Dan Erwin

Top Ten Books for College Orientation

Many students heading off to college for the first time this fall already have a college-level assignment. In preparation for their first year, they’re expected to have read a book over the summer and come prepared to discuss it in class.

It was not just any book, but a “common reading.” It was a specific book selected by their institution to not only create a shared experience, but also planned to be the subject of discussions by college freshmen and their teachers. As you look through the list, compiled by the Chronicle of Higher Education, you’ll notice that many of them are intended to help raise awareness of social issues.

The term “occurrences” refers to the number of colleges using the book in the “one book, one campus” program--not to the fact that I lost the six-grade spelling bee by misspelling “occurrence.” And that’s another fact, jogging my 76-year-old memory. Ha!

Here’s the list of the top ten books, in order of selection numbers. I’ll also add a comment or two about each of the books.

1. Just Mercy: A story of justice and redemption, by Bryan Stevenson (73 occurrences). Bryan Stevenson grew up poor in Delaware, the great grandson of slaves. His grandfather was murdered in a Philadelphia housing project when Stevenson was a teenager. After graduating from college, he went on to Harvard Law, and then began representing poor clients in the South.
2. Educated: A memoir, by Tara Westover (57 occurrences). If you thought Hillbilly Elegie was great, it’s tame in contrast to Westover’s story of going to college with no education. Her ignorance of the Holocaust, and discoveries of Napoleon and Martin Luther King, Jr. as well as the fact of learning that Europe is not a country is all excruciating. Yet soon enough, she’s off to a fellowship at Cambridge University, where a renowned professor exclaims upon meeting her: “How marvelous. It’s as if I’ve stepped into Shaw’s ‘Pygmalion.’”
3. Between the World and Me, by Ta-Nahisi Coates (35 occurrences). The well-known writer and commentator delivers his book in the form of a letter to his son. It overflows with insights about the embodied state of blackness and the logic of white supremacy. If you’re an avid reader you’ll know that a lot of his insights about being Black in a White world are being strongly challenged, making it still more important for the reader. 

Why Is It So Hard to Learn?

There are at least ten or so reasons that tend to make learning difficult for most of us.

Less than 10% of professionals are agile enough learners to quickly process an experience and apply their lessons to new situations. That's a spooky statistic. In today's economy where innovation, skill development  and learning are the only means to circumvent  personal obsolescence, why is the number of agile learners so small? In other words, why is it so hard to learn? Max Bazerman of Harvard  suggests three basic obstacles to learning. In this brief summary I add eight more insights gleaned from both research and face-to-face experience with hundreds of clients. 

The need for balance
If you’ve achieved some level of professional success, the idea that your skills could be lacking won’t compute. In fact, as Bazerman reminds us, balance theory emphasizes that we want consistency when we organize our thoughts and think about our expertise. To maintain our cognitive balance—our need to believe we’re consistent--we are nearly certain to avoid hard or painful truths.

If it ain’t broke, why fix it?
Generally, most of us reach a level of competency between four and six years into our vocation—then we slow down and eventually stop learning. Partly, that’s because we’ve been praised in the past for our work prowess. According to reinforcement theory, we tend to continue behaviors (skills) that brought positive rewards such as raises and promotions. If your professionalism has rewarded you, you’ll tend to resist information suggesting that your judgment and your toolbox could be systematically improved. 

Mistakes were made, but not by me
You’ve probably relied on your way of doing things for years. When you receive negative feedback about your performance, that will mean that you’ve made some costly mistakes in the past—and that will be unsettling. Interpersonal studies suggest that getting negative feedback causes us to avoid the person who gave it, filter information to him in the future, and constrict our  thinking. It’s no surprise that most of us will try to discredit the truth about our deficiencies, and become impervious to self-correction.

Missing the big picture
When learning new competencies, some people are so wrapped up in the detail and concrete specifics of a new skill that they miss the big development picture. Our education, whether business, law, architecture or engineering is highly specialized—making us all "Incrementalists." As a result, we fail to fully integrate the new skill into our toolkit, thinking that learning is merely an item-by-item matter. Without integration, our learning results will be nothing more than mediocre, barely moving the needle.

How to Connect Face-to-Face

In Sherry Turkle’s scary book, Reclaiming Conversation, she makes the not-so-obvious point that the strength of the digital age has become our greatest weakness. We know how to connect, but we don’t know how to converse. That is, we know how to connect digitally, but we don’t know how to connect verbally and face-to-face.

