Are you and your organization in Constant Learning and Change? (I)

In 2014 paleontologists and other researchers discovered and studied evidence that suggested that our cousins, the Neanderthals, disappeared at least 10.000 years before they had initially thought. The breakthrough of this evidence is that it seems unlikely that Neanderthals went extinct directly because of the action of our early modern human ancestors. So, what happened? Why did they disappear? And why we did not? The answer is multidimensional and not simple. Yet, I want to put it in few words: lack of constant learning and change.

Our early ancestors arrived in Europe at the time that our cousins, the Neanderthals, were already experiencing population decay. When our human ancestors arrived, they created an environment of competitive pressure for food and resources at the time of volcanic eruptions and climate change.

The problem for our cousins is that they did not adapt to change, let alone shape the future or create knowledge. In contrast, early modern humans had already created the spear to hunt, became more effective and were culturally evolving helped by complex wired brains (which were also a product of biological evolution) that allowed them the use advanced cognitive skills. Neanderthals were still using old ineffective systems and, therefore, became extinct.

Only those who culturally evolve adapt to the increasing changes in the environment, at the time that they set the foundations for shaping the future by creating knowledge. How is this all related to the world we are living in today?

Are you and your organization in Constant Learning and Change?

The vertiginous changes in our reality force organizations and individuals to be in a continuum of learning, change and renewal. The problem is that usually people and organizations feel comfortable with what is familiar to them, which makes them resistant to change.

Organizations and people that resist learning, changing and shaping the future are like Neanderthals. They are too entrenched in the old ways of doing things. These organizations are familiar with the old techniques and the comfort zone is too comfortable as to seek learning and change for further advancements. And as the story of our species has proven, these organizations and people are doomed to failed and become extinct.

When organizations and individuals excel at specific and routinized tasks it becomes more challenging to let go the older ways because it implies going beyond their comfort or what is familiar to them. Entering the unknown territory of The Land of Learning and Renewal demands adjustments, letting go the old, learning new things and renew.

Organizations and people that lack the capacity or willingness to be in a constant learning mode, fail to change, they become the Neanderthal type. When they fail to change, they become an easy prey of the volatile conditions and the circumstances. In his book “Self-Renewal”, John Gardner stated that “People who are the most stubborn protectors of their own vested interests are those who have lost the capacity for self-renewal”. Vested interested might be considered many things, I translate it as the entrenchment in one way of doing things.

At the organizational level, John Gardner was also a critic of the lack of the capacity and willingness of institutions to change. In the commencement speech of Cornell University on June 1, 1968, Gardner said that “most institutions were designed to obstruct change rather than facilitate it. And that is not really surprising. The institutions were, after all, designed by human beings, and most men most of the time do not want the institutions in which they themselves have a vested interest to change. Professors were often cited as an interesting example of this tendency, because they clearly favored innovation in other parts of the society but steadfastly refused to make universities into flexible, adaptive, self-renewing institutions”.

Almost half a century later we know that Gardner was not only describing the institutions and organizations of his time, but unfortunately predicting that the systems in place were not strong and purposeful enough as to allow renovation for the future. It sounds paradoxical to say that strong organizations need to renew. However, it is precisely in their strength and focus on their principles and purpose that they can undergo the changes necessary either to adapt to new realities, or to shape the future by creating knowledge.

The “professors” that Gardner mentioned in his speech are the equivalent to leaders who formulated leadership competencies and performance systems to reward innovation, yet they did not create the setting and conditions for it to happen. They are Neanderthal Leaders working for Neanderthal Organizations. These professors or leaders were setting monuments to failure by trying to promote behaviors that were not accompanied by cultural evolution. In the worst scenario, these behaviors were not even practiced by the leaders themselves, therefore creating an environment of lack of trust and integrity.

The Cycle of Constant Learning and Change

In contrast, Productive Leadership promotes cultural evolution to incentivize knowledge creation during the processes of change. At the same, Productive Leaders foster a total awareness state in order to be ready for the changes demanded by the context and circumstances. These are sapiens leaders and organizations. Productive Leaders create performance and reward systems that truly promote learning and innovation.

The Productive Leadership Framework creates awareness, preparation and agility to change. The Framework is looking forward to shape the future. This is the process of organizational and individual renewal for a positive transformation of the context. It also entails a constant nourished capacity to shift to new fields when circumstances require, keeping the purpose of the organization as the compass that sets real direction.

The story of humans is defined by the capacity to adapt, change and shape the future. In his book The Story of the Human Body, Daniel Lieberman explains that “cultural evolution, now the most powerful force of change on the planet… Culture is essentially what people learn, and so culture evolves… cultural [evolution] doesn’t change solely through chance [like biological evolution] but also through intention, and the source of this change can come from anyone…”

Productive Leaders turn on the “Learning and Change Mode” of the organization. This means that the organization is in constant learning mode and ready for changes, understanding the needs of customers, employees, shareholders and society that are related to its own purpose. Most importantly, it entails and forces the organization and its individuals to intentionally promote and create that change through innovation, while they are generating the knowledge to shape the future.

For Productive Leaders and Productive Organizations this is the perpetual Cycle of Constant Learning and Change:

Once Productive Leaders are Purposefully Supporting and Challenging individual, also in the process of the exploration and discovery of their own purpose, there comes a Learning process that at also drives Innovation.

Learning and innovation are key elements that take individuals to their highest levels of performance, therefore maximizing their personal and professional growth. This Maximum Growth also occurs when there is alignment with the purpose of the organization. Productive Leaders understood that satisfying the competing demands of business growth and people’s development is totally possible when there is a truly alignment of purposes.

However, the balance reached at a maximum growth is temporary. Life and reality have their own ways to bring to us new challenging situations that make the existing maximum growth not suitable anymore for the specific circumstances. It is, actually, a contextual maximum growth, because it is only true and valid in the existing conditions. However, those conditions change, either intentionally or by chance. Crisis might emerge or simply opportunities surfaces to do things in a different fashion.

Renewal emerges as a need to propose antithesis to the existing theories. When the current theories cannot explain anymore the empirical and observable situations, new ways to do things is mandatory. Innovation and creativity becomes compelling because the situation is not framed within the old ways anymore. This demands that individuals and Productive Leaders begin the process again to reach new levels of maximum growth by doing things in way that suit the new realities.

This is a constant process of learning and change. The cycle stops only for stagnated organizations and individuals that are not strong enough as to renew their ways, always keeping their purpose as the compass. The cycle is in constant movement and it brings evolution.

Stay tuned for Part II (www.productive-leadership.com)

About the Author: Enrique Rubio is an HR Professional at the InterAmerican Development Bank. He is an Electronic Engineer and Master’s Degree in Public Administration. Enrique writes about leadership and HR, and he also an ultrarunner.

Twitter: @erubio_p

Read more:

Are you and your organization in Constant Learning and Change (Part I)?

What makes a genius a genius? (Constant Learning and Change (Part II))?

Are you Purposefully Supporting and Challenging your Team?

The most compelling challenge of our times?

Breaking Frontiers: how far can we go to achieve our purpose?