Institutional Learning and Change Initiative

Boru,

You make very good points. Your own draft description of what ILAC is doing is an interesting one and deserves further discussion:

"People act based on their mental models of how the world works, so if you want to change the way people behave you need to interact with these mental models, and this is what ILAC does, with respect to changes that make research likely to produce pro-poor outcomes. The main strategy ILAC uses is reflection based on evaluative information"

My own feeling is that focusing on the terms "organization" and "institution" is not all that necessary when thinking about what ILAC is trying to do. You use the word "world" in the first sentence -- and that may be more to the point. We are pursuing ways of bringing about system change ("world" is fine too but maybe not part of the terminology of the organizational sciences). Learning at both the organizational and the institutional levels may be necessary if we are to succeed at changing systems.

Your comment about mental models and changing these mental models gets at the locus of change -- i.e. the mental models, views of how the world works, or the "constructed realities" of all the actors in the system. But how can this happen? This takes us back to the earlier thread when we were talking about ways of reflecting and ways of learning.

If ILAC's task is to change mental models the issue is "Whose?" and "How can this happen?"

The answer to whose mental models have to change seems to be -- the mental models of all the actors within a given "system". We might take the "system(s)" that ILAC is working with as the "whole" of each of the Learning Lab projects -- and that "whole" has been captured or should be captured in each of the LL's workbooks. The actors whose mental models need to change are represented in the network maps. But what does changing their mental models mean? It would seem to mean (i) first of all teasing out -- you use the term "surfacing" their current view of the system and secondly (ii) using information generated by the individual LL project and from other sources (sucha s all of the LL projects) to construct a common reality -- a mental model that all actors are willing to share because it makes more sense than their earlier individual mental models.

There seem to be (at least) two significant challenges to achieving this. The first is to lay out the mental models of such a wide variety of actors -- these models will vary enormously depending on the disciplinary background of the actor, and the extent to which their models are informed, incomplete, partial, internally consistent, etc.

The second major challenge is to find a way to encourage all of the actors to modify or change or "grow" their various mental models in the direction of a common one that is a better representation of the system that what each possessed before.

We know that mental models are self-sustaining and filter out new information that is inconsistent with or threatens the existing model. We may have an example of that in all the discussion we have engaged in around the CGIAR Impact Assessment guidelines. The dominant IA view (mental model) has shown itself to be largely self-renewing although it has been modified somewhat by "new" relatively benign and non-threatening information about impact pathways and maybe a few other concepts. However, the new mental model is to be constructed by a single author.

What was the process used by the group delegated the task of coming up with new IA guidelines? How effective was it? At least some ILACers seem to think that the group has not moved beyond the original mental model very much at all. So maybe the "learning process" or the reflective processes used by the "actors" has been at fault -- the process involved only a partial group of the significant actors and engaged in learning processes that resulted largely in a reinforcement of what IA is.

Maybe ILAC has to find ways that allow all of the actors in the LL cases to modify their mental models when significant new information becomes available. And that has to involve not only single-loop learning but also double and triple-loop learning.

First loop learning occurs when new information is introduced that is consistent with existing information -- no real change in the actor's level of sophistication to deal with this new information is needed. Knowledge is simply "expanded". The mental model is "confirmed". First loop learning asks "Are we doing what we are doing in the right (best, most efficient, most effective) way?" This -- and maybe a bit of second loop learning -- may be the kind of learning that the IA group were engaged in.

Second loop learning occurs when we question how we are achieving the desired goals. "How are we getting the results we are getting?" "What are the principles involved?" "What theories are emerging?" "Are there other ways of pursuing these goals?"

Third loop learning happens when we ask whether the goals we are pursuing for a given project are the appropriate ones. "Are we addressing the appropriate problem?" "Are there related problems that our current mental model is walling-off from our consideration by its very nature?"

How to get to first, second and third loop learning? Certianly not just by convening a committee and maybe asking a couple of "others" to join it. This brings us back to how can we reflect for learning in the LL cases and not just engage in first loop learning? My feeling is that this is at the crux of ILAC and we have to face the fact that it will involve a willingness of all actors to reconsider their mental models, to dedicate time and energy to doing so, and to making changes -- some even significant changes -- to their mental models if the new information warrants such change. Why does this require effort and time? Because it is very easy to ensure that no "significant" information is introduced by engaging in processes that preclude the generation of significant new information.

Cheers,

Ron