A CEO who had begun to practice his own form of management-by-walking-around learned from his employees that the company inhibited innovation by subjecting every new idea to more than 275 separate checks and sign-offs.  He promptly appointed a task force to look at this situation, and it eliminated 200 of the obstacles.  The result was a higher innovation rate. (Chris Argyris, 1994, “Good Communication that Blocks Learning”, Harvard Business Review).

This is a success story about learning and improvement, right?  Not really.  The CEO and his employees have only done the single-loop of learning.  Sure they fixed the symptoms of a problem – how to become more innovative – but they left unanswered deeper questions about why the problem developed and persisted in the first place. How long had this been going on and why didn’t the employees and supervisors question these inefficient practices themselves and get them taken care of? 

The answer to that question is critical.  It will be the cause of other related and unrelated dysfunctions, the symptoms of which will have manifested themselves at different times and different places in the organization.  The complexity is like a fog.  And all involved are very skilled at ensuring the deeper, double-loop learning is avoided.

In the name of positive thinking..managers often censor what everyone needs to say and hear.  For the sake of “morale” and “considerateness,” they deprive employees and themselves of the opportunity to take responsibility for their own behavior by learning to understand it. Because double-loop learning depends on questioning one’s own assumptions and behavior, this apparently benevolent strategy is actually antilearning.  Admittedly, being considerate and positive can contribute to the solution of single-loop problems like cutting costs.  But it will never help people figure out why they lived with problems for years on end, why they covered up those problems, why they covered up the cover-up, why they were so good at pointing to the responsibility of others and so slow to focus on their own. (Argyris, 1994)

The title of my blog confirms that I am a HUGE supporter of the positive at work.  I champion the value of partnering with others to build healthy, responsible organizations where everyone is enabled to thrive.  That’s no simple task.  I have serious concerns that those peddling a quick fix and seemingly simple answers to complex problems will continue to propagate the feel-good lies and half-truths that permeate the popular press. 

Unfortunately, the market demand for positive punch is greater than the demand for deep change and transformational learning.