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Thread on Team Learning -Chapter 9 Fifth Discipline by @petersenge 1. Aligned teams waste less energy, have commonality of purpose & shared vision & understand how to complement each other’s efforts. Shared vision -> extension of personal vision. Alignment = necessary condition.
3. Teams need to think insightfully about complex issues. Just because individuals learn, doesn’t mean the team is learning. Teams must learn how to tap into potential for many minds to be more intelligent, together, than one. Then need innovative, coordinated action.
4.Most team actions are carried out through other teams. So a learning team fosters learning in other teams too. Discipline of team learning involves mastery of discussion (different views presented/defended) & dialogue (free/creative exploration of complex issues/deep listening)
5. Team learning involves dealing with forces opposing dialogue & discussion - ‘defensive routines’ - habitual interactions protect from threat but inhibit learning. Faced with conflict team members often either ‘smooth over’ or ‘speak out’. This energy could focus on learning.
6. Teams learn through iterative practice & performance. Need to practice & perform discussion and dialogue. Collectively we are more intelligent/insightful than we can ever be individually. Thought=a systemic phenomenon arising from how we interact/discourse with one another
7. Discussion is like ping-pong. One side wins. Dialogue (from the Greek)=through the word/meaning. In dialogue team accesses larger pool of common meaning inaccessible individually. Purpose is to go beyond individual understanding, reveal incoherence of thought > everyone wins.
8. In dialogue people become observers of their own thinking. 3 conditions(Bohn): partipants suspend their assumptions; participants see each other as colleagues; facilitation. Dialogue can be playful - new actions can emerge as a result. Actions are the focus of discussion.
9. Regular dialogue leads to deep trust that cannot help but carry over into discussions. Team members develop a rich understanding of the uniqueness of each person’s point of view. Dialogue is a team discipline.
10. Great teams are not characterised by an absence of conflict - it becomes productive. In mediocre ‘smooth surface’ teams people suppress conflict. In polarised teams conflict is entrenched > no movement. Defensive routines are undiscussable, retain power & prevent learning.
11. If we perceive a defensive routine, we are probably part of it. A skilful manager confronts defensiveness without producing more defensiveness, by self-disclosure, by inquiring into their own defensiveness, through reflection & mutual inquiry.
12. Shared vision essential + ruthless commitment to telling truth about current reality. Team learning & building shared vision=sister disciplines that combine to build creative tension. Useful skill = recognising when reflection/inquiry/exposure of thinking aren’t happening
13. To see reality more clearly we must also recognise our strategies for obscuring reality. Team learning is a team skill. Learning teams learn how to learn together. Teams must learn how to practice eg dialogue. Basic conditions for a dialogue practice sessions are:
14. Team members get together; set ground rules for dialogue; enforce ground rules so team recognises when it’s discussing not dialogue-ing; encourage team members to raise difficult, conflicting issues essential to the team’s work.
15. Ground rules: Suspend assumptions; act as colleagues i.e. no hierarchy; establish a spirit of inquiry. Ask: What makes you say that? What leads you to believe this?
16. We see the world in simple terms & look for simple solutions. This leads to a frenzied search for quick fixes. Find & fix >>> short-termism. The problems keep returning. Systems thinking (archetypes - appendix 2 in the book) provides a language to help teams tackle complexity
Team Learning Chapter 9. If you want to read the thread as one text reply @threadreaderapp with keyword *unroll* and you’ll get a link. 
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