people within an organization repeat theseroutines over and over again in many different
situations, automatic defensive routines become
layered into the cultural fabric. They are produced
at every level of organizational action, from groupto team to the organization as a whole. Because
this behavior is so engrained in the organization’s
culture, over time, people stop trying to change
it. Within this kind of culture of fear and selfdeception, people learn how to get along rather
than how to discover and solve problems together.

F E AT U R E | S A L E S , V O G T, S I N G E R , A N D C O O P E R

defensively. Figure 1 shows the relationship between these leadership behaviors, team learning,and group performance.
In the next section, we describe how certain kindsof intervention can loosen the grip of automatic
defensive routines on hospital cultures.

Like the therapeutic jolt ofa defibrillator, Healthcare
Adventures is intended to jump
start safety practices in hospitalleadership teams.

Simulations to Jump Start Hospital Safety
The Healthcare Adventures™ (HCA)7 program wasdeveloped to introduce hospital management
teams to patient safety concepts, develop their
teamwork, and inspire them to bring these concepts and behaviors into their sphere of influence.
The program evolved from earlier versions developed by the Center for Medical Simulation (CMS)
and was further refined and evaluated by theauthors under a research grant from The Patrick

FIGURE 1

and Catherine Weldon Donaghue Medical
Research Foundation.8
Like the therapeutic jolt of a defibrillator, Healthcare Adventures is intended to jump start safety
practices in hospital leadership teams. It uses
various modalities – intended to engage multiple
learning styles – to shake up entrenched waysof acting and learning. An effort to soften the

The Elements of a Patient Safety Leadership Culture

Characteristics ofleadership groups

Really cares
Welcoming/
non-defensive attitude

Encourages speaking up

Facilitates communication& teamwork

Team
learning
behaviorsGroup
performance

Takes action

Mobilizes information
Practices ofleadership groups

Seeks input

The characteristics refer to a set of leadership attitudes and values. Learning-oriented leaders are
non-defensive and clearly make patient safety a top priority. One of the ways they demonstrate
their openness is by encouraging others to speak up. They are inveterate team builders, always
looking to create learning conversations. The practices refer to leader behaviors related to specificpatient safety efforts, such as supporting a programmatic innovation, gathering and circulating
information relevant to an initiative, and seeking input and support from key constituencies.

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R E F L E C T I O N S | V O LU M E 13, N U M B E R 1

dynamics of automatic defensive routines iswoven into each element of the intervention.
The Center for Medical Simulation has run thisprogram with 16 teams of hospital administrators,
leaders, and executives from several hospitals. The
teams have been composed of clinicians, non-

TABLE 1clinicians, and mixtures of the two. Team members
start off a full day of training by taking part in amoderately stressful simulation of a hospital event
highlighting patient safety. The team then uses
the “Gameplan,” a project planning methodology,
to reflect on its own behavior while improving
patient safety. Prior to the training day, teamTraining Elements and Their Impact on Automatic Defensive Routines

Training Element

Description

Impact on Automatic Defensive Routines

Pre-meeting with teamleaders and/or entire
team

A 90-minute meeting to understand issues confronted by the team and to establish a project focus
for the full-day training session

Heightens awareness of team dynamics, particularly
regarding topics that might be both important and“undiscussable,” e.g., conflicts over the priority paid
to patient safety

Training Day Element 1:
Appreciative Inquiry

A 30-minute reflection by the team on instances
when it has been successful in identifying and addressing patient safety challenges

Establishes pride among team members in theiraccomplishments, thus strengthening their ability toengage controversial issues in a respectful fashion

Training Day Element 2:
The Simulation

A 30- to 60-minute experience that provokes andreveals underlying team dynamics

Provides the facilitators with directly observabledata of the team in action that they can then use forinquiry and discussion

Training Day Element 3:
Debrief

A 60-minute discussion of what happened in thesimulation

Explores the difficulties people have in speaking up
and the challenge of mixing advocacy and inquiry.
Provides “teachable moments,” i.e., opportunities toobserve and reflect on defensiveness and openness
in real time.

