Reader’s Report by Eugene R. Howard -- "Communities of Commitment: The Heart of Learning Organizations" by Fred Kofman and Peter M. Senge*

This chapter, defined by the authors as "a theoretical paper for practitioners," defines the characteristics of learning organizations which provide "the only safe place" for the "personal transformation of an organization's members" (p. 16). The authors believe that such significant personal transformations are an essential condition for significant organizational change.

The authors argue that building learning organizations requires "basic shifts in how we think and act" - a "Galilean Shift" - moving from the "primacy of pieces to the primacy of the whole, from absolute truths to coherent interpretations, from self to community, from problem solving to creating" (pp. 16-17). Essential to the process is the building of "communities of commitment"-- groups of individuals willing to spend the energy needed to engage in long-term shifts in how they view themselves and the world in which they live.

Basic Dysfunctions: The authors believe that efforts to alter how organizations operate must address three "basic dysfunctions" of our larger culture and organizations functioning within that culture. The dysfunctions are:

1. Fragmentation -- the practice of continually fragmenting problems into pieces to be analyzed even though "the major challenges we face in our organizations and beyond are increasingly systemic". (p. 17)
2. Competition -- Our fascination with competition as a model for change and learning which "reinforces our fixation on short-term measurable results". The authors believe that "we have lost the balance between competition and cooperation precisely at a time when we most need to work together" (pp 19-21).
3. Reactiveness -- "The double bane of continuous learning" -- Our tendency to change only in reaction to outside forces even though the "the wellspring of real learning is aspiration, imagination, and experimentation" (p. 21)

Our Cultural Crisis: Today's "cultural crisis," according to the authors, has its roots in our success in using reductionism (fragmentation and analysis and mechanical thinking to control our physical and social environments). These patterns of behavior, appropriate as reactions to sudden, dramatic events -- historical threats to our survival -- are less effective today when the primary threats to our survival are slow, gradual processes. The authors state that "we are poorly prepared for a world of slowly developing threats (p. 23). They further state that "our evolutionary programming predisposes us to seeing external threats and to reactiveness. Layered onto it is a culture of fragmentation and competition, and together they hold us captive" (p. 24).

The authors see a "Galilean" (fundamental) paradigm shift in thinking as being essential if the cultural crisis is to be alleviated.

Three Fundamental Theses: The authors believe that this significant shift in thinking must be guided by three fundamental theses:

1. The Primacy of Wholes (i.e., Systemic Thinking) viewing the world as "wholes within wholes" rather than as "parts that form wholes". The authors recognize that systems, to be manageable, must be addressed as "operational worlds". They believe that a key to systemic thinking is a person's ability to understand the interrelatedness between the larger system and the operational world related to that system.
2. The Community Nature of Self -- The authors believe that "the constitution of self happens only in a community" – i.e. a person's self, always in the process of transformation", grows as a result of its transactions with others (pp. 28-30). The implication of this thesis is that profound personal growth requires participation of the self in a community of learners.
3. Language as a Generative Practice -- This thesis depicts language as providing the traditions of observation, structures and meaning shared by a community. "We invent structures and distinctions to organize the otherwise unmanageable flow of life" (p. 30). Language, then, must be "generative": It must facilitate the growth of self, and, like the self, must be "in a continual state of becoming" (p. 31)

Operating Principles: Building on the three theses, the authors offer six "operating principles", as follows:

1. Concept of the Learning Organization: The authors ask us to visualize the learning organization as "a category that we create in language ...which can be empowering or tranquilizing ... a medium in which we can articulate new models for living together" (p. 32).
2. Three Foundations: The authors believe that learning organizations should be grounded in three foundations -- " (1) a culture based on transcendent human values of love, wonder, humility, and compassion; (2) a set of practices for generative conversation and coordinated action; and (3) a capacity to see and work with the flow of life as a system" (p. 32).
3. The Servant Leader Concept: The authors believe that learning organizations should be built by "servant leaders"-- people who lead because they chose both to serve one another and to serve a higher purpose" (p. 34)
4. Leadership through Performance and Practice: Leadership, according to the authors, arises through performance and practice. They offer the concept of the "managerial practice field"-- a means of integrating learning into the work space for "an on-going cycle of reflection, experimentation, and action" (p. 36).
5. Integration of Process and Content: The authors believe that process and content are inseparable. Progress towards building a learning organization, then, is facilitated by our considering the content or issues we confront and the processes we might use to learn about them as related, not separate, activities (p. 37).
b. Transactional vs. Transformational Learning: The authors believe that significant learning is often seen as frightening because it involves suspending some basic notions of our worlds and our selves. In a successful learning organization, "transactional" learning, which operates at a superficial level and does not challenge the self, is replaced by "transformational learning" which "is about who we are" (p. 38).

What MIT Learning Center Leaders Have Learned: Leaders at the MIT Learning Center, an organization to support the creation of learning organizations in the business and public sectors, have identified a three-stage "architecture of engagement" for creating learning organizations.

1. The Predisposition Stage: Initial learning communities are formed by individuals already pre-disposed to systemic thinking and organizational learning -- individuals who need no convincing that "much problem solving in organizations leaves deeper sources of problems untouched..." (p. 39).
2. Community-Building Activities: During this stage committed individuals "begin to know one another and to work together" by engaging in community-building activities and practical experimentation" (p. 39). There is "practice with systems thinking tools and dialogue, and with reflecting on and articulating personal visions..." (p. 40). During this stage participants learn to apply systems thinking to their own lives.
3. Practical Experimentation and Testing: During this stage learning community members engage in two types of "practice field" projects -- "dialogue projects" and "learning laboratory projects". Dialogue projects "focus directly on the deeper patterns of communication that underlie whatever issues are being confronted by a management team". Learning laboratory projects focus on specific areas such as new product development, management accounting and control systems, and services management" (pp. 40-41).
Eventually practice field projects become integrated into everyday company activities. The practice field concept is actually a "new way of managing" (p. 42).

Conclusion: The chapter's concluding paragraphs reemphasize the need to reverse the trend towards a "fragmented culture that fragments our thoughts" and the need to "invent a new, more meaningful model for business, education, health care, government, and family". Such communities, the authors believe, will produce the fundamental changes we need (pp. 42-43).

An important conceptual thread running throughout the chapter is that fundamental changes in self must accompany fundamental changes in our organizations.

Top of page