How managers learn

Anything done by people gives rise to individual variation in its performance. For instance, rock climbing must reflect the important variations possible between all sets of arms, legs and rock faces, but we know from experience that the number of significantly different permutations and combinations of these is sufficiently small to leave us with a reasonable area of common techniques which will apply to most arms and most legs going up most rock faces. In other words the differences are overshadowed by the basic similarities. There are occasions, however, when individual aspects become so important that they modify our view about how general principles operate. This is especially true with an abstract activity such as learning — which can be something purely physical (with scarcely any conscious counterpart) or almost entirely mental. What people bring in the way of mental arms and legs to various learning situations varies so much and so subtly that we may lose confidence in the whole idea of a general technique. Perhaps there is then a special value in focusing our attention on individual differences, in the hopes that sufficient understanding of these will clarify the areas of similarity. To do this we need to find a common learning task that can be attempted by almost any individual so that we gain some perspective on whatever common principles there may be. This is exactly what we did when we sought to examine how managers learn. How would they compare with operatives? Do their activities in learning operate in totally different spheres? Would it even be POSSIBLE practically to compare them?