Leading Organizational Learning

leadership effectiveness requires unlearning old behaviors and prac-
ticing new ones. Practice is of key importance because of the way
in which behaviors are learned and incorporated:

The limbic system evolved much earlier than the neocortex (the

“conscious” or “thinking brain”) and it learns more slowly. While

the neocortex absorbs new cognitive skills (rational thinking) very

rapidly, the emotional centers require repetition over time to inter-

nalize new behaviors and affects. Improving emotional intelligence

requires “unlearning” old habits and patterns of response and replac-

ing them with the new, more effective reactions. Brain circuits are

strengthened with each repetition so that if a behavioral sequence

is repeated often enough, it no longer requires conscious effort, but

becomes the new “default.” Executive education should provide

learners the support they need to fully incorporate new, more effec-

tive patterns of behavior in their leadership style.^3

The Need for Ongoing Guidance

Given the importance of follow-up and practice over time, we have
developed a follow-through reminder and support system known as
Friday5s that helps ensure that leadership training is put in action
to produce results. We have shown that structured follow-through
increases both postcourse effort and return on the training invest-
ment.^4 In the course of that work, however, we discovered that lead-
ers often had difficulty translating a general goal—for example, to
improve their listening or delegation skills—into concrete actions
they could apply to the conduct of their daily work. They benefit
from ongoing guidance in the application of course principles.
A number of texts have been published to fill this need, includ-
ing FYI,the Successful Manager’s Handbook,and the Essential
Manager’s Manual.^5 We believe, however, that information tech-
nology and the Internet offer the potential to get this kind of
knowledge “on the move” and used more effectively. Merely dump-
ing existing texts to an electronic database is not the answer and

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