ABSTRACT
Resistance to change is never more profoundly encountered than in the process of re-learning ways of learning, of changing the way we change. ‘Doing’ is repetitive. It sustains performance without change. Here non-learning is the order of the day. Learning leads to evolution of performance, to change and development in the cycle of activity. Such a shift often meets with resistance even though the patterns or means of learning remain reassuringly constant. Intervene in the learning system to change those underlying patterns, and anxiety may well escalate. Learning to learn is a fraught activity with powerful built-in reactions tending to restore learning behaviour to previously known processes. This dynamic conservatism is emerging as the critical constraint in the development of advanced learning systems in organisational life. It emerges at every level of the system, from individual to global corporation, and is endemic in every form of organisation.
