As Weick (1991) points out, conceptualizing organizational learning at a bona fide collective level opens up the possibility of seeing previously hidden or neglected aspects of the phenomenon that differ from learning at the individual level. One such aspect, and an important part of understanding the adaptive nature of the identity–learning relationship, involves the subliminal nature of organizational learning that is based in meanings, or subtle learning. In choosing the label ‘subtle’ to describe this form of learning, we highlight changes in the meanings’ underlying labels, symbols, and, importantly, practices that occur without explicit recognition or acknowledgement by those involved with those labels, symbols, or practices. Subtle learning, then, involves changes to the intersubjective meanings constituting the core of a collective’s understanding of themselves. Instead of thinking of organizational learning as only involving changes in behavior and/or knowledge, this perspective emphasizes that changes in meaning around actions and symbols also form a viable conceptualization of organizational learning.
The ‘deep processes’1 of subtle learning
By moving the locus of the learning process away from an emphasis on individual cognition and placing its emphasis on the social interactions and intersubjective meanings embedded within a collective, it becomes possible to conceive of organizational learning as taking place without the explicit awareness of learning, without the recognition of learning, or even without the intention to learn by the members of the collective. It thus becomes possible to account for organizational learning that occurs without overt acknowledgement because changes in intersubjective meanings can exist and affect future cognition and action without members of the collective overtly recognizing them.
If a socially shared sense of meaning changes among the members of a collective, no one member of the collective need articulate that change to the other members for it to be implemented. It can be more subtle because learning and meaning can exist independently of the individual, in the interactions of the collective. Thus, simply by acting differently and picking up subtle cues based on others’ behaviors, it is possible for meanings to change even without linguistic interaction. Taking this argument even further, we can say that, at the extreme, changes in intersubjective meanings might be so subtle that not only are they not articulated and made explicit in the collective’s interactions, but that they also remain at a tacit level for the individuals within the collective.
A clear example of this process involves the shifting meaning of what it is to be a team for the members of, for example, a software development group. As the individuals come together and begin interacting with one another, a shared sense emerges that they are a team because their interactions are based in a consensus-seeking, decision-making process in which everyone participates equally to achieve the collective’s goals. Over time, however, as resource and time constraints arise, the interaction patterns of these individuals change such that each member takes on more autonomy, preferred task partnerships emerge, and important decisions are made individually, all the while accounting for the other members of the team and their shared goals. Even though the members of the collective might not be aware of the change or, if they are, do not articulate it in their verbal interactions, the meaning of what it is to be a team has changed for them. Not only have their individual and shared behaviors adapted to meet environmental constraints, but the meaning underlying their self-declaration as a ‘team’ has shifted, even though they continue to use the same label.
Learning has occurred within the collective, even though they might never label it as such, or, if they do, it will not be labeled until an occasion for retrospective sense making occurs or until external feedback raises their awareness of the change. Once it is brought to the collective’s attention, it can officially be labeled ‘learning’ by those involved (Nicolini and Meznar, 1995) and become explicit in their actions and future meaning-making efforts. Nevertheless, the key point here is that conscious awareness and explicit articulation of the change in intersubjective meaning need not occur for organizational learning to take place.
It is even possible to argue that this form of subtle learning (and the subtle changes often accompanying it) is the norm at the organizational level. We are accustomed to thinking about learning as an explicit, conscious process that leads to some noticeable change in either knowledge or action. Taken in the context of meaning-based learning, however, this assumption seems heavily rooted in individual-level cognitive models of learning and, therefore, not as easily applied to the organizational level. Instead, we might posit that at the organizational level, subtle learning based in meaning changes is the normal state and that explicit, conscious learning is the exception. Subtle learning simultaneously preserves the past and generates the new. It enables finding new ways of doing the same things while still retaining existing meanings or tacitly changes meanings associated with the same ways of doing things. The key point here is that this form of learning brings about change that is less threatening because it is more continuous and connected to prior learnings.
Knowledge versus meaning making
It is also important to note that the distinction between knowledge and meaning is more than merely different labels for the same concept under the organizational learning scenario depicted in this chapter. An important theoretical difference exists between the two, in that any element of knowledge must have meaning ascribed to it before it becomes useful. That is, knowledge can be thought of generally as ‘what we know,’ whereas meaning involves understanding how that knowledge is applicable to the task at hand.
Thus, for instance, it is not that we know a particular competitor is about to release a new product that is important, but that such knowledge has meaning in how it will affect our strategic actions for the coming year. Meaning construction involves the contextual interpretation and reinterpretation of knowledge. Such interpretation involves discerning or constructing novel relationships between the situation and the actions that can be taken to address it. In a deep sense, then, we can only understand what a discrete bit of knowledge means if we can relate it to the context, and this relationship can only occur through the medium of meaningful actions (Brown and Duguid, 2001; Cook and Brown, 1999). A fuller understanding of organizational learning requires the appreciation of ‘knowing’ as a dynamic process of interaction between meanings, narratives, actions, and context. Knowledge therefore is not merely a de-contextualized set of canons, but an evolving process of knowing that inheres in the practices by which actors create new meanings by engaging in generative dialogues with themselves, important others, and the emergent context (Tsoukas, 2009).
Building on this distinction then, it is possible to conceive of two different levels of subtle learning, with the common foundation being that both involve interpretations about knowledge (i.e. about what something that is important to the collective means for the collective). At one level, subtle learning is about the meanings underlying particular knowledge, whether that knowledge involves an object, event, or person, or even a label used to describe an object, event, or person. Subtle learning thus involves a collectively shared sense of what specific knowledge means. On a more fundamental level, however, subtle learning involves the meanings underlying what and how we do things as a collective; that is, coming to a collectively shared sense of how our practices shape who we are (Carlsen, 2006; Orlikowski, 2002). It is this deeper level that provides the strongest linkage between learning and identity, and where we next turn to provide a more in-depth discussion before exploring the implications of this interrelationship.