Training Day Element 4:
TheoryA 30-minute presentation and discussion of thePatient Safety Leadership Culture framework(See Figure 1)

Provides a theoretical framework for recognizing theinterpersonal and leadership skills necessary to produce collective learning regarding patient safety

Training Day Element 5:
Survey results (when asurvey of leadership for
patient safety has been
conducted)

A 30-minute presentation and discussion of theresults of a unit-wide survey that reports on theperceptions that the entire organization has of theleadership team’s commitment to patient safety

Frequently provokes the complaint that thesurvey instrument was flawed, which is often
followed by an acknowledgement that theleadership team has something to learn thatmight make it uncomfortable

Training Day Element 6:
The Graphic Gameplan

A 2- to 3-hour planning process that results in ashared approach to an important patient safety initiative, focused on what leaders can do to support
its implementation. Over the course of this session,
the group fills in the elements of a Graphic Gameplan (see Figure 2) to create a visual roadmap to
guide its initiative.

Provides an opportunity to apply the lessons
learned during the activities of the day to a meaningful leadership team undertaking; specific responsibilities for taking action, mobilizing information,and seeking input related to the project areassigned to team members

Post-training day evaluations by facilitators

A brief assessment of the team’s learning during thecourse of the day leading to follow-up planning

Identifies specific competencies that the facilitators
think the team ought to concentrate on

The Booster Shot

A 2-hour discussion about the state of the team’s
project and its learning about leadership that occurs
1 to 6 months after the training day

Stimulates team members to remember what theylearned and to hone the behaviors with which
they’ve been experimenting

F E AT U R E | S A L E S , V O G T, S I N G E R , A N D C O O P E R

FIGURE 2

The Healthcare Adventures Graphic Gameplan

Using the Graphic Gameplan, a leadership team envisions the flow of a patient safety improvement initiativefrom start to finish in a way that points out the specific steps needed to achieve the desired outcomes.

leaders or the entire team meet to learn about
the general nature of the training and discuss
the team’s needs and goals. The training day isfollowed by a “Booster Shot” at some later time tocheck in on the team’s learning and its progress.
The simulation begins when a member of the
CMS instructor team enters the room in a labcoat or scrubs. Employing some form of theatrical
deception (e.g., “I’d like to take you on a tour of thehospital we just acquired”), the instructor invites
participants to join him or her in a learning experience. The participants expect to engage in asimulation, but they don’t know the details. They
then leave the training room and enter a simulated hospital space.

given enough training to take on the roles
they are asked to play.
t 1BSUJDJQBOUTBTTVNFSPMFTJOXIJDIUIFZBSFUIF
leadership team of a large, prestigious hospitalthat is visiting the emergency room of a smaller,
less well-run facility it has just acquired. The
emergency room has patients in two beds.
The husband of one of the patients (both thehusband and the patient work for CMS) inadvertently – and inappropriately – makes avideo recording of a physician and a nurse(also actors) as they make a series of errors withanother patient (a mannequin) in the neighboring bed. The participants in this simulation
are typically clinicians asked to perform amanagerial function.

CMS has used two simulations in the Healthcare
program:t 1BSUJDJQBOUTBTTVNFSPMFTJOXIJDIUIFZBTTJTUB
surgeon (a trained actor on the CMS staff ) who
discovers – unhappily – that he or she has operated on the wrong knee of an elderly patient.
The members of the teams that engage in thissimulation are typically non-clinicians who are

Both simulations last about 30 minutes. In thefirst case, the surgeon is enraged that the mistakehas been made and harangues others for causing
the problem. As a result, the surgeon pushes foractions that may be ethically questionable. Do
any members of the participant team speak up
as advocates for the patient and her family? In thesecond case, after the emergency room scenario,

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R E F L E C T I O N S | V O LU M E 13, N U M B E R 1

the team receives an urgent request from thepresident of the acquired hospital to help respondto the anticipated avalanche of negative publicity
resulting from the threatened release of the video
to the media. The team is given 30 minutes todevelop a plan.
Both simulations provide an opportunity forthe training group and the facilitators to observe
the team’s dynamics. These reflections typically
include discussion of automatic defensive
routines, their repercussions, and ways thatpeople might act differently.
Learning activities are organized around the simulation, each of which reinforces the messaging on
automatic defensive routines. Table 1 (p. 36) describes each component of the training programand its impact on automatic defensive routines.

The team dynamics made visible inthe simulation provide observabledata for conversation andreflection during the remainderof the training day.
An Illustrative Vignette
The team dynamics made visible in the simulation
provide observable data for conversation andreflection during the remainder of the training
day. The group looks at the presence or absenceof four critical leadership team characteristics
regarding safety: “Really cares about patient
safety,” “Encourages speaking up,” “Is welcoming
and non-defensive,” and “Facilitates communication and teamwork.” Each of these behaviors is
an antidote to automatic defensive routines. The
facilitators heighten participants’ awareness of the
behaviors and mental models that contribute to
defensiveness and poor communication aroundpatient safety, and those that lead to collective
learning and improved performance.

