System Thinking Vs. Team Learning

In Apple Inc. Team Learning wins

Team learning emphasis “dialogue” rather than “discussion”, this is to avoid self-defending and encourage view sharing. Listen to what others have in mind and try to elaborate them. And so 1+1 may not be only 2 anymore, there could be endless ideas just like how brainstorming works.

As a corporation that highly focuses on technology and design like Apple Inc., I would say Team learning could be more important than system thinking because the company needs to be highly sensitive to the trend in the market and create new products, besides individual learning, the team learning organization has to learn through multiple dialogues inside or outside the company to come out new projects. Team learning also allows the corporation tackle deep difficult problems because we can find out solutions more efficiently through exchanging ideas. Therefore, team intelligence could eventually exceed individual intelligence if team learning has done well.

System thinking emphasis looking the system as a whole rather than focusing the details. However if everyone thinks at the system, efficiency will surely drop because they are always thinking before they act. Therefore 1 group of “system thinkers” is enough to manage the company. Similarly in many businesses they have a management team who are the system thinkers, other subordinates just specialize in their tasks. This increases efficiency as in division of labor. Same in Apple Inc., system thinking is important but I don’t think everyone needs to be “system thinkers”. However, team learning is definitely what everyone should participate in order to excel!