For a guy well-schooled in rhetorical communication and whose work has always been people-centric, that’s obvious. I live in a huge apartment filled with a ton of twenty and thirty-year olds, as well as the older generations. Far as I know, only one person in the entire apartment is older than I, and we share a lot of interesting insights from our past. So it’s inevitable that I come face-to-face with endless opportunities to get to know people. I don’t want to live in a vacuum. So I meet people in the mailroom, out at the pool, in the fitness/exercise room, around the building or, very often, walking their dogs. I’ve noticed over the years that it’s exceptionally unusual for most of the younger generations to initiate a conversation. So, I inevitably take it on—and then a conversation can start. I’ve found numerous absolutely delightful twenty and thirty-year olds who are happy to talk five minutes and more. Sometimes, I just walk around the building with them and their dog, both of us enjoying the conversation. It’s obvious that the younger ones do too, because the next time I see them, they stop, say hello and start talking. I no longer have to initiate the conversation.

My diagnostic brain, which, as a result of my careers, is always engaged, tells me that the reason people don’t initiate a conversation is simple: they don’t know how. And don’t want to fumble around, demonstrating their ignorance.

Surprisingly, the initiating process is rather straightforward. Among the most capable in this process are top consulting sales people from major corporations, responsible for millions of dollars of contracts.  They must become experts at initiating and building relations.  As a result, their training is very extensive. And there are both nonverbal and verbal tools that support the process. Note that I use the term “process.” Initiating relationships can be reduced to a very clear, highly adaptable process—just like most recurring behaviors..

How Silence Can Work in Your Favor

Silence works exceptionally well in many interpersonal situations. That’s especially true, for example, in a problem solving or conflict-oriented situation. In such contexts, strategic silence is often one of your best approaches to resolution. It’s an interpersonal behavior used when talk is expected. Someone has a pressing reason to talk, but does not talk and does not explain their silence.

So, when a person violates expectations by silence, the other’s attention is riveted on the silence. It violates expectations and typically leaves the other with “silence nerves.” A tension based on the innate need for social connections and relationships among humans. A tension often so strong that it defines the person—the initiator of the silence.

For example, I was recently involved in a highly frustrating situation with my website provider. Since my blogging and regular interactions were either via email or Typepad, I had decided that my website served no significant purpose and there was no reason to continue the monthly financial payment. Since my email worked out of the website, I contacted my provider and asked to keep the email. That was not possible, but I could purchase a simple stand-alone email site for just a few bucks a month. I also agreed to purchase a transfer process from a provider. But before I had worked thru the password issues for Outlook to transfer those archives and data, the hosting firm closed down my website. The provider sent me to the stand-alone email site, but I needed passwords from my old site to transfer all the data from that site. The agent worked with me for easily half an hour to transfer the material, but we failed. I couldn’t get the new site up and running and the agent couldn’t go online. Frustrated, he asked whether there wasn’t a more experienced person to do the work for me, an obvious snub. I had followed his instructions at least three times, but none of my passwords worked, resulting in a great deal of frustration for him. Clearly, he saw me as inept. I asked whether he could pass me up to his supervisor and his first response was negative. After ten minutes of more screwing around during which I said nothing, I asked again and this time I was passed on to a supervisor. In effect I rejected his definition of me—and he finally accepted my decision.  

The supervisor and I walked through the new email process twice, like the former agent. It failed both times. Then he suggested it might be a cache problem, so I followed his cache deleting instructions. That resolution brought me to the “create a new email” site. But we needed an accurate password to create a new email site and transfer all my materials. I had worked with the hosting firm for more than ten years so I had a number of passwords, but none of them worked, making transfer impossible. I owned the password problem, but here’s where the issue got messy. Because of the firm’s privacy issues, my contact couldn’t retrieve the working password. I was silent while he searched. He slowly went up the ladder, finally telling me that I’d have to handle the issue by paper and that it would probably take a week or two to get the password. I clarified quietly and slowly, “you’re telling me that I won’t be able to use an email for a week?” He didn’t respond. I remained silent. “Let me try something else” he finally said. That failed. I remained silent. So, he said, he might have another option. I remained silent. That failed. I remained silent. Finally, he said he didn’t think there were any other options except the paper route. I remained silent. Then he commented, “you’re not saying anything.” I very slowly and quietly remarked, “I don’t think you need to hear my anger” –and said nothing else. He was silent for a long time, as was I. My silence gave him no clues of how to work with me, so he was obviously playing around with the potential meanings of my silence. My past experience suggested that my silence was controlling the situation and the agent—exactly what I wanted. If I had talked, there was a high probability that I would have lost control of the situation. He would have responded to whatever I said, and taken back control.