In the following example from a Debrief, we seea group that participated in the emergency room
scenario discussing the observation that one
or two team members did most of the talking
during the event:
Facilitator [to a female participant who is anurse]: “At the beginning of the ER simulation,
you said something about the presence of thevideo camera. Your team leader [a renowned
male physician] immediately said, ‘Is his using
the camera a problem? Maybe it is a bonus tohave the recording going on.’ What did you
feel when he said that?”
Participant, with emotion: “My feeling was
my statement wasn’t valued. I recognized his
point, but my thought was that there weremajor HIPAA things going on here [HIPAA isan acronym for the Health Insurance Portability
and Accountability Act, which protects personal health information]. It made me feel
downtrodden.”
Facilitator: “This was the first place where that
opening to discuss possible HIPAA violations
appeared, and we never found more about
your concerns because of that exchange.”
The physician who had interrupted hercomments, clearly regretting his action:“What happens is you lose track of the problem. Somewhere you have to record it so you
go back to it. It wasn’t the camera, it was the
HIPAA issue we have to address. But we didn’t
get to that because of the way I responded
to her.”A nurse educator, who had also moved
the group’s attention away from the HIPPA
comment: “I feel like I devalued what she said,
and I did it consciously. I was like ‘We have ahuge issue here [with another aspect of what
was going on in the simulation]!’ So I wanted tochange the subject. I felt I was totally clamping
you down. I knew I was doing that. Should I
have gone back later on and undid that?”

F E AT U R E | S A L E S , V O G T, S I N G E R , A N D C O O P E R

39Another participant: “I felt like I didn’t havea lot to say because the overarching issue wasthis guy in the other bed was going to die. I’musually the one that brings up the underlying
personal issues, but I thought that we had amore important issue: the condition of thatpatient. Those clinical things are easier to deal
with because they are what we do. That’s easierthan working through the human affect stuff.”
The nurse who had raised the HIPAA concern:“But we look to you for that! That is your areaof expertise. There are times I really wish you
would speak! There are times people are thinking it and not saying it [a lot of emotion inher voice].”

Here, an internationally respected surgeon at
the top of his field, who is very assertive andproud of being “right,” publicly acknowledges
that his behavior prevented a subordinate fromspeaking up. A nurse confronts a colleague about
her not speaking up. A director of nursing reflects
on people’s tendency to avoid conflict by not
speaking up. During the Appreciative Inquiry
exercise at the beginning of the training day, themembers of this team expressed pride at theirpatient safety accomplishments. But at thismoment in the training, they all opened up toa deeper level of reflection on the limits of theirteam dynamics, which did not conform to theirmore polished story of themselves. This openness
later paid off in an energetic and comprehensive
discussion by the team of an important patient
safety project during the Gameplan module. At
the close of the day, the nurse who raised the
HIPAA issue described the impact of the training as “reminding us of the importance of being
respectful to one another and using inquiry tosolicit other people’s opinions.”© Stockbyte

The unit’s director of nursing: “Conflict avoidance is inherent in most of us. It is, ‘what is yourthreshold? What is going to push you to thepoint to say something?’”

Without a focus on overcoming
automatic defensive routines,
most hospital teams will act
more defensively than theyrealize and than their patientswould want.
Collective Learning
Healthcare Adventures™ aims for an ambitious
result: to make automatic defensive routines visible, to reduce the inclination of participants to
use them, and to point them toward automaticlearning routines, like speaking up about patient
safety. Chris Argyris and his collaborators havedemonstrated that defensive routines cannot beeasily “unlearned.” Because they are habits of selfprotection that individuals and groups automatically use when they feel threatened, they usuallyoperate below conscious attention. Even when
we are conscious of them, we find it challenging
to pause and say things to ourselves like, “Hmm,I should listen more closely to what this other40

R E F L E C T I O N S | V O LU M E 13, N U M B E R 1

spoke up (over multiple interruptions) and said,“What just happened in the simulation isn’t
that unusual. You know, I’m a trained facilitator
who has the ability to help this group complete
its tasks. But, I don’t feel empowered in thisgroup. I feel like I defer to people who are more
influential and have higher rank, and as a result,
I’m not well used by the group, and the group
isn’t taking advantage of my expertise.” You
could have heard a pin drop when this professional said something that had been on her
mind for a long time.

