Introduction
This chapter extends the theoretical framing of Sensuous Learning presented in Chapter 2 of Volume 1 to elaborate how such learning can be operationalised to support not only professionals as individuals, but also in the communities and in the organisations where professional work is conducted. The focus here is to present a marked contribution of Sensuous Learning not only in addressing professional ineptitude , but in advancing also the quality , substance and impact of learning more broadly. The overall challenge is to expand the place that learning occupies in everyday life as part of living and working so as to better organise where, when and how learning is happening. This is so that the focus goes beyond designing reasonably well-functioning learning experiences and instead, appreciating the experience of learning itself embedded in the richness of the unpredictable, complex and ambiguous human nature.
Perhaps one of the key issues that remain insufficiently understood is the ways learning and knowing support the growth of humans to enrich human flourishing both as individuals in professional roles and as architects of the organisations in which much professional work takes place. Here the intention is to account for the wider implications of professionalism in restoring the ethos of learning itself. In other words, Sensuous Learning needs to attend to the learning that it purports to be a solution for. To this end, the two Volumes problematise the idea of learning as knowledge acquisition and promote a notion of learning differently instead, that has the potential to make a difference to individuals, communities and the organisations, itself a longstanding challenge. By placing such learning amongst communities and organisations (in a variety of settings) the objective is to show how they can be redesigned as places where learning itself can grow as a mantra for meaning, virtues and the cultivation of character and conscience .
This chapter therefore, presents a new avenue for future organisational learning research by explicating further Sensuous Learning in action. It will be argued, that Sensuous Learning can form a powerful response to the Volatility, Uncertainty, Complexity and Ambiguity (VUCA, Bennett and Lemoine 2014) mirroring the rhythm of the twentieth century. Understanding such VUCA conditions is imperative in explicating how Sensuous Learning can be operationalised to advance Sensuous Organizational Learning. In other words, here the way CORE Intelligence (CQ) corresponds in addressing VUCA will be elaborated recognising the crisis in learning so critical to make possible navigating and leading through such conditions. The leadership implications are also discussed, making the case for Sensuous Leadership as the linchpin connecting individual and organisational (collective) growth integral to Sensuous Organisational Learning and the new ‘Learning Organisation’.
Learning in Working Life and in Organisations: Rethinking the Relationship Between Knowledge and Action
In Chapter 2 Volume 1 the case was made, that Art-Based Methods are uniquely placed to foster improvements in personal and professional practice, because they do not adopt a didactic approach. Instead, they foster through the sensuous orientation energising learning, by igniting curiosity , building confidence and commanding the unknown by exercising choice. Sensuous Learning has also been positioned as a means to cultivate not only competence, but also character and conscience , because it creates the necessary conditions to experience learning—feeling safe being vulnerable. Sensuous Learning promotes a mode of learning that extends beyond reviewing practices and associated actions and seeking improvements by fixing errors. It also encourages beyond reflection and considering different perspectives, the capacity for phronesis , that practising reflexivity supports. Sensuous Learning is embedded in the practical judgments, because it extends the ways professional practice is conducted. Sensuous Learning shifts the focus to the ways of knowing that practising reflexivity encourages as a critical aspect of the process of Re-search, Readiness, Resilience and Renewal central the 4R framework (Antonacopoulou 2018a).
In this respect, Sensuous Learning is not only a means of aligning cognitive, emotional and intuitive insights—sensibility, sensitivity and sentience in conducting professional practice. Sensuous Learning marks a new contribution to learning theory and practice, because it is a different way of learning. It is a way of learning with a difference, because it explicates through reflexive critique the dynamic energy forces in the impulses that guide intensions, integrity, insights, inspiration and intensity that in turn fuel the impact of professional practice (Antonacopoulou 2018a). What makes such learning different is also the intelligence that it informs. CQ as explicated in Chapter 2, Volume 1, is not only a means of accessing the voice of conscience and cultivating character. It is also a source of liberation ; it is the freedom to be human. The ways of seeing , being and becoming a professional and mastering the art of learning that sensuous ways of knowing invite, broaden not only sensemaking but the making of sense when coming to the CORE of who and what human one chooses to become.
This orientation towards learning, places learning as integral to living and working (Antonacopoulou et al. 2006). Sensuous Learning also invites fresh ways of organising and within that leading and managing which this chapter will elaborate further. In short, to understand how to embed the ways of knowing that Sensuous Learning fosters in everyday life in and beyond the place of work, our efforts need to extend to the ways of acting. This placement inadvertently orientates the focus on a longstanding relationship between knowledge and action. This relationship is imperative to understand better as it is the epicentre of much of the current thinking in relation to learning in work and organisations.
Chris Argyris’ scholarship (singularly and with his collaborators) over many years (1974, 1982, 1985, 1993, 2000, 2004) has been leading the way towards helping us understand the relationship between knowledge and action through his two models of action: Model I—‘theory-in-use’ and Model II—‘-espoused theories’. Model I explains action through unilateral control often supported by defensiveness, misunderstanding, self-fulfilling and self-sealing processes. Such a model of action results in skilled unawareness and skilled incompetence. Model II disturbs current practices and seeks to introduce new actions by generating new knowledge about ways in which the existing problems can be overcome. Correspondingly, single and double loop learning provide the basis of becoming better aware of the inconsistencies between actions and their consequences and in doing so attending to the actions themselves or the governing values and knowledge...