Publications update 04
7 Theses on learning in teams
by Martin Hagen
Editorial
1. Learning in the team cannot be prevented
How do teams learn? Straight away, one thinks of what one must do to support teams in learning. And a scholarly dispute begins about which learning method is probably the best for teams.
First of all, I think, we should modestly reflect upon the fact that teams learn quite automatically. Whether we want them to or not: teams change during the course of their existence. They form rituals, have their own communication structures and also change their internal coordination processes over time.
Nonetheless: whether the direction of the learning (i.e.: what is learnt) and the learning speed (i.e.: how high the demands made of the team are) are correct can be a completely different question for the managers (or the adviser).
2. Teams learn in everyday work
The normal learning laboratory for teams is everyday work. That might sound astonishing coming from an advisor. But we must acknowledge that team-development processes are not to be measured by their effectiveness in training situations, but in practical, everyday working life.
Many teams function splendidly once they are away from the daily grind. Unfortunately, however, we cannot really integrate this familiarity into the normal decision-making processes!
Of course, the familiarity that arises in the context of training is often genuinely useful for teamwork, but it only really becomes relevant for the team result if it also exists in the daily routine. That is why all of those little learning situations in everyday life are not to be underestimated: if two very distanced colleagues in a work group unite on a joint approach. If the manager in the ‘normal’ Jour Fixe asks for feedback and actually gets it. If the team, after a long period of inaction, finally changes the inefficient meeting – and the moderator is supported in this.
We have now already come to the question of what teams should actually learn.