Single and Double Loop Learning

I recently left Vale after 4.5 years and have been working with a firm that provides coaching and guidance for job searches. In some of these sessions I work with a consultant on rehearsing my storytelling for interviews. I was always confident doing something like this because I would like to believe that I am comfortable being put on the spot. When you get to recite the story in your head, it is always flawless and speaking it out loud creates a situation where you may notice awkwardness in your delivery. As I practiced during these sessions the consultant noticed that I had repeated parts of my story. My friends would probably think that I did this intentionally to make sure that they were paying attention.The reality though is that this was a learned behaviour from my years coaching Operational Excellence. With short term memory, a method that can be used is rehearsal and repetition. In my coaching I would tell the story and then repeat it slightly differently and this is a technique I repeated throughout. Now, during the session I was not consciously aware of doing this, but my consultant pointed it out to me afterwards. I nodded my head in agreement that I did that, but it was a strategy that I have used when teaching. Repeat the content with slight variations to help them learn the material. When setting a scenario to answer an interview question, it is not the best technique. This was a mental model that I have created and reinforced over the years.

Growing up, my culture strongly embraced respecting your elders and not questioning the rules. Within school we were taught to obey teachers and while we were allowed to ask questions, adults at the time may just respond “because” I said so. This did not necessarily allow much discussion and what it led to was a creation of a mental model that you do not question the rules. Within operations some employees have the mentality that the leader is there to solve problems and that the rules are concrete without flexibility. It is easy to see how a mental model like this has been created depending on which generation you grew up in.

So how and why did I create this kind of mental model? We will review two different theories of learning and explain why it can be difficult to change and how it relates to changing some of our behaviour based on some work by Chris Argyris. The methods identified are single loop learning and double loop learning.

Single loop learning? indicates that you create a set of rules and you then operate within this framework. The components of your rules do not change and if you do not achieve your results, you will change your actions within the rules and you will hopefully get the end results for it. Small alterations in method or behaviour is done in regards to what worked before.

When I go onto site for improvement work, one of the most common answers to “why do we do it this way” is that is what we were told we were told. The issue with this type of learning method of problem solving is that the scope that you can resolve the issues is very small.? You may focus on a quick fix and resolving the issue may be superficial as you have not identified exactly why the issue was happening in the first place. In this type of learning you will change your actions in order to hopefully get a different result. This is not to say that there are no benefits from this type of problem solving strategy, but you will often just address and remove the symptom as opposed to removing the root cause. The problem may arise again in the future, but for now we have addressed the issue by changing our behaviour.

With double loop learning it is similar to single loop learning, except upon not obtaining the results you will look to see if the mental model you created works and whether you need to adjust your rules or not

Innovation occurs when you are unaware of the rules or you adjust them when you do not get results. People will be comfortable with what they have known and it may be difficult to break this loop if the fear of failure is high.

I was given the task of increasing production at a site. They were being asked to produce approximately 25% more. In this instance I went down and was introduced to the staff doing the work and was just trying to understand the process. The leadership introduced me as being very smart and that I was there to solve the problem. Right off the bat, I thought I was not being set up for success and that this was going to be difficult. The crew had created a model that I was an external expert that was going to come in and tell them what they should be doing. I spent a couple of days with the team learning what they did and understanding their problems.

They had established a set of rules and were trying to determine how to increase production within these rules. I listened quietly and went back to the office and mapped out what I had seen. The team was using a single loop model where they had an established set of rules and were operating within those parameters. In order to achieve the increased production the premise was we can just increase the number of shifts in order to hit the new targets.

A couple of weeks later I returned to the team and asked? the leadership team what I was permitted to change. Their reply was as long as I did not put the employees at a safety risk they would let me try any method. I wanted to initially attempt this with no increased financial cost.? When I went back I identified a part of the process that I wanted to concentrate our improvement efforts on. I challenged the team to improve the efficiency of this process by 5%. It was such a trivial improvement that the team was confident that they could do it. We went back to the machinery and they attempted some things and it did not work. They were only changing one small parameter of the machine and I asked why they did not change anything else. I was informed that they were told that they could only change that one setting. I asked them what happens if we change these other settings. They replied that they never tried that before. I followed up with a question whether it was unsafe to change that setting and the reply was no it was perfectly fine, but they were afraid that the machine may break. The fear of failure prevented them for understanding whether the rule was valid or could be changed. We ended up changing some other settings and it resulted in an improvement of 10% efficiency in the process. Since this process was repeated so frequently the end result was an increase in production by approximately 175%.

The culture around the team changed once everyone saw the results. If someone had an idea to improve the process they were given the latitude and freedom to test out their theory. The team was no longer bound by assumptions that they previously had and changed the way that they did problem solving. The only caveat was that it had to be safe.

The younger generation is being taught more critical thinking skills and asking “why” is more encouraged. They do not necessarily accept an answer because you say it. My two kids will often ask why we do something and attempt to explain it to them. With my team we are provided goals from upper management and it is our job to execute the tasks. I will present the information and task to my team and request feedback. They will ask me why we are doing it and make me present my position and strategy. If I can not convince my team to execute the strategy we will work as a team to determine if we understand why we need to do something and adjust. If we can not understand the purpose it will be difficult to get buy-in from the sites. With a diverse team we all have different experiences and have created different mental models. Going through this process helps us revise our mental model and adjust the rules for our decision making before we interact with the site.

If we want to change the mental model that someone has created, we need to actively step back and reflect on the issue and adjust our behaviour. It is often difficult as your behaviour is based on the experiences you have been provided. We will discuss how experiences impact behaviour and culture in the future.