© Photos.com

person is saying. I know I don’t like him or his wayof thinking, but maybe there’s something there.”
Most of us require time and effort to learn to concentrate in this way. It is presumptuous to believethat a single training program, no matter how
effective, can lead to the permanent transformation of defensive routines into ones that promotecollective learning. But we can be sure that, without a focus on overcoming automatic defensive
routines, most hospital teams will act more defensively than they realize and than their patientswould want.
Programs like Healthcare Adventures create anenvironment where the members of a team cancelebrate their achievements and learn about
themselves individually and collectively in a waythat promotes non-defensive values, attitudes,
and behaviors. Sometimes this shift is dramatic:t 0OFHSPVQEJEOPUGJOJTIUIFUBTLPGQSFQBSJOH
an action plan for the CEO after members
visited the emergency department. When thefacilitator pointed this out, they reacted defensively. Suddenly, one member of the group

In other instances, the impact is more subtle:t 5IFOVSTJOHEJSFDUPSPGBHSPVQBDLOPXMFEHFE
how defensiveness among the managers had
caused his staff to stop offering suggestions.
Describing the previous week, he said, ‘‘We had
a new staff person who joined medical services.
After offering new ideas, he said ‘I’m not goingto do this anymore because everyone gets
defensive and shuts down.’’’ This remark led
to extensive discussion about what it would
take to be truly welcoming of input regarding
patient safety.
t "TBSFTVMUPGUIFUSBJOJOH DVMUVSFTIJGUT)FSFT
a report from a “Booster Shot” meeting: ‘‘We say‘Let me see what we can do to help.’ We’re doing
more of this now than before. People are seeing
us more for that and coming to us with questions. I see people going above and beyond
to help people.’’t "MFBEFSPGPOFHSPVQEFTDSJCFEVTJOHBMFTTPO
from the training program to promote speaking up: “If it’s the right thing to do, you needto speak up. . . . I’ve used that example [fromthe training program exercise] so many times
to explain to people the organization chart
doesn’t matter. I have some responsibility forpatient safety just by being physically present.”
The Healthcare Adventures program is designed
to soften automatic defensive routines by turning
hospital leadership teams toward reflection andinquiry. Research by Singer and colleagues tracked
qualitative data on 12 of the teams that haveexperienced this training, identifying the charac-

F E AT U R E | S A L E S , V O G T, S I N G E R , A N D C O O P E R

teristics of high performers, i.e., those teams thatused the program to deep advantage. She has
found that high-performing teams come primed
to learn from their experiences and make time toconfer with each other in a structured and persistent fashion. Low-performing groups tend not toengage in reflection and don’t characterize theirteam as one where people appreciate and respect
each other. Yet, this kind of training prompts leaders even in the low-performing teams to reflect
together in real time. Therefore, all teams use theirreflections to some extent to discuss how their
particular constellation of beliefs and behaviors
affects the quality of their leadership, and ultimately, patient safety.
In high-performing teams, the training processintensifies leaders’ interest in listening to others
in order to learn. In low-performing teams, it
opens the door to the sort of conversations thatthe team has been avoiding. In mid-range teams,
it shows what the results of greater awareness andopenness culture could be. For all teams, however,training like that provided by Healthcare Adventures provides tools that participants can use topromote patient safety. While not every healthcare leadership team will want to have in-depth
and non-defensive conversations about patient
safety, most of us want to be treated in hospitals
by teams that do. O

While not every healthcare
leadership team will want to havein-depth and non-defensive
conversations about patient safety,
most of us want to be treated in
hospitals by teams that do.

