Discontinuous Learning

Igniting the Genius Within by Aligning Self, Work and Family

Prasad Kaipa, Ph.D.

Discontinuous Learning
Igniting the Genius Within by
Aligning Self, Work and Family

Prasad Kaipa, Ph. D.

Campbell, California
Published by Kaipa Group, a CEO advisory firm that focuses on
igniting the genius within executives and organizations. Visit our
web site at www.kaipagroup.com.

Special thanks to Rain Blockley and Darryl O. Smith without whom

this book would have never been created. Many thanks to Ragunath
Padmanabhan for managing this book project for past six months.

Discontinuous Learning. © 2006 Creative Commons Attribution-

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ISBN-10: 0-9779826-0-2
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10 9 8 7 6 5 4 3 2 1
 ---------------  ----------------

For Ravi Kaipa (1957-2002), who was born later but

learned earlier about discontinuous learning, equanimity and what is
essential in life.

---------------  ----------------
 A Note To Readers and Future Contributors
This book is not mine though I had a role to play in bringing it to stage so
far. It is a result of the collaborative effort of many people – Steve Johnson,
Rain Blockley, Darryl Smith, Paul Gleiberman, Olivia Hitchner, Frauke
Schorr and Ragunath Padmanabhan in addition to many other wonderful
friends appreciated by name in the acknowledgments section.
This book is intentionally left incomplete from my perspective and I
want your contribution to make this truly yours. When you read the book you
will see that it has a framework strand and a personal story strand. They are
not integrated in the end and that integration has to take place in the heart of
the reader, you.
What it means is that you can add, change or modify aphorisms, stories,
questions, quotes, references to make this book yours. You can also send those
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up to you to make this book truly yours. If you send your changes, for now, we
will update the book and post the latest version at:
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Prasad Kaipa
April, 2006
 CONTENTS

FOREWORD 1
PREFACE 3
ACKNOWLEDGMENT 10
INTRODUCTION 12

PART I
THE CORNERSTONES 21
1. Grounding 26
2. Nurturing 41
3. Stretching 53
4. Inspiring 65

PART II

THE DOMAINS 79
5. The Physical Domain 84
6. The Emotional Domain 95
7. The Intellectual Domain 105
8. The Generative Domain 115

PART III

THE EDGES 126

9. Care and Empathy 130
10. Opportunities 141
11. Appreciation 151
12. Play 162
13. Purpose / Vision 171
14. Love and Commitment 188

PART IV

LEARNING AND UNLEARNING 201

THE SPIRIT OF WHO WE ARE… 215
APPENDIX 219
REFERENCES AND RECOMMENDED READINGS 221
 The following Foreword was written in 2002 for
what was going to the print edition of the book and
we add it here with much appreciation to
Peter Block.
1 Discontinuous Learning

FOREWORD
By Peter Block

Most books about learning and transformation pose a problem

and then proceed to offer answers. Useful, practical answers that can
be implemented with the promise of clear and rewarding result. A
book of answers is always reassuring, for it promises the possibility
of a predictable and manageable world. Discontinuous Learning,
however, makes no such promise. Instead, it presents a framework
for seeing the world and then offers a series of questions. The belief
that questions are the only promise the future makes us is a welcome
relief.
Prasad, by the nature of who he is and the way he thinks, has
written a book with a wide scope and a great respect for the
possibility of unity and wholeness. Using the context of
discontinuous learning, he takes us on an encyclopedic sweep of
what a serious commitment to transformation and change might
entail.
This book is particularly welcome in a world consumed with
speed and determined to reduce everything to an easily digestible
commodity. We want our food fast, our books condensed, and our
learning to be instant and online. Even the arts are subject to
reduction: instead of listening to an artist’s body of work, we can
now buy a cd of Bach’s Greatest Hits. Some day, perhaps, we will
save even more time by being able to buy a cd of Bach’s Greatest
Notes!
The passion for speed and ease is justified as a market
phenomenon, but it is also a powerful expression of our materialism
and willingness to stay on the surface of life by skipping the deeper
questions and settling for simple answers.
One effect of our materialism is the split we feel between our
work and personal lives. When you ask people what their most
compelling question is, they often respond: “How do I bring more
balance into my life?” We are out of balance, tipped in the direction
of a workplace that reaches its tentacles into more and more aspects
of our lives. Our imbalance with work influences not only where we
spend our time, but our values and beliefs about what constitutes a
life worth living. The market mentality too easily leaks into treating
our souls as a commodity to be managed. Same with our bodies,
2 Foreword

