PM in LO

Sometime back, I have always asked the question of, what might be the relevance of personal mastery skills in the context of a Learning Organization?

The answer came to me recently when I examine closely the concepts of systems thinking. Well, in a nutshell, systems thinking is nothing but thinking in an interdependent fashion. In other words, our reactions might cause another person to act in a particular way, which in turn will reinforce our perceived response to that very same person.

For instance, some of us may know of someone who is consistently late for appointments. As such, over time we may even show up late for our appointment with this person. And as a result of our response that person thinks, well if he's going to be late, then I might as well take my time.

Another way of thinking in an interdependent fashion is to look at the eco-system, where the extinction of one species may cause a reduction of food for another and hence result in the latter species dwindling in numbers, which in turn will cause yet another species' survival be threatened.

Just like in chaos theory where it was said that the flapping of the wings of a butterfly might cause an earthquake in another region.

This, in summary is systems thinking. It is a way of thinking in an interdependent fashion, where the systems and processes you implement in one area can, and will, have impact, beneficially or otherwise in another area.

So, where does personal mastery comes in? Before we get into that, let us use a 4-level approach to view things from a systems perspective. And let's use the term TEAM to help us along. TEAM is the technique that LINE Consulting - Singapore has developed for their training of educators. TEAM stands for targets, efforts, attitude, and mind-set. Let's look at each in detailed.

Let's say you have a target you want to achieve. The first thing that most people will think of is, what do I need to do in order to achieve the target (efforts). So once you have decided on what needs to be done, do you just go out and do it? If you do, then you probably already have the right attitude and also the right mind-set.

Hence, using TEAM as a way to think about things allow us to go deeper than just the surface. It goes beyond looking at things from a programme or event level. Say, if the enrichment programme this year is not helping us meet our targets, doing a review of the programme might help in some ways, but it might not solve the problem especially if our issue at hand is deeper than it seems.

To be continued...