Today, the discipline of team learning is, I believe, poised for a breakthrough because we are gradually learning how to practice. This starts with creating distinct practice fields so that a team can begin to develop its joint skill in fostering a team IQ that exceeds individual IQs. It can also involve creating learning laboratories and micro-worlds, computer supported environments where team learning confronts the dynamics of complex business realities.
Dialogue sessions allow a team to come together to practice dialogue and develop the skills it demands.
The basic conditions for such a session include:
- having all members of a team (those who need one another to act) together
- explaining the ground rules of dialogue
- enforcing the ground rules so that if anyone finds himself unable to suspend his assumptions, the team acknowledges that it is now discussing not dialoguing
- making possible, indeed encouraging, team members to raise the most difficult, subtle, and conflictional issues essential to the teams work
Tip from Peter M. Senge, Author, The Fifth Discipline - The Art & Practice of the Learning Organization