ENDNOTES
1 Institute of Medicine. (1999). To Err is Human. https://www.premierinc.com/safety/topics/patient_safety/index_1.jsp
2 Medical News Today. (2004). “In-Hospital Deaths from Medical Errors at 195,000 per Year in USA,” August 9.
3 Klein, E., Smith D., & Laxminarayan, R. (2007). “Hospitalizations and Deaths Caused by Methicillin-Resistant
Staphylococcus aureus, United States, 1999-2005,” Center for Disease Control and Prevention, Emerging Infectious
Diseases, 13:12 (December).
4 McKary, M. et al. (2012). “‘Never Events’ Occur at Least 4,000 Times per Year,” Johns Hopkins Medicine News andPublications, December 19.
5 Mouawad, J. & Drew, C. (2013). “Airline Industry at Its Safest Since the Dawn of the Jet Age,” New York Times,
February 11. See: http://www.nytimes.com/2013/02/12/business/2012-was-the-safest-year-for-airlines-globallysince-1945.html?_r=0
6 Reason, J. (2000). “Human error: models and management,” BMJ, 320(7237), 768–770.
7 Healthcare Adventures is a trademark of the Center for Medical Simulation, a 501(c)3, non-profit researchand training organization located in Charlestown, MA: www.harvardmedsim.org
8 The Donaghue Foundation is a charitable trust based in Connecticut that provides grants for medical
research of practical benefit: www.Donaghue.org

REFERENCES
Ancona, D. G., & Caldwell, D. F. (1992). “Demography and Design: Predictors of New Product Team Performance,”
Organization Science, 3(3), 321–341.
Argyris, C. (1990). Overcoming Organizational Defenses: Facilitating Organizational Learning. Prentice-Hall.
Argyris, C., & Schön, D. (1978). Organizational Learning: A Theory of Action Perspective. Addison-Wesley.
Bradley, E., Holmboe, E., Mattera, J., Roumanis, S., Radford, M., & Krumholz, H. (2003). “The Roles of Senior
Management in Quality Improvement Efforts: What Are the Key Components?” Journal of Healthcare Management
48(1): 15–29.

41

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R E F L E C T I O N S | V O LU M E 13, N U M B E R 1

Cooper, J.B et al. (2011). “Design and evaluation of simulation scenarios for a program introducing patient safety,
teamwork, safety leadership, and simulation to healthcare leaders and managers,” Simulation in Healthcare: Journalof the Society for Simulation in Healthcare, 6(4): 231-8.
Edmondson, A. (1999). “Psychological Safety and Learning Behavior in Work Teams,” Administrative Science Quarterly,
44(2), 350–383.
Edmondson, A., Bohmer, R., & Pisano, G. (2001). “Becoming a Learning Leader,” Harvard Business Review, 79(9), 132.
Shortell, S. and Singer, S. (2008). “Improving Patient Safety by Taking Systems Seriously,” JAMA 299(4): 445-47.
Singer, S. J., Hayes, J., Gray, G., & Kiang, M. (2012). “Making Time for Collective Learning in Multidisciplinary HospitalManagement Groups,” Presentation to the AcademyHealth 2012 Annual Research Meeting, Orlando, FL, June 26.
Singer, S. J., Hayes, J., Cooper, J. B., Vogt, J. W., Sales, M., Aristidou, A., Garry G.C., Kiang, M.V., & Meyer, G.S. (2011). “A
Case for Safety Leadership Team Training of Hospital Managers,” Health Care Management Review, 36(2), 188–200.

ABOUT THE AUTHORS
Michael Sales, EdD, is principal, Art of the Future, Newburyport, Massachusetts.
Jay W. Vogt, MEd, is principal, Peoplesworth, Concord, Massachusetts.
Sara J. Singer, MBA, PhD, is assistant professor of Health Care Policy and Management, Harvard Schoolof Public Health and Harvard Medical School/Massachusetts General Hospital, Boston, Massachusetts.
Jeffrey B. Cooper, PhD, is professor of Anesthesia, Harvard Medical School, Department of Anesthesia,
Critical Care and Pain Medicine, Massachusetts General Hospital, Boston; and executive director of theCenter for Medical Simulation, Boston, Massachusetts.
The authors acknowledge that the program described in this report is offered for a fee as a program of
the Center for Medical Simulation, Boston, MA, from which Dr. Cooper receives salary compensation and
Dr. Sales and Mr. Vogt are remunerated as consultants. Research on the Healthcare Adventures Program
was supported in part by a grant from the Patrick and Catherine Weldon Donaghue Medical Research
Foundation via a grant to the Massachusetts General Hospital.

BOOK EXCERPT | EDMONDSON43

BOOK EXCERPT 13.1

Teaming Is a Verb
AMY C. EDMONDSON
Organizations thrive, or fail to thrive, based on how well the small groups within them function. In most organizations,the pace of change and the fluidity of work structures mean that success no longer comes from creating effective teams
but instead from leading effective teaming. Teaming occurs when people come together to combine and apply theirexpertise to perform complex tasks or develop solutions to novel problems. Fast-moving work environments needpeople who have the skills and the flexibility to act in moments of potential collaboration when and where they appear;that is, people who know how to team. As summarized in this excerpt from Teaming: How Organizations Learn, Innovate,
and Compete in the Knowledge Economy, four behaviors – speaking up, collaboration, experimentation, and reflection –are the pillars of effective teaming.

