Learning from your Mistakes - Double-loop learning model

In my previous blog I looked at why experience does not make us wiser. Having said that we learn from our mistakes, if only if we know how to... In 1974 Chris Argyris and Donald Schön published the book Theory in Practice. Increasing professional effectiveness which later was revised to become the 1996 book "Organizational Learning II". The importance of this Argyris and Schön work is the introduction of Double loop learning model of which you can read some of it here. It is important since it teaches us to learn from our mistakes. It is about reflecting on your actions and learning from them. This mode of learning is based on the works of Heinz von Foerster and Niklas Lhumann in particular the idea or "second order observation".

We can categorize humans in two modes of learning. One is the simple first-order observer where they see things as they appear to them. The other is the second-order observer who observes the first-order observer and how they see things. Let’s put that in perspective, in a basketball game the referee is the first order observer while the fans that criticizes wrong calls made by the referee are the second-order observer. The second order observer has a perspective removed from what is happening enabling him/her to judge the situation better.

Argyris and Schön developed double-loop learning based on the ideas above where in the best case scenario is the first order observer or as they call it single-loop or more commonly known in business as best practice. The problem with best practice is that whatever works well is not changed it is simply repeated including the mistakes attached to it. In the worst case scenario this mode of learning makes the practitioner repeat the same mistakes since the results are not questioned. Now with a double-loop learning you think about what are you doing, and analyze the patterns of how you do things and not simply doing it differently. The key lies in understanding why you do something the way you do it. If you are fully aware of this then you are able to change your actions or decisions, thus learning from your mistakes.

In artificial intelligence and cybernetics this works well since it considers the intelligence as facts and no emotions attached and the absence of illogical choices and unconscious actions. The question to you is, are you going to go for best practice or a learning system…? Having said that, in humans this does not really work very well.

The problem of this decision model is the discrepancy between what we say we are about to do and what we actually do. If we really want to learn from our mistakes we should completely reassess our more deeply rooted reasons, objectives and values.

Imagine this in the normal and natural world our actions leads to results which we can them compare and analyze (double-loop) but end up doing the same action again. Now if you step back and analyze the values and objectives of why we took the decision or action that we took we took then we can avoid any mistakes we did the first time around and not repeat them at all.