which become objects to be trained, shaped, and sculpted. Or we

feel guilty because we are not training, shaping, and sculpting.
In this human-as-product context, we need a remembrance that
we are each whole spirits, always capable of recreating our sense of
aliveness. We need to recognize the possibility that our own
physical, intellectual, emotional and spiritual healing is good for the
performance and productivity of our institutions.
This is what Prasad offers us in this book. It is a calling to
return our selves to the experience of being whole, sensing, and
creative people. The book integrates the Eastern belief in the unity
of all things with the Western commitment to performance and the
energetic construction of the material world. Touring this book’s
landscape leaves us feeling both more uncertain and more whole.
The uncertainty comes from the fact that we face a lifelong task.
The wholeness comes from both the comprehensiveness of the ideas
and the infinite possibilities ingrained in its language.
Prasad’s writing carries curious and intelligent neutrality.
Compassionate to the human condition it presents our foolishness
and suffering in an even-handed and energetic way. This tone
conveys an acceptance of the reader’s point of view, whatever it
might be. This encourages our exploration and leaves us with
nothing to defend.
At every turn, though, are the questions. Questions that appear
too simple at first glance. Ones that we thought we had already
answered. In this way, we are asked to set aside our sophistication,
thinking that we are past certain questions, that we have been there
and done that. These are the ultimate defenses against our own
deepest knowing and our own capacity to be surprised. The certain
innocence that Prasad brings to the world is embodied in the
creation of this book and this may be one of the work’s greatest
gifts.
As a final comment, this book is about discontinuous learning,
learning that jumps out at us and shifts our way of being. Well, the
book can be read in a similarly discontinuous way. I am not sure it
has a beginning or an end, so readers can start anywhere along the
way, can even start many times. In this way, the book is receptive to
being created by each reader . . . in the reader’s own good way and
own good time. And so the book itself becomes an example of its
own theory.
—Peter Block
3 Discontinuous Learning

PREFACE
Man's mind, once stretched by a new idea, never regains
its original dimensions. —Oliver Wendell Holmes

What is Discontinuous Learning?

Conventional learning is the acquisition of knowledge and
skills to function efficiently in known and recurring situations. It is
the learning that allows us to add to what we knew before, develop a
new skill without having to change our perspective and helps us to
solve problems that have been recognized as problems.
Conventional learning does not demand that we shift who we are in
terms of perspective, assumptions, beliefs and values and it attempts
to maintain the systems that we live in.
On the other hand, in times of turbulence, a discontinuity,
uncertainty and rapid change, another kind of learning brings about
a major shift in perspective. The interruption of continuous learning
leads us to a shift in how we look at the world and how we view
ourselves. Discontinuous learning raises our awareness about our
awareness. It allows us to learn about ourselves, alters our mental
models, and changes our relationship to the world. Discontinuous
learning is subjective in nature and deals more with subtle and not
so explicit issues like values, beliefs, attitudes, and ethics. Major
discoveries and inventions have come about when people had 'aha'
experiences in the most unexpected times and places due to
discontinuous learning.

My Relationship With Discontinuous Learning

And My Own Journey of Discontinuous Learning
For years, I have been interested in the relationship between
ordinary and extra-ordinary leaps or changes in thinking; between
individual learning and learning in the team; and how to synthesize
the wisdom of the ages on learning (for example, from Classical
Hindu texts like Upanishads) with contemporary ways of thinking
including computational ones.
Formally, I have been immersed in the field of human learning
for over 18 years. However the journey into learning-research began
4 Preface