S

ports teams and musicalgroups are both bounded,static collections of individuals. Like most work teams in
the past, they are physicallyAnn McGee-Cooper
located in the same place
while practicing or performing
together. Members of these
Amy C. Edmondson
teams learn how to interact.
They’ve developed trust and know each other’s roles.
Advocating stable boundaries, well-designed tasks, andthoughtfully composed membership, many seminal
theories of organizational effectiveness explained
how to design and manage just these types of static
performance teams.1
Harvard psychologist Richard Hackman, a preeminent
scholar of team effectiveness, established the powerof team structures in enabling team performance.
According to this influential perspective, well-designed
teams are those with clear goals, well-thought-out tasks
that are conducive to teamwork, team members withthe right skills and experiences for the task, adequate
resources, and access to coaching and support. Get theright design, the theory says, and the performance will

Adapted from
Teaming: How
Organizations Learn,Innovate, and Compete
in the Knowledge
EconomyAmy C. Edmondson
John Wiley & Sons, Inc.
2012
Reprinted with permissionof the publisher.

take care of itself. This model focused on the team as anentity, looking largely within the well-defined boundsof a team to explain its performance. Other research,
notably conducted by MIT professor Deborah Ancona,
showed that how much a team’s members interact withpeople outside the team boundaries was also an important factor in team performance.2 Both perspectives
worked well in guiding the design and managementof effective teams, at least in contexts where managers

44

R E F L E C T I O N S | V O LU M E 13, N U M B E R 1

had the lead time and the run time to invest incomposing stable, well-designed teams.
In these prior treatments, team is a noun. A team isan established, fixed group of people cooperating inpursuit of a common goal. But what if a team disbands
almost as quickly as it was assembled? For example,
what if you work in an emergency services facility
where the staffing changes every shift, and the teamchanges completely for every case or client? What if
you’re a member of a temporary project team formed
to solve a unique production problem? Or you’re partof a group of managers with a mix of individual andshared responsibilities? How do you create synergy
when you lack the advantages offered by the frequent
drilling and practice sessions of static performanceteams like those in sports and music?
The answer lies in teaming.
Teaming is a verb. It is a dynamic activity, not abounded, static entity. It is largely determined by themindset and practices of teamwork, not by the designand structures of effective teams. Teaming is teamworkon the fly. It involves coordinating and collaborating
without the benefit of stable team structures, because
many operations, such as hospitals, power plants, andmilitary installations, require a level of staffing flexibility
that makes stable team composition rare.3 In a growing
number of organizations, the constantly shifting nature

Fast-moving work environments
need people who know how toteam, people who have the skills
and the flexibility to act in momentsof potential collaboration when
and where they appear.

of work means that many teams disband almost
as soon as they are formed. You could be working on
one team right now, but in a few days, or even a few
minutes, you may be on another team.
Fast-moving work environments need people whoknow how to team, people who have the skills and theflexibility to act in moments of potential collaboration
when and where they appear. They must have theability to move on, ready for the next such moments.
Teaming still relies on old-fashioned teamwork skills
such as recognizing and clarifying interdependence,
establishing trust, and figuring out how to coordinate.
But there usually isn’t time to build a foundation of familiarity through the careful sharing of personal history
and prior experience, nor is there time for developing
shared experiences through practice working together.
Instead, people need to develop and use new capabilities
for sharing crucial knowledge quickly. They must learn
to ask questions clearly and frequently. They must makethe small adjustments through which different skills
and knowledge are woven together into timely
products and services.
Why should managers care about teaming? The answer
is simple. Teaming is the engine of organizational learning.4 By now, everyone knows that organizations needto learn – to thrive in a world of continuous change. But
how organizations learn is not as well understood. . . .
[O]rganizations are complex entities; many are globally
distributed, most encompass multiple areas of expertise, and nearly all engage in a variety of activities. What
does it mean for such a complex entity to “learn”? An
organization cannot engage in a learning process in any
meaningful sense – not in the way an individual can.
Yet, when individuals learn, this does not always createchange in the ways the organization delivers products
and services to customers. This is a conundrum that haslong fascinated academics. . . .

