ABSTRACT
The complex, ambiguous, and paradoxical nature of the global strategy environment in which traditional linear, transaction-oriented, controlling executives now find themselves requires that they develop a range of thinking in order to make adaptive, sustainable, and innovative strategy. A downto-earth board member of a British investment bank with whom I was working coined the terms surf and dive domains of learning after we had been working together for a couple of days on strategic thinking issues. Instead of using my drab terms, level I and level II domains, he quickly coined the concepts in everyday terminology that made sense to him. I borrowed the terms because the imagery works, and it conveys the concept quickly. For these reasons I have decided to pass along the terms, which parallel other terms, such as single loop and double loop (Schon), model I and model II (Schein), and instrumental and communicative (Mezirow), or whatever works for you. As William Shakespeare put it, “A rose by any other name would smell as sweet.”