Finally, he said that there was a “privacy team up the line, maybe they can help.” Again, I was silent. He said that he’d get back in a couple minutes. I remained silent. About three minutes later, he came back with both password and resolution of the problem. I responded quietly and with simplicity, “thank you.” The first agent was clearly both inept and pissed at me, a relation that brought practically nothing from me except silence, forcing the handover. The second agent revealed no serious frustration like the first. But my silence kept him from gaining control of the situation. “Silence,” however, drove his final search for me and ultimately resolved the problem.

Note well: Silence drives the resolution. Silence is tangible, the hard, strong presence that displays itself openly—so that we can’t escape its presence. The resolution is forced by the silence, not by me and not by the agent. If you can make that drastic mental shift, then tools and competencies assume a level of capacity that offers power that human persona cannot match. Our task as professionals, then, is to set these competencies free to operate in contexts of need.

On some occasions, however, silence does not violate expectations. It may be role silence, that of a subordinate to a superior--a sign of respect. Superiors may be silent toward others as a mark of their status. A senior person may not return a phone call or check in to update a subordinate. Though that kind of silence takes on meaning, it’s not strategic because it follows custom. In such customary settings the onus is inevitably on the subordinate to call the superior back.

It’s important to understand that strategic silence does not stand for, signify or symbolize the person. Instead, the behaviors actually create the person originating the silence. Silence controls the other. So, silence impacts us—and gradually creates us—our persona. It’s not just that the behaviors are different, but that the competency takes on a persona itself. Our task, then is to understand that persona in the contexts where it operates.

Processing strategic silence
Although silence is all around us, it becomes “strategic” only when talk is expected. Someone has a pressing reason to talk, but does not talk and does not explain their silence.

Strategic interpersonal silence is marked by a definite process, often involving a descriptive contextual comment, followed by a brilliant, daring, open question, then silence, then response from the “other,” then still another silence and then a more significant response, usually involving more significant clarity, a slight change of mind, and even material the person did not intend to share. It’s quite probable that the supervisor in the above case did not intend to go to the privacy team and resolve my issue. If I’d given him control, he’d quite happily have resolved the issue with paper and a week-long response. So, two silences or more in the rhetorical process are exceptionally useful. They tend to force a more thorough response. .

How to Decide Whether to Buy a Book

Most of my senior business clients read regularly. But I’ve been surprised on numerous occasions by how few books they read over a year. Though lack of time is the typical response, there’s another response that’s rarely mentioned. But by questioning them and making suggestions, I’ve figured out why they limit their reading. They don’t know if a book is worth their time. Actually, there are several rather simple ways to figure out that issue.

The obvious first response is that you usually want to limit your book-buying to just those subjects in which you’re interested. If you’re at the level in your firm where you’re responsible for a lot of decision-making, you might want to be looking in that area. So, for example, there’s a new book on judgment called simply, “Noise: A flaw in human judgment.”

A second way to quickly determine whether to buy is the author(s) themselves. Are the writers trustworthy. Do they have a history of providing both thoughtful insights and pragmatic suggestions? Since many business writers are academics, this is one place to be very careful. Many academics are just outstanding at diagnosing problems, but piss-poor at suggesting resolutions that are especially useful for business or the business-person.

Take “Noise,” for an example. Daniel Kahneman, the Nobel prize winner, is the first author. He’s a genius at diagnosis, but merely OK at resolution. And his resolutions tend to be individually oriented, not organizationally oriented. Cass Sunstein, the well-known author of “Nudge” worked in politics and is currently Harvard faculty. His resolutions tend to be a bit abstract and needing to be put on the bottom shelf. The third author, Olivier Sibony, also an academic—but with a broad-based background from many fields. He’s an absolute genius at practical resolution. He knows how to put the cookies on the bottom shelf and regularly locates them right there for everyone. That’s probably why he was invited to write with the other two.

The third way to decide whether to buy a book is to turn it over first, before opening it up, and read the blurbs on the back of the book. “Noise” had nine blurbs. Among the group is Steven Levitt, who wrote that hilarious and useful “Freakonomics.” Robert Cialdini, author of the most widely book on personal persuasion, “Influence.” Angela Duckworth, the author of “Grit.” Max Bazerman, the author of “Better, No Perfect.” And then Adam Grant, author of “Think Again.”

Why Do Chameleons Get Ahead?