BOOK EXCERPT | EDMONDSON

Four Pillars of Effective Teaming
Teaming occurs when people apply and combine theirexpertise to perform complex tasks or develop solutions
to novel problems. Often a fluid process, teaming may
involve performing with others, disbanding, and joining
another group right away. An episode of teaming ends
once some or all of the work is complete, but teaming
as a mindset – and approach to work – can continue
indefinitely. Teaming is normal in the “temporary organizations” that characterize creative endeavors such as
making a film, or in the coordination of complex events,
such as producing a professional conference. In such
efforts, a mix of planned and spontaneous coordination
often brings multiple players together to team.
Proficient teaming often requires integrating perspectives from a range of disciplines, communicating
despite the different mental models that accompany
different areas of expertise, and being able to manage
the inevitable conflicts that arise when people work
together. Fundamentally, this is a matter of developing
interpersonal skills related to learning (inquiry, curiosity,
listening) and teaching (communicating, connecting,

FIGURE 1

Teaming
Teaming mindset adopted

Reflection/Feedback

Interdependent action unfolds

Coordination of steps & hands-off

Individuals communicate

Recognize need for teaming

clarifying). Teaming is thus both a mindset that accepts
working together actively and a set of behaviors tailoredto sharing and synthesizing knowledge (see Figure 1).
Sometimes teaming requires coordinating across distant locations, which both increases the potential for
miscommunication and gives rise to new opportunities
for innovation. One chemical company I studied used

Teaming is both a mindset that
accepts working together actively
and a set of behaviors tailoredto sharing and synthesizing
knowledge.
globally dispersed teams to innovate, overcoming
various communication barriers to develop new products and processes that offered wider commercial value
than those that could be developed in a single location.
Whether face-to-face or mediated by communication
technologies, successful teaming involves the four
specific behaviors listed in “Behaviors Driving Teaming
Success” on page 46.

Speaking Up
Candid communication allows teams to incorporate
multiple perspectives and tap into individual knowledge.
This includes asking questions; seeking feedback; talking about errors; asking for help; offering suggestions;and discussing problems, mistakes, and concerns.
Speaking up is particularly crucial when confronting
problems or failures of any kind. When people are willing to engage with each other directly and openly, they
are better able to make sense of the larger shared workand more likely to generate ideas for improving work
processes. Speaking up in this context refers to aninterpersonal behavior that allows the developmentof shared insights from open conversation. It is essential for determining appropriate courses of action in

45

46

R E F L E C T I O N S | V O LU M E 13, N U M B E R 1

Behaviors Driving Teaming
Success
Speaking Up: Teaming depends on honest,
direct conversation between individuals, including asking questions, seeking feedback,and discussing errors.
Collaboration: Teaming requires a collaborative mindset and behaviors – both within andoutside a given unit of teaming – to drive theprocess.
Experimentation: Teaming involves a tentative, iterative approach to action that recognizes the novelty and uncertainty inherent inevery interaction between individuals.
Reflection: Teaming relies on the use of explicit
observations, questions, and discussions of processes and outcomes. This must happen on aconsistent basis that reflects the rhythm of thework, whether that calls for daily, weekly, orother project-specific timing.

between departments or organizations. Clearly, without
collaboration, teaming easily breaks down. Plans areless well informed, and the execution of plans suffers. . . .
A collaborative attitude is also essential to sharedreflection that may occur following coordinated action,
because it allows full and thoughtful sharing of expertise and promotes the development of broader anddeeper lessons from any experience. Imagine a productdevelopment team that doesn’t collaborate with themarketing group and thereby fails to incorporate
vital customer preferences or feedback!

Experimentation
Experimentation means expecting not to be rightthe first time. Borrowed from the literal experimentsof scientists, experimentation behavior is a way of acting that centrally involves learning from the results ofaction. In teaming, experimentation behavior involves
reaching out to others to assess the impact of one’s
actions on them, and also testing the implications of
one’s ideas with respect to what others are thinking.
Experimentation is a vital aspect of teaming becauseof the uncertainty inherent in interdependent action.
It’s also a crucial part of learning . . . .

Reflection
any teaming encounter. Speaking up is also essential
for helping people grasp new concepts and methods.
Conversing about experiences, insights, and questions
builds understanding of new practices and how to perform them. Although many people think of themselves
as direct and straightforward, speaking up in theworkplace is less common than you might think.

