MIT Sloan Management Review

Leadership and Organizational Studies

How Can Organizations Learn Faster? The Challenge of Entering the Green Room

By Edgar H. Schein

January 15, 1993

IF YOU PUT A DOG IN A GREEN ROOM AND GIVE IT ELECTRIC SHOCKS, IT LEARNS TO STEER CLEAR OF THAT ROOM. BUT WHAT IF THE GREEN ROOM IS ORGANIZATIONAL change, and people are so afraid of past experiences with it that they won’t try anything new? In this article, Schein unravels the key psychological elements that inhibit or promote change. His primary goal is to help organizations not only to change, but to change faster, in order to keep up with the rapidly shifting environment. He begins with abstract concepts of learning and then outlines a change management procedure that leaders can use to help their organizations change and, ultimately, to develop perpetually learning organizations. This paper is based on an invited address to the World Economic Forum, 6 February 1992, Davos, Switzerland.

Buy article & permissions

Only a few years ago we were saying that the “management of change” is the biggest challenge organizational leaders face. Today we hear that the problem is no longer the management of change but the management of “surprise,” and we academics are asked more and more frequently to explain not just how organizations can make major transformations but how organizations can do these activities faster and faster.1 The world is changing quickly. In order to survive and grow, organizations must learn to adapt faster and faster or be weeded out in the economic evolutionary process.

In this paper I will analyze the learning process to show how learning at the organizational level can be speeded up. I will start with some abstract concepts but will close with some practical suggestions. I am struck by how little we really know about the dynamics of organizations and social systems, and how little we know about the learning process. A friend and colleague, Donald Michael, has observed that one of the most difficult problems of our age is that leaders, and perhaps academics as well, cannot readily admit that things are out of control and that we do not know what to do.2 We have too much information, limited cognitive abilities to think in systemic terms, and an unwillingness to violate the... To read the complete article, login or sign-up using the form below.

From The Magazine

Fall 2009

Special Report: Sustainability

8 Reasons That Sustainability Will Change Management

Michael S. Hopkins

Transparency, accidental innovation, trust, collaboration — as sustainability affects how the world works, so will it affect how business works in the world.

Intelligence: Management

Debunking Management Myths

Martha E. Mangelsdorf

In this interview, Henry Mintzberg questions some of the conventional wisdom about managerial work.