at a much earlier date as I began to be an observer to my own

wondrous learning path.
This remarkable journey has led me from physics to computers
to marketing, preluding at the fascinating exploration of learning
and creativity. I noticed many discontinuous and unpredictable
learning shifts in my life and I was curious to explore the reasons
that led me on this unique path.
I wondered what made me move from physics, a study known
for its attempts to understand universal principles and their
interrelatedness and interactions, to the wholly different field of
information technology, which seeks to develop tools that augment
human communication capabilities, and finally settling to creativity,
spirituality and learning explorations. What is it that connects these
dots for me to make sense of my discontinuous learning journey?
This wonderment led me to conceive theories, practices and tools
that together form the field of discontinuous learning.
Let me briefly share my journey, and how I arrived where I am
now so that later, while meandering through various aspects of
discontinuous learning, the reader can have a sense of where they
are coming from.
My journey began with summer vacations at my
grandmother’s.
My grandmother adored me. I loved spending as much time
with her as possible while growing up. She lived near a large,
ancient Hindu temple in a small town not too far from where we
lived. She was a great storyteller and my agreement with her was
that she would tell a new story every day that we spent together.
Each afternoon, people used to come to our home to listen to her
read and explain the Hindu epics. I was truly inspired by her and
learned much about Hindu and Indian tradition through her stories.
The temple itself, several acres in size with many buildings
inside the compound, was very busy with festivities, events, and
rituals most of the year. Spiritual music, chants, and prayers would
be broadcast before sunrise and I was very eager to wake up at that
time to go “sing into the microphone”. This was the inspiration for
my learning many poems, hymns and prayers. During the day, I
amused myself by telling stories to other children, reading,
swimming, attending Sanskrit classes and going to the temple each
day to have a chance to ring a huge bell for 20 minutes – a highlight
every time I was allowed to do it! Being a small boy, the bell I faced
5 Discontinuous Learning

was just about the size of my own body and so one can imagine how
challenging it was to focus and ring it with the prescribed rhythm -
the call to announce lunch-time rituals at the temple. A challenge
that I was proud to encounter with all the skill and strength I was
able to muster.
My learning therefore was rather informal during vacation. I
learned many life-forming lessons while spending time with my
grandmother, playing with other children and participating in temple
events.
During my school year, my education was much more formal
and by far, less inspiring. While I did reasonably well in my classes
I never really stretched myself during those days. It was a source of
frustration to my parents and teachers that I did not use the
opportunities I had to excel in the early stage. What can I say? I was
simply not inspired at that time. In addition to regular school, I used
to go to a private teacher who taught Sanskrit in the mornings. He
was a very loving and kind gentleman and even to this day, I recite
some of the mantras that he taught me when I was thirteen years old.
Reflecting on my past, I can clearly see some patterns. While
the formal education process grounded me it did not nurture or
inspire me. In contrast to these formal education settings,
interactions with people like my grandmother and my Sanskrit
teacher at a younger age as well as informal interactions with my
physics teacher when I was in college inspired me deeply and I
learned effortlessly.
In 1981, I left India and immigrated to the USA for further
work. I accepted a faculty position at the university of Utah. An
interaction with another teacher provided crucial insights for my
self-exploration. This conversation made me realize that learning
about physics did not necessarily help me to learn about myself.
This insight was so simple – yet – mind-boggling. It led to a new-
found journey of intense self-inquiry asking myself about the
purpose and vision of my life.
With a series of coincidences guiding me, I ended up working
with personal computers. The graphical capabilities and user
interface of Apple Macintosh became instrumental in bringing the
element of play back into my life. On this new path into the world of
computers I explored completely new and exciting elements of my
professional life: I started several companies, wrote for magazines,
6 Preface