Collaboration
Collaboration is a way of working with colleagues thatis characterized by cooperation, mutual respect, andshared goals. It involves sharing information, coordinating actions, discussing what’s working and what’s not,and perpetually seeking input and feedback. Teaming depends on collaborative behaviors within and

Reflection is the habit of critically examining the resultsof actions to assess results and uncover new ideas.
Some teams engage in reflection on a daily basis. Othersreflect at a natural break in the project, such as at halftime for sports teams, or when documenting aspectsof a patient’s care in a chart after a medical visit. Project
teams may explicitly engage in a reflection exercise
only when a project is completed. The “after action
reviews” conducted by the U.S. Army following military
exercises are explicit reflection sessions that use arigorous structured approach to assess what occurredagainst what was planned or expected. Reflection does
not necessarily mean extensive sessions to thoroughly
analyze team process or performance, but rather isoften quick and pragmatic. Reflection-in-action, for ex-

BOOK EXCERPT | EDMONDSON

ample, is the critical, real-time examination of a process
so it can be adjusted based on new knowledge or, more
often, in response to subtle feedback received from thework itself.5 Reflection as a basis for effective teaming
is more a behavioral tendency than a formal process.
In one study of surgical teams, for example, I found nodifferences in outcomes for teams with formal reflection
sessions, compared to those without such sessions; theteams that succeeded were those that were constantly
reflecting aloud on what they were observing andthinking, as a way of figuring out how to work together
more effectively.6 For some types of teams, however,it may be more appropriate to wait for outcomes to beavailable before stopping to reflect on team process,in which case a more structured approach, such asa formal project review, is extremely valuable.

These four behaviors are the pillars of effective teaming.
The challenges encountered on the factory floor, in theoperating room, and around the glass-topped tables incorporate conference rooms differ significantly in lookand feel, as well as in the nature of the work. Yet speaking up, collaboration, experimentation, and reflection
are crucial behaviors across these disparate settings.
In all of them, leaders who themselves embrace thesebehaviors make it easier for others to act in ways that
support teaming. In addition to these behavioral tendencies, however, leaders must also understand the cyclical,
recursive nature of the actual teaming process. O

ENDNOTES
1 For example, Professor Richard Hackman of Harvard maintains that a bounded, stable team membership is one of thehallmarks of effective teams. See J. R. Hackman, Leading Teams (Boston: Harvard Business School Press, 2002); J. R. Hackman,(ed.), Groups That Work (and Those That Don’t) (San Francisco: Jossey-Bass, 1990); J. R. Hackman, “The Design of Work Teams,”
in Handbook of Organizational Behavior, ed. J. Lorsch (Englewood Cliffs, NJ: Prentice Hall, 1987). See also J. McGrath, Groups:
Interaction and Performance (Englewood Cliffs, NJ: Prentice Hall College Division, 1984).
2 See especially D. G. Ancona and D. F. Caldwell, “Bridging the Boundary: External Activity and Performance in Organizational
Teams,” Administrative Science Quarterly 37 (1992): 634–655.
3 See, for example, A. C. Edmondson and I. Nembhard, “Product Development and Learning in Project Teams: The Challenges
Are the Benefits,” Journal of Product Innovation Management 26, no. 2 (March 2009): 128–138; and M. B. O’Leary, M. Mortensen,
and A. W. Woolley, “Multiple Team Membership: A Theoretical Model of Productivity and Learning Effects for Individuals andTeams,” Academy of Management Review 36, no. 3 (2011): 461–478.
4 A. C. Edmondson, “The Local and Variegated Nature of Learning in Organizations: A Group-Level Perspective,” Organization
Science 13, no. 2 (2002): 128–146.
5 D. Schön, The Reflective Practitioner (New York: Basic Books, 1983).
6 A. C. Edmondson, R. Bohmer, and G. P. Pisano, “Disrupted Routines: Team Learning and New Technology Adaptation,”
Administrative Science Quarterly 46 (2001): 685–716.

ABOUT THE AUTHOR
Amy C. Edmondson is the Novartis Professor of Leadership and Management of the Harvard Business School,
where she teaches courses in leadership, organizational learning, and operations management in the MBA
and Executive Education programs.

47

Reflections
The SoL Journal

on Knowledge, Learning, and Change
Volume 13, Number 1

EDITORIAL TEAMManaging Editor
Janice Molloy
Contributing Editor
Deborah Wallace
PublisherFrank Schneider

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