Triple Loop Lock Up

The LearningOrganization is an organizational model that is emerging and has been for a decade or so. I won't reference the sources because I don't remember them right now, but a book I recently read called DiversityManagement? talks about TripleLoopLearning and this is shorthand for what I think is a fundamental observation about the desire human beings have for being "right" -- the first loop is termed

Doing the Right Thing: the learning dimension is figuring out what the right thing to do IS In the software world this ends up translating into a requirements document or something.

The second loop is:

Doing the Thing Right: this is obviously about methodology and picking a methodology that will produce the right thing in the right way. Producing the right thing in the wrong way is often considered unacceptable.

Finally there is the third loop which is:

Power In the cause of Right and Right in the cause of Might: or "Now that we know what the right thing is and how to do it the right way, nothing else is allowed" or System Lock Up ...

The first two sound like V&V -- Verification and Validation and the last sounds like imposition of standards. The authors of Diversity Management suggest that this is the way the world really works and that the challenge of a Learning Organization is how to make it stop working this way so that learning can be continuing and growing process and not a triple loop lock-up. I think that asking yourself what loop you are in is revelational sometimes -- especially if you find that you are in loop three. Step back, smell the flowers and ask -- Is there another way? --RaySchneider