"Consciously or unconsciously, leaders put in place structures and practices that make sense to them. These structures and practices correspond to their way of dealing with the world and means that an organisation cannot evolve beyond it's leadership's stage of development." Hermanni Hyytiala   Here are some barriers to progress that correspond with the way that many control oriented leaders deal with their world: Perpetuating a linear, directive, process oriented, bias... Maintains busyness as the key status enhancing characteristic of the system* Which reinforces an inability to create space for reflection, new opportunities and stopping 'old' things Which limits the ability to define the new characteristics of high performance as context shifts Which prevents agreement on the new conditions that need to be in place to enable these new characteristics Which reinforces the 'snow blindness' of attempting to move in a 'new direction' using the

"In most organisations the effort spent on ensuring conformance is is a vast multiple of the energy devoted to enlarging the capacity for human impact." Michele Zanini Systems ('how the work works here') in control based organisations aren't tuned towards continual learning and collective growth. The conditions required aren't in place because those people in a position to shift the existing system towards something new feel they have too much to lose individually or collectively to make the changes needed. This is the reason why enablers of continual learning struggle to take hold and return potential benefits. These enabling characteristics could include: Deliberately getting all parts of the organisation to work together to increase new, value creating solutions Higher quality (= more empathetic) interactions throughout (= 'up, down and across') the organisation Deliberately choosing to learn from every encounter and constantly reflecting - to evo

"The biggest issue holding organisations back is outdated mindsets at the board and c-suite levels, ... control ... will not work in an era where people-work is ambiguous assessing, collaborating, innovating and building relationships." Rachel Happe Some common cultural inhibitors to continual learning in complex organisations: The myth that leaders have to be in control, decisive, and dominant The myth of 'rugged individualism' The comfort of familiar, safe, simplistic, 'solutions' A shared belief in managerial prerogatives; ('the divine rights of managers') A belief that power is the ability not to have to learn anything Individual achievement as the primary source of status Compartmentalisation of work from self and family A belief that 'task' issues should override relationship concerns The myth that management is about 'hard' things; (money, data, 'the bottom line') versus 'soft' issues; (mindsets, thinking, reflect

"People are rethinking their relationship to their careers, their companies, and their leaders. What may have worked before to inspire employees is insufficient in today's environment. As a leader how are you adapting to this shift?" Doug Conant What matters most to the organisation and why? What matters most to the L&D team and why? What differentiates the business from the competition? What differentiates your approach to enabling learning? How is the organisation changing and why? How are the L&D team enabling change? How do you define ‘ Learning ’? Who agreed this definition? Who benefits most from this definition? What are the 'success measures' for learning? Who agreed these success measures? Who benefits from the success measures? How can the business learn faster? What are the barriers to learning faster? What would happen if the L&D team did nothing new ?

"Conventional thinking will fail, no matter how well conceived and executed." Kees Dorst I think there are two categories of 'Corporate Values' statements that can be helpful: 1. The organisation recognises and acknowledges the unique  and differentiating characteristics of its current system. These characteristics are distilled and 'codified' as ' Our Values '. These founding 'Values' play the role of arbitrator and guide when difficult trade offs need to made as the organisation chooses a growth path. There is a conscious decision to preserve and maintain these founding characteristics as the organisation evolves, and to continue to prioritise and nurture these 'enablers of our differentiation'. 2. The organisation recognises and acknowledges that its current system can no longer  support deliberate, and sustainable growth looking forward; (' what got us here won't get us there '). So, there is a conscious decision to