Triple Loop Learning

From The Communities That Care WIKI

Purpose & Description

The purpose of Triple-Loop Learning is to deepen your understanding of an issue to create a shift in perspective and transformational change. Triple-Loop Learning can be used to develop innovative and effective approaches to dealing with long-standing or complex issues.

Resources Needed

Time to think.

Instructions

Step 1: Incremental (Single-Loop) Learning

This step involves doing something better without examining or challenging underlying beliefs and assumptions. The question is: “Are we doing things right?” An action occurs with a resulting mismatch or error. Analyzing the antecedent action and resulting consequence, a change in action is determined and implemented. The sequence then begins anew. Each time through the loop, the action becomes incrementally better at producing the desired result.

Step 2: Reframing (Double-Loop Learning)

In this step, learning involves reshaping underlying patterns of our thinking and behavior. The question at this level is, “Are we doing the right things?” This level of learning enfolds Single-Loop incremental learning and goes beyond it. People become observers of themselves and ask, “What is going on here? What are the patterns?” The interaction of action and consequence is seen as part of a system of interactions and Argyris’s “defensive routines” become apparent. These defensive routines have previously been below our level of awareness, and are self-fulfilling and often self-defeating. In reshaping our thinking and behavior, we are able to be less defensive, more open, and increasingly self-aware. When this occurs, individual and/or organizational change can take place.

Step 3: Transformational (Triple-Loop Learning)

This level involves shifting the context or our point of view entirely. The question for this level is: “How do we decide what is right?” This level requires an examination of the values and principles that are guiding actions. It looks at the whole context and examines the inter-relationship between problems and solutions and the pattern that has created the current context. Understanding the values and assumptions that lie below the patterns of actions allows the individual or organization to question whether these values assumptions are locking them into a recurring cycle in which today’s solutions become tomorrows problems. It is through triple-loop learning that the individual or organization can determine how they need to be different to create transformational change.

Debriefing

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Tool Experts

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Cautions

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Links to Research Citations

Adam Kahane: Solving Tough Problems http://berkana.tomoye.com/file_download.php?location=S_U&filename=11225772391Triple_Loop_Learning.doc
Flood, R. L. and Romm, N. R. A. (1996). Diversity Management: Triple Loop Learning, Wiley, Chichester. ISBN: 0471964492
Hargrove, R. (2000). Masterful Coaching: Extraordinary Results by Impacting People and the Way They Think and Work Together SET w/Fieldbook. Pfeiffer & Company ISBN: 0787955655
Author Unknown: Beyond Process to Structure and Values http://www.easycomp.org/cgi-bin/OrgPatterns?BeyondProcessToStructureAndValues