Image Source: https://dzone.com/articles/monitoring-real-time-uber-data-using-apache-apis-p

Last Leaders Ready Now (#18) we opened the "big idea" of communal learning and as we explore the mastery of building learning infrastructures, we continue this issue with team learning.

TRANSFORMATIONAL CHANGE:
LEADING TEAM LEARNING THROUGH DIALOGUE

“When you change the way you look at things, the things you look at change.”
(Max Planck, Physicist and originator of quantum theories)

Team transformation means going someplace very new where learning is deep, welcome, immersive, inclusive, uncomfortable and always grounded in changing individual and team mindset and behavior. This is essential for teams to flourish as communities.

Are the teams in your organization really authentic communities?

Imagine...a culture where every team nested within that organization has a deep understanding of our three core values: honor, courage, and commitment and a vision of personal change and communal development, where learning really "fits" the learner and is always centered on the real work (deeply integrated in the purpose of the command). Here, individual, team, and communal development takes place through the daily work of enacting our four core attributes: integrity, accountability, initiative and toughness on the deckplate...nothing extra.

As leaders and members of teams, we are usually trying to accomplish something. But do we realize that everything we want to accomplish can be used as a lesson plan for development? If we want to continue to continually transform and develop our teams we have to use the daily tasks right in front of us to build them into groups of all leaders who belong to a broader and more inclusive community of teams that are aligned around common values: Are we just accomplishing something or using our task accomplishments to teach our teams leadership?

• How fast are team members able to identify and accurately understand problems?
• How willing are members to own mistakes, and help one another?
• Are members able to explore and enhance each other’s ideas or are they too busy defending their own?
• How much time and energy do team members dedicate to building real trust?
• Do your teams rally around their “sameness” or do they champion inclusive, diverse thought to build a community made stronger and smarter through differences?

Only through communal learning can teams push the frontier of knowledge to heights required to surpass our maximum theoretical limits. This mandates an extremely demanding atmosphere where members must take control of their own learning experience, learn together, and create learning communities – where teams are just as vested in the growth of others teams as they are their own. It takes intense commitment and explicit language...

Communication is not primarily a transmission of information, but rather a coordination of behavior between living organisms.
(Fritjof Capra, The Systems View of Life: A Unifying Vision)

Consider...your last communication with your team: "Team, here’s the mission. Here’s my plan of attack. Any questions? Here's what I want, now execute!"

Now...envision the same setting as you gather the team while using slightly different language:"Team...what are we up against? How can we use this mission to go beyond even our best thinking? Why is this and what thinking is driving this? Who do you want to learn from on this mission? What can this mission teach us as a collective? That’s an interesting perspective, why do you say that? You’ve been quiet - what are your thoughts? I can see where that may be the case, but isn’t the opposite true as well? What are we missing? Finally...any saved rounds?"

Timely and authentic communication is the lifeblood of any highly functioning team. By the time a leader assumes command of a unit, the expectation is that they have mastered the science and art of communicating intent. Yet establishing and maintaining a high level learning community requires a much more robust perspective and skillset on the part of the leader.

What are proper modes of communication?

What is the best time and opportunity to implement that correct communication?

The physicist David Bohm differentiates between dialogue and discussion and the role each plays in team learning. Discussion has its roots in the word "percussion" and emphasizes the communication where thought is exchanged with a view to "win," to persuade or convince the team of the rightness of your thought. The priority is conformity of thought.

Are members of your team listening to learn or merely listening to win their argument?

Bohm offers that for team learning to flourish, discussion must be balanced with dialogue, which prioritizes coherence and truth over winning. In dialogue, everyone is an equal participant – a learner and a teacher, assumptions are surfaced and examined for the purpose of understanding rather than defending, and the leader acts both as a participant and a facilitator of the process of collective learning, skillfully using “why?” questions to prioritize reflection, inquiry and self-and other awareness. In dialogue the full value of inclusivity and individual diversity stokes team learning and facilitates the emergence of collective intelligence.

Now...

How might this look on the deckplate? Reflect on your own communication within your team.

Are you communicating your intent through dialog or mostly directing the discussion – to “win” the supremacy of your thought?

There are certainly times where your direction is precisely what the team needs. But to nurture a high performing learning community, where everyone leads and thinks independently, a leader has to identify and leverage opportunities for team learning through dialogue. This is not about adding more meetings or events to the command schedule. It’s about teaching our teams to become more authentic communities by engaging in dialog with honor, courage, and commitment in the midst of an operational focus and mission accomplishment.

Are your teams flourishing and truly engaged and present in the moment?

Or...

Are they just waiting for you to give them the answer?

History is a process of transformation through conversation. In our efforts to produce change, we often forget how important it is to pay attention to what is being conserved. (Humberto Maturana)