By Tara K. Lalonde
Have you ever attempted to implement a new policy or procedure, or perhaps even invoke a new strategic goal, and wonder why it’s not taking hold? Maybe you were tempted to label it as “resistance.” You may have even thought there was a conspiracy working against you. Assuming the initiative was a noble one, I suspect the reason was far more benign in nature…a product of how organizations learn – and the tendency to default to previously learned behaviors. Like how breaking learned bad habits can be difficult for you and me, organizations often revert to former practices regardless of what policies you put on paper. If you want new ideas to stick you must consider how organizations learn.
Organizational Learning – A Social Construction of Knowledge
Organizational behavior expert David Kolb, well known for his research on experiential learning, emphasized that the human species is unique because the learning process enables people to adapt in ways that are more than simply reactive to changes; rather, they are notably distinguished by the adaptation ability to shape the environment proactively.[1]
As an entity, an organization’s learning ability is critical to its survival in today’s turbulent world. However, the fact that individuals can learn fails to address what it means for an organization to learn. According to organizational learning pioneers Argyris and Schon, an organization’s learning capability is more than the aggregate learning of the individuals within the organization.[2] Beyond cognitive abilities, organizational learning must account for learning as an inherently social process.[3]
When we talk about learning, we are referring to much more than simply acquiring information; learning includes the generation of meaning. Meaning is derived relative to past experiences and shared social circumstances. Put another way, you cannot develop meaning in the absence of a social environment.
As an example, think about how you came to understand the social roles of boss and employee – chances are you learned about this relationship long before you were participating in one of these roles. Maybe you observed your parents talking about their work or perhaps you saw such relationships played out on television or in the movies. This observed social context provides the shared meaning that formed the early foundational learning of these roles.
How does that translate into an organizational perspective?
According to the philosophy of Berger and Luckman,[4] a reciprocal relationship exists between individuals and social institutions, forming the construct of knowledge. As institutions, organizations pass knowledge to employees as objective truths, and when individuals internalize that knowledge, it becomes a subjective reality. This creates a reinforcing feedback loop whereby these internalized beliefs are further conveyed as reality and understood by others as objective truths, and so on.
This pattern of shared knowledge creation forms deeply embedded mental models that perpetuate organizational behavior. In other words, this social construct creates the foundation for the underlying, and often taken-for-granted, values and assumptions of organizational members, guiding ways of thinking and acting.
These shared mental models make it difficult to “unlearn” behavioral norms; rather, they become ingrained as part of the organizational culture. This knowledge can take the form of explicit policies and procedures, but often, organizations transfer this institutional knowledge via tacit “norms” or through stories and myths, providing a narrative of past experiences that help make sense of situations and anticipated outcomes.[5] Let’s look at an example.
What This Means in Practice
Suppose as a new employee, you did what most people do and sought to ascertain the expected behavioral norms so that you could assimilate yourself into the organizational culture. You probably asked a lot of questions and, perhaps more importantly, observed the behavior of those around you. You may have also heard coworkers recall accounts of what another person did that either got them rewarded or conversely, landed them in the doghouse.
For instance, maybe you had an upcoming doctor’s appointment and were curious whether it was permissible to work from home in the morning beforehand since the commute to work followed by travel to the medical facility would not make going to the office worthwhile. When you inquired, you were directed to the telework policy, which outlined the necessary procedures you should follow. However, when you were speaking to your colleagues, they mentioned that although it is “technically” allowable to telework, it is generally “frowned upon” by management. When you inquired further, you were told of multiple examples where management made clear they thought that employees used telework as an excuse to slack off.
Not wanting to leave a bad impression on your new boss, you elect to use your limited vacation hours to take the entire day off rather than pursue teleworking. The next time you have a medical appointment, you don’t even give it a second thought and take vacation hours for the entire day. When the next new hire onboards, you relay the same “reality” and advise against teleworking. Eventually, desiring a workplace that values work-life flexibility, you choose to move on to a different organization. You scratch your head when your leadership seems surprised during your exit interviews to learn your reasoning.
Does this example sound familiar? Some other examples could include notions that “busy = productive” or “asking questions demonstrates incompetence” or “expressing contrary perspectives is disrespectful” to list just a few.
Rinse and repeat – these organizational “norms” – whether they are actual truths or not – become the socially constructed reality. The collective of these underlying beliefs and assumptions of expected behaviors become embedded as part of the organization’s culture.
Changing Organizational Culture – Walking the Talk of Shared Values
Leaders play a pivotal role in creating or changing the organizational culture through the shared values they define as important. It is imperative you recognize that, as a leader, people pay attention to the values and norms that you espouse through things like policies and procedures, but even more importantly, your organization is paying attention to what you prioritize through your actions.[6]
What do you spend your time doing? What meetings are on your calendar? What do you measure? How do you allocate resources? What behaviors do you reward? Punish? How do you recruit? What criteria do you use to promote?
Following the same example, you might believe you promote a shared value of work-life balance because you signed off on the telework policy, but how do you model that value? Your employees are paying attention – in addition to whether or not you telework, do you: Email/message late in the evening or the weekend? Schedule meetings during the early morning or late in the evening? Work through lunch?
Of course, circumstances may call for a break in the norm, but patterned behaviors are what shape the socialized expectations and resulting organizational culture. Unsuccessful culture change is often the result of a failure to change the underlying beliefs and assumptions embedded within routine behaviors. If you want to change outcomes, you must first change the values you prioritize, as evidenced in your actions.
In today’s dynamic environment, it is often necessary for leaders to proactively modify the organizational culture to adapt to evolving demands. Doing so, however, requires us to consider more than just adapting to experience; it requires us to address how we learn in a social context.
How did you learn organizationally acceptable norms within your workplace?
[1] Kolb, D. A. (1984). Experiential learning: Experience as the source of learning and development. Prentice-Hall.
[2] Argyris, C., & Schon, D. A. (1996). Organizational learning II: Theory, method, and practice. Addison-Wesley Publishing.
[3] Elkjaer, B. (1999). In search of a social learning theory. In M. Easterby-Smith, J. Burgoyne, & L. Araujo (Eds.), Organizational Learning and the Learning Organization: Developments in Theory and Practice (pp. 75-91). Sage Publications. https://doi.org/10.4135/9781446218297.n5
[4] Berger, P. L., & Luckman, T. (1966). The social construction of reality: A treatise in the sociology of knowledge. Anchor Books.
[5] Weick, K. E. (1995). Sensemaking in organizations. Sage Publications.
[6] Kouzes, J. M., & Posner, B. Z. (2017). The leadership challenge (6th Ed). John Wiley & Sons.
