Do teams learn? LO13537

Rol Fessenden (76234.3636@CompuServe.COM)
07 May 97 22:38:44 EDT

Replying to LO13363 --

In a message dated 97-04-25, you write:

>What does it mean for a team to have learned something?

It may be most precise to say that team members learn something. But I
have experienced many times when team members learned things they could
not have learned except by being in a team.

>Where is the locus of that learning? (If it's in "the relationships
>between the team members," then which relationships are we talking about,
>and how do relationships store the learning?) "

Same answer. Individuals learn, but they learn about relationships and
about the functional responsibilities of their team mates - things they
can only learn _in_ a team.

>If I had a "learning" team in front of me, side-by-side with a
>non-learning team, how would I tell them apart?

The answer to this is somewhat clear now that we have answered the above.
The parable of the blind men describing the elephant has a different
outcome when they share their perspectives. They all start to develop a
viewpoint about the whole elephant- something they could not do outside
the team.

-- 

Rol Fessenden 76234.3636@compuserve.com

Learning-org -- An Internet Dialog on Learning Organizations For info: <rkarash@karash.com> -or- <http://world.std.com/~lo/>