Buy-in vs acceptance

In answer to Nancy’s comments on my last post. I agree that the idea of the community of practice is a useful lens, a way of understanding, and to those who have got it, like any lens it does change your perceptions. It can be quite hard to get back from there to where you were before because the change is radical.

This is what I mean when I talk about buy-in vs acceptance. The terms could be substituted for others. Another way of describing it would be to say it is like the difference between buying a corset and changing your diet: cosmetics vs the way you live. Talking about the community of practice with small and medium companies, I have often found that there is a framing problem. The circumstances are usually some kind of conversation or interview about training, so usually the frame is that I am going to suggest some kind of action that will take place outside the usual daily routine of the company, and have some kind of measurable result. They are looking to buy some kind of solution, and though often open to innovations and other ways of doing things, the expectation is often that these will be self contained. When I present the idea of cultivating informal community of practice processes, that will integrate into the very fabric of their business processes, then there is usually a conflict. This is not just a new idea they can “buy into”, see if it works, and move on if necessary. What is proposed, stripped of the language we may use to make it accessible, is a radical shift in the way learning and knowledge are understood. To accept that shift goes a long way beyond simply, and pragmatically, buying a service that they can later take or leave.

This idea of change is perhaps familiar to many educators. The work of Rogoff or Bruner, for example, and the idea of learning as a transformation of identity are quite well-known now . Learning , viewed from this perspective (and the CoP perspective), involves a process of personal shift, and as a result, I would suggest, organizational shift . It is not so much that it is required as that it happens.

It is perhaps therefore understandable that the reaction when I present these ideas is often as if I were opening Pandora’s box. It could be understood as the difference between training and learning, but my perception is that the people I talk to see training as a situation in which learning happens; they don’t separate them, which further clouds the issue.

So it seems to me that though educators may have clear ideas about the value of idea of the community of practice and how it could help as a way of understanding and facilitating learning, we very often face a fundamental and undeclared problem that centres on the way in which the whole activity is framed. In the workplace and, I would argue, in many school and university contexts.

Perhaps the way to address this issue is to try to address the attitudes and understandings that inform the way they frame training/learning. This is not always easy in a 20 minute pitch. And though you may awaken interest it may more often be "buy-in", which might be described as a misunderstanding of what you are proposing, than full acceptance. They believe they are buying a service, and you are offering substantial change. And that tends to cause problems further down the line. The implication is that we need stronger, longer relationships in order to reach understanding. A tall order, since current business and organizational dynamics tend to militate against the kind of reflection and dialogue necessary for that….we do need stories about this...

I have gone on far too long. This is a blog!! I’ll get my coat!