The chameleon's success is built on their ability to self-monitor for the sake of impression management. It’s not that they’re manipulative, but that they’re superb at assessing situations and exceptionally astute at adapting to organizational needs.

Most employees make getting ahead a very high objective. Promotions can drastically change the lives of both those who stay in a company and those who move to another company. Promotions do more than provide different job duties and better rewards. They can also change where you live and who you get to interact with. In today’s high-pressured workplace, gaining new skills and working with different people can help keep you on the learning curve—and provide for job security.

Recently, studies have assessed the power of personality traits to impact promotion and rewards. The studies have ignored the actual performance of individuals and focused, for example, on the Big Five personality traits: conscientiousness, openness to experience, agreeableness, extraversion and neuroticism. Systematic studies have found that personality can predict job performance fairly well—but only under certain conditions. In fact, you may have lots of job relevant talent and personality traits, like conscientiousness and extraversion, but nevertheless fail to gain power or get promoted. . .

What 4 New Skills Underpin Digital Business Success?

Digital skills alone are not enough for IT effectiveness. Business success demands a technology workforce that is skilled in new ways of working. This new game is about future-proofing the IT humanware. It requires interactional competencies that respond to role complexity and the kind of ambidextrous competency that few of the workforce can currently muster.

(**See references below.)

Business studies, even in journals like the MIT Sloan Management Review, are more and more emphasizing the need for rhetoric and communication skills—they just don’t use that language or understand that interface. So, in an astute article on reskilling in the Winter 2021 Review (The Four Competencies Every Workforce Needs, Ayse Karaevli, et al), the authors laid out the competency issue with clarity in a superb diagnostic study: “IT organizations must be able to exploit existing IT capabilities for operational efficiency while simultaneously identifying new IT capabilities to help innovate and create new customer value.”

My initial response was “ho-hum.” I was working on that kind of stuff for my Master’s in group/team communication at UC Boulder in the 1970s. The skills hadn’t been put into the business context, but we all understood that these issues were transferable to many different contexts. Yet I am immensely aware that a background in the interface issues of rhetoric and communication, in addition to presentation and influence skills, is still rare among business people the world over. Fact of the matter, many European business schools provide little offerings in the necessary communication and rhetoric skills. And American business schools, unless you’re in the business communication discipline, are giving short shrift to interactional needs. Intriguingly, the Asian Schools, Japan as a case in point, are ahead of the Europeans in recognizing the need for these so-called “soft” competencies.

My Inherent Racial Prejudices

An illuminating study of the acting of Rege Jean Page

On two occasions recently, I’ve written glowing accounts of the mixed-race actor, Rege Jean Page. I concluded one post, “The best business course I’ve ever had (March 9, 2021),” by noting that direct change in human behavior is best facilitated by subversive activities. I provided a description of RJP as a superb example of subversive behavior in the role of Bridgerton’s Duke of Hastings.

By subversive activity I refer to behavior which undermines an established cultural, political or legal system. In this study, I focus on the distinction between two-dimensional and three-dimensional characterizations in acting as subversive example.

In film and literature, three-dimensional characters are complex and unique with fully developed lives. They can be thoughtless and mean, unassuming and careful, ignorant, ordinary or wise, healthy or debilitated, poor, middle-class or wealthy. They can also be outgoing or reserved, friendly and gracious, distant and calculating, handsome or plain, aspirational or cowardly. Three-dimensional characters depict the richness and diversity of being human, even, as in the case of the contrasting emotions and behaviors from invulnerable to vulnerable, revealed brilliantly in Page’s Duke of Hastings.

Two-dimensional characters, in stark contrast, do not display completely developed human lives. They cannot fully engage our emotions. They have few attributes a viewer or reader can relate to. Seen from only one or two sides, they reveal a seriously limited, partial humanity.  As much as I love Eddie Murphy, he’s a typical Black example of limited characterizations. In Beverly Hills Cop, for example, he focuses almost solely on the comic. And even when an opportunity presented itself in a relationship with a woman, the character displayed little more than personal interest and warmth. Do not misunderstand: this is not the actor’s doing. Two-dimensional characterizations are always the writer and the studio’s doing, whatever the role. The worst form of two-dimensional Black acting I’ve ever seen was Hattie McDaniel as Mammy in Gone with the Wind. Sure, she got an Oscar for the role. But the Oscar confirmed only a less than human, two-dimensional role for Blacks. When you walk away from the movie, what you take with you is a Black woman as supportive, warm, inferior, over-weight—and subservient. Someone you might trust serving you and your family, but without full-blown human behavior, intellect and emotion.

