More About Teams

I'm reading about Team Learning as described by Peter Senge in his book The Fifth Discipline: The Art and Practice of the Learning Organization. Senge espouses "systems thinking" (a way of thinking in more holistic terms) as a path to creating the "Learning Organization". The book has a philosophical bent that aligns with my own thinking in some ways, and so it has been hard to put down.

According to Senge, team learning (as opposed to individuals in a team learning as separate entities) is learning together, and it must be practiced continually; he uses the analogy of a jazz ensemble being "in the groove", or a sports team that has learned together to get "into the zone". He also characterizes team learning as a mysterious phenomenon which, in order for it to be more fully understood, must be practiced and built into teams in the workplace (p. 268). My overall impression is that team learning is a "frontier" experience.

In the section on Team Learning, Senge makes a strong point that problems aren't usually "out there" coming from some uncontrollable external force, but come from the individual or group's actions interacting with "the system". He also talks in-depth about the technique of dialogue (as developed in a theory by quantum physicist David Bohm), where assumptions are brought out into the open and examined in a non-threatening way. He views this as an antidote to unproductive group thinking and decision-making. (pages 238-243).

I wonder where the HealthRhythms protocol might fit into this picture of team learning. Could the process of going through a facilitated drum circle give insights into how the group might learn together? (What does it mean to "learn together"?? That could be something to explore in a session). Or could it show them what happens when their thoughts and assumptions get in the way of learning to "play together"? Is a drum group that is "locked in the groove" an example of team learning in action?

I'm excited to read more of this book. I would like to tie in some of his ideas to what the participants in a facilitated drum circle may be doing--learning to interact as a whole group, and in a different way than they are used to...the drumming way.