The Attitude Lounge with Kodwo Brumpon: Skilled at not learning

“Ears that do not listen to advice, accompany the head when it is chopped off.” – African proverb

Many of us would be offended if we were ever told that we have become skilled at not learning. The instinctual sting you feel at that accusation is, in itself, the most perfect piece of empirical evidence for it. To be called ‘skilled at not learning’ is to have a mirror held up to the very defensive routines we spend our lives perfecting. The offense we would feel, will not be a random emotional reaction. It is the sophisticated, lightning-fast immune response we have designed to protect our egos, when we are usually accused.

Here is why it cuts so deeply, and why that very cut is the signal we ought to heed. We can just about tolerate being told we made a mistake or overlooked a trend. Those are passive failures of attention. But to be told, we are ‘skilled’ implies agency, practice, and deliberate craftsmanship.

It suggests that we have not merely failed to learn, but that we have actively, consciously, and repetitively trained ourselves to evade the truth. To be told your greatest professional asset or your expertise is actually a highly calibrated weapon of self-deception is to have your moral and intellectual integrity questioned at its root.

Let us picture the scene. A meeting room filled with seasoned professionals; that is people with decades of frontline experience, advanced degrees, and a genuine desire to improve their organisation. The CEO has called a meeting to discuss a worrying downturn.

The numbers are clear, the trend unmistakable. Yet as the discussion unfolds, something curious happens. Concerns are gently deflected. Difficult questions are taken offline. Vague abstractions and diplomatic language fill the air. By the time the meeting ends, a list of issues has been compiled but no decisions have been made, no actions agreed.

For starters, let us appreciate that no one in that room is stupid. Nobody is lazy. On the contrary, they are among the smartest, most accomplished people in their field. And that, as the late organizational psychologist Chris Argyris spent a lifetime demonstrating, is precisely the problem. In his research identified a phenomenon he called ‘skilled incompetence.’

It is a condition in which people become very good at doing things that have unhappy consequences, even though those things seem like the right thing to do. They are skilled because, like riding a bicycle or playing tennis, people do it without thinking. But they can be incompetence because their actions and inactions often create results that are not intended, like falling off a bike or an unforced error in tennis.

The corporate executive who has built a career on a particular theory of leadership, a specific market strategy, or a cherished organisational design will not easily notice evidence that contradicts it. Their noticing apparatus has been selectively trained away from disconfirmation. Their unawareness about other things in the environment makes them skilled at not learning.

To understand how this happens, we need to understand that we all have mental models that actually guide our behaviour, as opposed to the ones we espouse. Most of us, operate by seeking to maintain control, winning arguments, and suppressing negative feelings that might upset our status quo. We do this so smoothly, and with such practiced grace, that we do not even realise when we are derailing progress.

Whenever we are asked to examine our own roles in the problems affecting us, many of us instantly become defensive. We are quick to put the blame on others. This defensive reasoning keeps us from examining critically the way we contribute to the very problems we are committed to solving. For example, almost all of us are quick to blame our political elite for our nation’s underdevelopment.

The tragedy is that this behaviour disguises itself as professional etiquette. We are good at using by-passing tactics, vague abstractions and soft language, to steer ourselves clear of conflict. And because we are so socially adept and diplomatically trained, we can manoeuvre around a difficult truth without ever leaving a fingerprint.

It is not surprising that we have become world-class at maintaining a peaceful atmosphere but completely incompetent at solving the actual problems dragging us down. The corporate executive suite is an echo chamber of confirmation bias.

Past success is one of the most powerful sources of strategic blindness. It creates a reference point that is rarely questioned. When a decision has previously produced growth, stability, or recognition, it gains psychological authority. Challenging it feels unnecessary. In fact, the more successful the person is, the more sophisticated those blind spots become.

So, what is to be done? The answer is not more technical training, more data, or more PowerPoint presentations. The way out, is to make leaders, managers and executives focus on their own behaviour so they can reason more effectively and learn to learn. People can be taught how to recognise the reasoning they use when they design and implement their actions…

The post The Attitude Lounge with Kodwo Brumpon: Skilled at not learning appeared first on The Business & Financial Times.

Read Full Story