What the Mutual Learning Approach is Not

When leaders first hear about the Mutual Learning approach, they often misunderstand what it is. Sometimes the easiest way to understand something is to contrast it with what it is not. So, here are several things that the approach is not:

The Mutual Learning approach is not a way to get others to change, or get them to do what you want them to. Many leadership approaches start with the assumption that you’re the one who has the corner on the truth, that what you need to get better at is getting people who see things differently from you to change their views and behavior. That way you can accomplish what you’ve already decided needs to be done.

In contrast, the Mutual Learning approach starts with the assumption that no one – not even you – has the corner on the truth, and what you need to get better at is learning from and with others who see things differently so that together you can develop much better decisions that everyone is committed to. It helps you stop undermining your ability to create those high quality decisions and strong working relationships that you say are important. It helps you get better results by increasing your own effectiveness, rather than by trying to control others.

The Mutual Learning approach is not making decisions by consensus. Some leadership approaches declare that all team decisions need to be made by consensus. Other approaches tell you that you need to make the decisions for the team. These approaches miss the point: leading a team is too complex to use only one rule for decision making. The Mutual Learning approach assumes that there are times when you need to make decisions on your own, other times when you need to make them with input from your team, and still other times when you need team consensus.

The Mutual Learning approach is not a tool or technique. People love tools and techniques. They are often simple to learn, easy to follow, and can be standardized. They are essential for leadership because they show you “how to.” But tool-and-technique leadership is ultimately meaningless, and can even diminish success, if you don’t know “why to” lead in a particular way. When you know “why to” you’re able to operate consciously and consistently from a set of values that tell you what to do in any situation, not just a predictable situation for which there is a handy tool or specific technique. Knowing “why to” allows you to discern whether leadership tools and techniques you come across in the future are congruent – or in conflict with – the leadership values you espouse. When you focus only on ”how to” tools or techniques, you aren’t able to see how you undermine your best efforts.

The Mutual Learning approach integrates “why to” and “how to.” It’s an approach that shows you why the way you think is the way that you lead. It begins with examining your mindset – the values you operate from – and provides specific methods for putting an effective leadership mindset into action. When you change the way you think, you change the way you lead and get results that you can never get just by trying to use new techniques.

The Mutual Learning approach is not something you master in a workshop. The learning and development industry has led leaders to believe that leadership and team development is what happens in a workshop – preferably a short workshop. Come for one or two days, pick up some new tools for your toolkit, and you’re a new improved leader. Like an assembly line, the more leaders that your organization “puts through the program” the better. For simple marginal changes that may work. But for changes that significantly improve your team’s effectiveness and your business results it’s a fantasy.

Changing how you think so that you operate differently takes time, effort, and discipline. It’s hard. You don’t change how you think or how you operate in the heat of high-stakes business situations just by attending a workshop. In a workshop you can become aware of the gap between how you think you lead and how you actually lead, and you can commit to closing that gap. But closing that gap requires knowledgeable, expert guidance so that you have a heightened awareness and disciplined practice of thinking and operating differently every day.

The Mutual Learning approach is not for every organization. The Mutual Learning approach is not for leaders who espouse values that they jettison when the stakes become high. It’s not for leaders who seek superficial solutions to deep-rooted issues. It’s not for leaders who think that fundamental sustainable change that significantly improves their business results can happen with just a workshop.

The Mutual Learning approach is for leaders and leadership teams who appreciate that real change for sustainable results takes real work, that the foundation of effective leadership is the values on which you build everything else, and that everyone – including you – both contributes to and detracts from your team’s effectiveness.

Originally published May 2012