worked for Apple in their International Marketing, and became a

research fellow at the Apple University.
In 1989, my colleague Bill Atkinson and I moved into the
fascinating arena of human learning. We attempted to understand
the nature of learning so that we could design tools to augment
human intelligence. To do that we interviewed a large number of
Nobel Laureates, successful business people, star athletes, and great
artists and writers who had made significant leaps in creativity, and
learning, and had made significant contributions to their respective
field or to humanity in general.
From our research, it quickly became clear that while rational,
logical and linear approaches to learning are programmable;
emotional, discontinuous and spiritual shifts are not. It was
captivating to gain insights into human learning with our study. We
began to realize the immense potential we had just started to tap
into:
Insights on who we are, what makes us tick, what inspires us to
excel and what grounds us. We felt that these questions have not
been appropriately explored because they are “fuzzy” and complex
problems. In exploring these wicked problems, I discovered the
connection between my research study at hand and the ancient
Hindu spiritual texts (Upanishads and other Vedantic works), where
learning, creation, and management and transfer of knowledge are
discussed at length. Upon further exploration, I realized that the
ways many of these issues were addressed in the Hindu texts are
common to other great cultures and religions too. Being grounded in
my tradition and luckily having had some education in the Sanskrit
language, I began to delve into these ancient texts that discuss
methods of knowledge creation, learning processes and
transformational approaches. I was fascinated at the wisdom that has
long been available and the consistency of it with the most modern
research on brain, psychology and human development. I began to
integrate some of that ancient knowledge and modern research with
what I had learned from interviews and research into other
disciplines.

 The key, I discovered, is that the spirit of who we are

informs what we do! When we align who we are with what we do –
in other words, when we align our work, family and self, we tap into
something deeper and ignite our genius within.
7 Discontinuous Learning

The Relationship of Discontinuous Learning

to Ancient Knowledge
In ancient India, the tradition of transferring knowledge, both
practical and transcendental, was through oral and experiential
approaches. And their essence was communicated through
aphorisms. An aphorism, is a succinct statement expressing an
opinion or a general truth. An aphorism is like a string on which the
beads of the necklace are strung together. The string stays invisible
but still provides the continuity, flow and connection from one bead
to the other hence preserving the integrity of the whole necklace.
The teachers take one aphorism at a time and within the context
of the student, elaborate it minimally. Then they may add a story if
necessary, ask questions and allow the student to reflect and bring
his/her own life experiences and past knowledge to determine what
the aphorism could mean. Through inquiry, dialogue and reflection,
the student develops his/her own understanding, insight and wisdom
about the essence by going from one aphorism to the other until the
body of knowledge is understood.
So while the essence remains the same (the aphorisms do not
change), the understanding, interpretation and approach of making
that essence applicable to the student becomes interactive, reflective
and personal. Each teacher brings his/her own wisdom to bear on the
essence and each student creates the meaning differently.
So the learning in the ancient times of India was not based on
everybody following one interpretation but everybody aligning
around one consciousness, one truth, one essence and having the
freedom to come up with ways to make it their own. Learning was
intentional, reflective, interactive, and context sensitive and allowed
each person’s natural genius and uniqueness to be ignited through
this process. It is said that the truth continues to be objective and
impersonal while its interpretations and the applications are
completely subjective. When these two are aligned within a person,
or group, then that particular truth unfolds itself in a developmental
way to that person or group.
Somehow, this approach of discontinuous learning has been
lost. In the name of objectivity, our schools and spiritual
organizations started teaching not only the essence but also their
interpretation of that essence fused together. As scholars,
8 Preface

administrators, scientists, political and religious leaders, the thought

leaders in our society ignored the inner wisdom of the teacher and
the student -- their ability to interpret, contextualize and grasp the
essence in their own unique way, using their own learning and
communication styles. This process has been going on long enough
that it has resulted in the standardization of one interpretation of a
truth. And the original intent, the truth got lost. When different
people, in different disciplines, cultures and times attempted to
practice what they understood to be “the truth” (their interpretation),
conflicts arose. Because we are not aligned with one truth any more,
there was no basis for conversation, dialogue or reconciliation. The
‘book’ whether it is a religious document or a scientific document
has become the ‘source’ and our inner ‘source’ our inner wisdom is
negated.
We have gotten so used to getting the ‘solution’ to our
problems from the experts, consultants, books, in other words, an
external source of reference, our internal ability to inquire, reflect,
think and create is for ourselves reduced significantly. We
‘benchmark’ best practices, we adopt successful approaches of other
companies, and we repeat what others did to succeed. At the same
time we fail to acknowledge our own value and to learn from our
own unique selves.

What is this book about?

