Reflection in self-organised systems - Information Systems Foundations: Constructing and Criticising - page 102

Learning from negative feedback
'It is a theory of experience that assigns to our observations the equally modest and almost
equally important role of tests which may help us in the discovery of our mistakes.
Though it stresses our fallibility it does not resign itself to scepticism, for it also stresses
the fact that knowledge can grow and that science can progress - just because we can
learn from our mistakes.' Popper (1969, p. vii)
Negative feedback in this paper is approached from the self-organisation perspective.
The concept of reflection involves criticising one's conjectures, ideas, theories or past
actions with a view to invalidating them or, in the case of action, to improve performance
by learning from mistakes in previous action. Jung (1950), as cited in Fortune and Peters
(1997), asserts that 'little or nothing is learnt from successes … while failures are, on the
other hand, priceless experiences in that they not only open up the way to a deeper
truth, but force (one) to change views and methods'. Popper (1969) concurs, maintaining
that mistakes indicate a gap in knowledge and that learning occurs when those mistakes
are rectified.
Fortune and Peters (1997) stress that the main deterrent to learning from failure is 'post-
event rationalisation' where frequently the desire to discover the reasons for failure
cause investigations to be carried out hastily; this leads to a false picture of the failure,
its cause and the context in which it occurred. They cite the cases of the Bhopal chemical
disaster and the British European Trident Papa India air crash as examples of hastily
formed first impressions that led to completely erroneous findings. The writers advocate
using the Systems Failure Method whose goal is 'a systemic interpretation of a failure
and its context' (Fortune and Peters, 1997, p. 64) to learn from any failure or mistake.
This applies systems thinking concepts to reflection - the focus of reflection is viewed
as a 'system' and, when reflection is taking place, the boundary, environment, purpose
and different perspectives are taken into account to describe the system in which the
failure occurred. An idealised model of the system is designed, and then this and the
failed system are compared. This comparison is used to identify or explain the causes
of failure. The knowledge created from this reflection is used to recommend actions to
improve the situation.
Reflective culture
This section will argue that the reflective culture of the individual and organisation is
critical for effective reflective learning to take place (Schon, 1995; Mathiassen and
Sandeep, 2002; Seibert, 1999; Raelin, 2001; Ayas and Zeniuk, 2001; Brockbank and
McGill, 1998). Individual reflective culture is defined as 'the act of developing the intel-
lectual and moral faculties' to reflect (Merriam-Webster). It can be difficult for an indi-
vidual to acquire the skills of reflective learning (Alvesson and Skolberg, 2000) as these
skills do not occur naturally. Accordingly, opportunities and education need to be
provided to stimulate the practice and develop the individual's culture (Raelin, 2001).
Ayas and Zeniuk (2001) agree that a reflective culture based on the search to improve
knowledge by questioning one's assumptions and understandings, and the consequences
of one's actions, starts at an individual level and can be practiced in the workplace in
such situations as project development.
The reflective culture of an organisation is defined as: 'The set of shared attitudes, values,
goals and practices that characterises a company or corporation' (Merriam-Webster). If
reflective learning is to take place at an organisational level, the culture of the organisation
needs to be sympathetic to reflection. Raelin (2001, p. 13) maintains that an individual's
background has a significant effect on the propensity to reflect with others; some mar-