Archetypes and the racist persona
Following Freud and Jung, many analysts in recent years view racism as primordial images that have been filtered through personal, social and cultural contexts. Tests of implicit bias are available on the web, though some results have been challenged. Students of bias indicate that though the bias is present in the unconscious, it need not control relationships. If personal bias can be identified, these images of racism can be revised and educated, creating a highly tolerant reality.

Re-education
As a result of RJP’s discussion of his mixed-race, 3-dimensional role in Bridgerton, I suspected my images might be racially biased. Very curious, I decided that a simple, unsophisticated analysis might yield some useful insights. Wow! I got a lot more out of my analysis than I expected. Clearly, I’ve got to make some attitude adjustments to have a more healthy, positive humanism.

Because of my background in rhetorical criticism, I believed I could assess the actor’s portrayal of the Duke of Hastings, even though an amateurish, simple study. And, I thought, if I compared the first episode with the last episode, which would normally provide the dramatic situation and resolution, I might surface a fairly clear picture of the Duke’s role dimensions. Even simple critiques can sometimes provide helpful insight. As I suspected, the results were not pretty. Learning theory reveals that simple studies like this are capable of extensive, attitude-changing insight and changed behaviors. Such studies can assist in the creation of alternative reality structures. More tolerant perspectives on Blacks. That is exactly what happened!

Because of the time investment, the depth of even this simple study, I doubt that I’ll ever look at Blacks and Black actors in the same way again. However, before you look at my conclusions, it’s important to understand my Black experience.

Background
My background may well be different than most whites of my age. I’ve had Black acquaintances and a few Black friends since I was in middle-school in suburban Detroit. Although as I reminded a Black classmate at our 50^th reunion (class of 1952), we split by color and class when we entered high school. Blacks ate at their lunch tables and Whites at theirs. Upper middle-class students ate at their tables and blue-color students ate at theirs. But at that class reunion, what was very intriguing was that when a Black classmate walked toward me, I put out my arms, hugged her and kissed her on the cheek and she responded similarly. And then she said, “thank you.” I was surprised and said “thank you?” “Yes,” she responded. “You’re the only white male that kissed me.” “What world do they live in,” I asked. “Obviously, not yours,” she responded. She was attractive, well-educated and had served as a high school principal overseas for the US Army. Unusual for that time period, more than half of the class of 225 people were at least college grads. That included actually nine—that’s right—nine PhDs, a couple lawyers and physicians, along with still more mechanical engineers (it was the auto-capital--Detroit), and those who had excellent work backgrounds, but little to no college experience. Since only 9% of Americans from the early 1950s had college degrees, the high school class was more than a little unique. But with all that educational background, I would have expected more tolerance and acceptance than I saw that night and the next morning. But I was wrong.

Understanding Relationship Barriers and Breakdowns

Communication breakdowns happen a lot more than most of us think. It may be obvious that with a wide range of organizational associates, relationship breakdowns are inevitable. But candidly, it also happens regularly with one-on-ones. The actual researched percentage of misunderstanding and breakdown in an ordinary work conversation is so high you won’t believe me without extensive explanation. So, I won’t share the percentage. But suppose a tech manager is relating to a colleague in sales. That’s a set-up for breakdown. Inevitably, they’re working on different timelines, based on different objectives. Furthermore, the rewards are typically conflicting, the techie on salary and sales on commission.

But add four or five more people into the mix, all from different organizational disciplines, and you’re not just adding to the potential for relationship breakdowns, you’re both multiplying and speeding up the potential for misunderstanding and breakdown.  Inevitably, conflicts over personnel, resource allocation, timelines and turf, surface.  Differences of objectives, strategies, measures of success and even values can escalate the emotions.  We have a “communication breakdown" is not just Led Zeppelin, it remains a common buzzword for these differences.  In a real sense, however, the above relationships are not, strictly speaking, "communication breakdowns."  The parties involved understand exactly what's going on and they are effective at communicating their differences, and hopefully, negotiating them.  They involve trust and competition, usually over scarce resources of one kind or another. What makes interpersonal breakdowns especially difficult is that resolution often requires behavioral negotiation skills, skills more complex than negotiating products and dollars.

