It goes without saying that learning, in all its many forms, is the key to staying ahead. Learning what’s working, what’s not, how to fix things, and so on. In a classic HBR article from 1994 titled “Good Communication that Blocks Learning“, Chris Argyris provides some ideas on how people within organizations can learn more effectively. He shows how “double-loop learning” (where you ask follow up questions to get at what lies beneath the surface) is a better way to learn, and how “good” communication (not being entirely honest in the interests of being polite or not rocking the boat) gets in the way (despite it generally being well-meaning)! In addition to getting into the habit of asking followup questions, and encouraging honest responses, you can also use Rypple to help you ask followup questions, and help your team provide you with honest responses.

Chris first wrote about double-loop learning in the mid-seventies. He’d observed how people within companies typically engage in single-loop learning, where they’d ask one dimensional questions to uncover one dimensional answers. Rarely did people probe beneath the surface with followup questions to uncover the reasons, motives, and so on. His favourite example is that of a thermostat which simply asks, “Are we at the preset temperature?” (single loop learning), and never asks the followup questions, “What is the appropriate temperature?” “Are we using the right source?”, “Are we adjusting in the right way?” and so on.

An example of single v. double loop learning in a software development process. Let’s say that your team decides to “clean up” your app, does some extensive testing, discovers a series of bugs, comes up with fixes, and implements the fixes. If you stop here, satisfied with the newly fixed code, then you’ve demonstrated single-loop learning. If you then dig deeper and ask, “Why did these bugs occur?” “Are the tests the right tests?” “Are we setting out to test in the right way?” and so on, then you’ve demonstrated double-loop learning. The former is good enough, but the latter is what helps you leap-frog the competition. If you’re only ever asking the former question, then problems may fester for far too long, and be more expensive or difficult to fix down the road.

However, double-loop learning does not always occur within teams. Why? Chris says there’s a social and a psychological reason for this. Socially, most of us hate to be the one that opens Pandora’s Box, rocks the boat, or comes across as negative. Instead, we’re encouraged to think positively, motivate others, be considerate of others’ feelings, etc. While being positive is great, in some situations, it can dramatically hurt your team. The psychological reason that blocks double-loop learning is that whenever a problem involves a threat or embarrassment, we take of our objective/rigorous reasoning hat, and instead engage in defensive reasoning – essentially justifying our actions or blaming others, rather than objectively looking at problems and solutions.

So next time you face a problem, don’t be afraid to dig deeper. The problem you face may just be a symptom of deeper problems. Ask followup questions.

And encourage those around you to be honest. Let them know that you’re not going to hold it against them for being honest. If your team is hesitant to be entirely honest for fear of not being polite/considerate/rocking the boat/you name it, try using Rypple to gather anonymous responses from your team (and of course, once you get feedback, ask follow up questions). People tend to be honest when they use Rypple since the anonymity helps people avoid being seen as too negative or as rocking the boat. And since the feedback can only be seen by the person asking the question, there is less embarrassment involved. We’ve also seen another benefit in several companies. Teams that start using Rypple find that people feel more comfortable giving honest face-to-face feedback! And when that happens, then you can be sure that you and your team will be learning a lot more effectively than before.