And the more deeply committed you are to your project, the more you will learn because you will be motivated to risk gaining new experience from which you can learn. Organizing is also theory. Theory is a way to simplify reality more or less useful for specific purposes, such as predicting a likely outcome. Learning what we can learn from our experience requires the discipline to place it in perspective, compare it with that of others, and reflect on it analytically. These may be assumptions that serve you perfectly well in your private life, but may not work as well in the public work of organizing.
Schemata enable and constrain.
They enable us to make sense of things, generalize, make choices, draw conclusions, and act. But, as stereotypes, they can inhibit our clarity of perception, cause us to see what we expect to see, and make it difficult for us to learn. To facilitate our discussions I use charts because we are learning about social processes often more easily visualized than verbalized. The four basic patterns embedded in these charts are those that depict relationship, purpose, feedback-loops, and focus. Relational charts depict interactions, balances, and exchanges among parties fundamental to organizing.