1. Dr. R. Uma
Lakshmi College of Education
Gandhigram

2. LEARNING DISABILITIES IN AN ORGANIZATION
1. I am my Position
2.The enemy is out there
3.The Illusion of taking charge
4.The fixation on events
5.The parable of the boiled frog
6.The delusion of learning from
experience
7.The myth of the management team

3. 1. I AM MY POSITION
What do you do for a living?
Japanese – auto engine lower production
cost but with extraordinary precision and
reliability
In an American car the same assembly costs
more. Why?

4. 2. THE ENEMY IS OUT THERE
Boy- Football
• ‘No one can catch a ball in that darn
field’
• Blaming someone or something outside
ourselves when things grow wrong.
• A by-product of ‘I am my position’
• Non systemic ways of looking at the
world that our position fosters
• This LD makes it impossible to detect
the leverage ‘in here’

5. 3. THE ILLUSION OF TAKING CHARGE
• Proactive-taking charge in facing difficult
problems, stop waiting for someone else to
do something and solve problems before
they grow into crisis.
• Reactive- waiting until a situation goes out
of hand before taking a step.
Ex: insurance company –appointing Legal staff.
If we fight with our ‘enemy out there’ –we are
only reacting.
Proactiveness is reactiveness in disguise
True proactiveness comes from seeing how
we contribute to our own problems.

6. 4. THE FIXATION OF EVENTS
• Focusing on events distract us from
seeing the longer-term patterns of
change that lie behind the events.
• The primary threats for our survival
come not from sudden events but from
slow gradual process – the arms race,
the environmental decay, the erosion of
society’s public education system,
decline in a product quality etc.,
• Generative learning cannot occur if
people’s thinking is dominated by short
term events.

7. 5. THE PARABLE OF THE BOILED FROG
• Threats to survival need not be sudden
changes in the environment but may be
slow and gradual. We need to slow down to
see the gradual processes that often poses
greatest threats.
• Detroit – Big three
Japan –not a threat in 1962 (4% US market)
1967 Less than 10%
1974 ,, ,, 15%
1980 -- 21.3%
1990 -- 25%
2005 -- 40%

8. THE DELUSION OF LEARNING FROM
EXPERIENCE
We learn best from experience but we
never directly experience the
consequences of many of our most
important decisions.
Ex. Oversupply of workers in a particular
field.

9. THE MYTH OF THE MANAGEMENT TEAM
Most management teams break down
under pressure
Work well with routine issues
Complex issues – the teamness break.
We learn to protect ourselves from the pain
of appearing ignorant. This blocks out
new understandings  skilled
incompetence.

10. THANK YOU