Candidly, the above differences that we label "communication breakdowns" are neither the most common nor the most personally painful.  There are, instead, some very common barriers and breakdowns that get in the way of effective relationships that can be even more damaging than the above list.  The really damaging barriers are about misunderstanding another person's point of view.  Indeed, I've found that that the most common barriers and breakdowns in organizations are inevitably about relational breakdowns.  What makes these interpersonal breakdowns so difficult is that dealing with hard products is a lot different than dealing with the barriers posed by soft people feelings. So, when the breakdown is interpersonal, these breakdowns can require behavioral conversations and at least basic behavioral negotiation skills. Behavioral skill of either type is not always available, so the breakdown remains unresolved or pushed up the ladder.

Attribution theory
The best way to understand these breakdowns is through what is known as "attribution theory" which deals with the ways people interpret observed facts and explain others’ as well as their own behavior. What’s significant about attribution is that the causes we use to explain another’s behavior impacts the way we think about, feel about and behave toward that person. The practice is so widespread that attributions can be made of others’ behaviors without an observable cause. Of course, it takes very little thinking to realize that observed behaviors can be interpreted in numerous ways.  Furthermore, research also shows that once we've created our interpretation, right or wrong, it's very difficult to dislodge.

The process has become so questionable that in response to the potential for erroneous conclusions social scientists speak about the “fundamental attribution error.” The attribution error is the tendency for people to over-emphasize dispositional, or personality-based explanations for behaviors observed in others--while under-emphasizing situational explanations. In other words, people are almost inherently biased to assume that a person's actions depend on what "kind of person” that manager or worker is rather than on the business context.

Let's say you're the manager of a technology team.  Noticing that one of your employees seems to be working particularly hard over the past few weeks, you wonder why.  You might conclude that his project timelines are causing his behavior.  Or maybe he is angling for a raise.  Could be that he's attempting to suck up.  Maybe he's just bored and wants to keep busy.  So, you decide he's angling for a raise, but a colleague tells you he's just sucking up. Whatever. You've drawn a potentially fallible conclusion based on observable fact. And, in spite of all that's been said, once you've decided he's angling for a raise, you'll reject most any other interpretation. And your relevant behavior will follow.

We also make positive inferences.  You might think your employee genuinely wants to see his team succeed.  Or perhaps, you decide, you've just never realized what a hard worker this guy is. But more often than not, it’s the negative attributions that follow, resulting in the relational breakdown. Bad is always more powerful than good. So, it’s rare for us to ask what’s going right about a situation? Instead, it’s what’s going wrong?

Those dangerous inferences
People draw their conclusions both from the work context as well as past history with a person when they come up with interpretations.  But. . . underlying those interpretations are just a few basic assumptions that drive most of them (I prefer "inferences" even though "interpretation" is the more familiar.  Getting used to the term "inferences" will support some other cool, problem-solving and decision-making skills.)   Anyway, these wrongheaded inferences cause us to flare up, get disgusted, get angry and frustrated, be ashamed or even walk away for another day--or week—or even years.  Some families have had major breakups merely because members interpreted the behavior of another using one of these inferences. Inferences, like conclusions are nothing more than opinions. The language just sounds more intelligent.

Thankfully, attribution theory provides us with a lot of insight into human relationships and communication.  Here are three recurring and dangerous assumptions...

10 Key Behaviors for Learning in Organizations

Learning behaviors are all tied together by just one thread: learning with other people.

Gaining new competencies through “deep learning” is not the same thing as the way you learned in school. Nor is it the same result that you gain from doing a lot of research on a problem and developing an understanding of the problem. Furthermore, there is no real correlation between understanding a problem and being able to resolve it. In contrast, deep learning lasts and is a way of being, a mindset and an orientation. It’s absolutely necessary to put deep learning front and center because the internet has increased close-mindedness and made profound, deep learning very difficult and sometimes impossible. In Chris Argyris’ well known HBR article, “Teaching smart people how to learn,” the author points out that success in the marketplace increasingly depends on learning (even more today than when he wrote this), but most people don’t know how to learn.”

What starts you on the way to learn a new competency is the experience of “constructive disorientation.” The strong sense that something’s wrong, not working, could work better—or just very frustrating. And you believe there must be a way to resolve that issue. That “something wrong” has your brain ruminating, focused on the issue and working hard. In short, frustration is the spark for learning, critical reflection it’s engine, and relationships are the fuel.

Of these three issues, the one that’s often ignored is the role of other people in making learning happen. There is a terrific amount of theorizing and research about learning with other people. Jon Wergin of the University of Nebraska has focused on all the major learning issues in his fascinating new book, Deep Learning in a disorienting world. Since this is the kind of book most business people, except for the HR folk, won’t pick up, here are the 10 key behaviors—with my brief notes added...