HBR Special Issue
Illustration byFERNANDO VOLKEN TOGNI Winter 2019 113
THE LEARNING
ORGANIZATIONWhen to
Put the Brakes
on Learning
Learning-focused management teams can
actually depress company performance.→ by J. STUART BUNDERSON and KATHLEEN M. SUTCLIFFE
tives would predict that a team clinging
to the tried and true is doomed to stag-
nate. And by the same token most would
believe that learning drives performance
and confers competitive advantage.
But a decade of research on how and
why teams attempt to learn, and what
happens when they do, suggests that
more isn’t always better. As the red and
green teams’ experiences show, two
teams at opposite ends of the learning
spectrum can reach similar levels of
performance. Moreover, management
theory and simulations of organiza-
tional learning suggest that too great an
emphasis on learning can actually hurt
performance. An overemphasis on learn-
ing and experimentation, for instance,
may distract teams from their real goals
or induce them to abandon adequate
solutions in favor of untried approaches.HOW MUCH SHOULD management teams
focus on learning—on the business of
developing skills, fi nding best practices,
and seeking new ideas and challenges?
Consider the distinct learning cultures
of two business-unit management teams
we studied at a Fortune 100 consumer
products company. Members of the red
team embraced change and continuous
learning, constantly reevaluating and
modifying their unit’s business practices.
Those on the green team, meanwhile,
took a diff erent tack: Approaching their
work with an if-it-ain’t-broke-don’t-fi x-it
attitude, they focused on leveraging past
successes and refi ning current processes.
At the end of the year, which team
met its profi tability targets and received
big bonuses and congratulations from
the area offi ce? Both did. At fi rst blush,
that’s a surprising fi nding. Most execu-ORIGINALLY PUBLISHED FEBRUARY 2003