Organizational Learning or Ornithological Learning?
by Janice Molloy
"Look, there's a blue jay!" I pointed toward a towering evergreen tree.
"Where? Where?" my daughter asked, eyes sca
nning for a glimpse. Just that morning, we had been talking about birds. My son had spotted a male cardinal in the yard and commented favorably on his colorful plumage. P mentioned her admiration for blue jays, and, coincidence of coincidence, one was waiting to greet us on our afternoon walk.
But despite my best efforts, P couldn't pick out the bird. I pointed, I described where in the tree it was, I even put my hands on either side of her head to point her in the right direction. Not until the bird flew away was she finally able to spot it, drawn by the movement.
This small vignette made me wonder how often I try to get others to see my point of view--and walk away frustrated when they fail to "get it." It doesn't happen too frequently, but when it does, the communication barriers feel deeper than the Mariana Trench. How can something that is so clear to me--a product idea, a new way of looking at problem, a previous agreement, a bird in a tree--be so murky to someone else?
I know about the concept of mental models, and that our experiences, biology, and culture all contribute to our vision of the world. These structures filter and affect what we perceive. For this reason, your reality can be quite different from mine, even when we're experiencing the same thing.
Wouldn't it be nice if, in those moments of utter disconnection, we could find a way to plug into each other? Short of having USB ports installed in our brains, we have to use the tools we have--our words, our ability to listen, our desire to connect, our empathy.
In thinking back to the afternoon walk, I wondered what I could have done differently. How could I have helped my daughter to see the bird? The answer came to me: Rather than just asking her to look through my eyes, I could have tried to look through hers, too. I could have asked, "Tell me what you see" or "Where are you looking?" By taking her point of view, I might have been able to guide her to mine.
In organizational learning lingo, that's called "inquiry." But I may just start thinking of it as "ornithological learning."
Janice Molloy is content director of Pegasus Communications and managing editor of The Systems Thinker newsletter.
blue jay photo: Cody Hough