This book is about rejuvenating discontinuous learning. It is
about bringing integrity back to who we are and tapping into our
own unique capacity to discern, create, think and learn. It is truly
about aligning self, work, family, and community. I adopted the
‘sutra’ or aphoristic approach to write this book because sutras
sometime contain paradoxes and can evoke strong reactions in the
readers. When the reader gets engaged, short commentaries on the
aphorisms, and stories are designed to deepen the engagement. The
questions are intended to deepen inner inquiry and open the
reflective process for personal answers to life situations.
9 Discontinuous Learning

Who is it for?
This book is written for business people, educators, innovators
and culture creatives who are seeking deeper approaches to
innovation, change and leadership. It is for those who are always
looking for ways to see beyond the superficial, who are interested in
reflecting on increasing their effectiveness.
Discontinuous Learning is not a recipe for action. There are
many other wonderful books that give excellent recipes. Reading
this book and reflecting on its questions does something different: it
leads us to our own insights and allows us to ignite our own natural
genius. Nor is this book about reading from beginning to end,
instead it is about picking a chapter or an aphorism from the table of
contents that speaks to us. (In the appendix, there are guidelines on
creating study groups to explore this book together through shared
reflections and sharing answers to the questions in the book).
Discontinuous change is important to those of us who are
saying, “What I’m going through is unique.” When we come across
a situation where we can bring ourselves to make a significant
contribution to our own lives, or when we come to a fork in the road
that presents multiple options leading to almost the same outcomes,
we need to question ourselves - What are we passionate about?
What makes us really tick? Where would we like to be, and be
going? If everything else is equal, what direction would we choose?
For those who are interested in exploring such questions, I hope this
book holds great value.
It is important to remember that this book is intentionally left
incomplete. When you read the book, you see that there is no true
integration of framework, stories and questions as well as
references. Hopefully, it creates a sense of discontent in you, the
reader. When you experience it, it is your signal to leap into
discontinuous journey yourself. When you begin to reflect, take
action and make changes and modifications to what is written here
to reflect what you believe in and what you want to practice, then
this book becomes yours and ignites your genius. So, my dear
friend, it is you who can align your work, family and self and who
can tap into something magical and I hope this attempt ignites that
spark – that genius -- in you. Share the spark and the book with
others and keep the discontinuous learning alive.
10 Acknowledgements

ACKNOWLEDGMENTS
My special thanks to Bill Atkinson for suggesting in 1989 that I
join him in exploring learning in order to design a “learning
processor”— a tool to augment human learning. That partnership
ignited my passion and commitment for exploring what we called
the next breakthrough in learning, and I am still passionate about
researching the mystery of human learning behavior and patterns.
Special thanks to Chris Newham, who dialogued with me
extensively on nonlinear thinking, and for helping me in manifesting
three dimensional learning tools (the tetrahedron framework that is
used in his book). He also is the co-creator of the discontinuous
learning model.
This book would not have come about if not for Darryl Smith
and Rain Blockley. Darryl committed to publish my book, and Rain
helped edit and reframe my manuscript into what it is. At one point,
I asked Rain to become my co-writer but she graciously declined,
saying that the ideas and concepts are mine and hence the fame and
blame should be mine, too. Thanks Rain! It is great working with
you.
My good friends Paul Gleiberman and Olivia Hitchner spent
several days going through the manuscript and offering significant
editing changes. I appreciated the energy, time, and inspiration that
they provided.
It is my privilege to acknowledge and thank the many reviewers
who gave their time to various versions of my manuscript. The latest
manuscript benefited from the comments of Don Benson, Jim
Botkin, Phil Dixon, Ed Haskell, Toni Ivergaard, Dennis Jaffe, Joyce
LaValle, Frank McKeown, Ketan Mehta, Tom Milus, John Moran,
Ragunath Padmanabhan, Susan Osborn, Anil Paranjape, Dilip Patel,
Anjali Raina, Sangeetha Sampath, Frauke Schorr, Menal Shah,
Nancy Southern, Domien Van Gool, Bill Veltrop, Russ Volckmann,
and Doug Walton.
On earlier drafts, I got excellent suggestions from Dick Dixon,
Bob Farnquist, Joe Goodbread, Mark Lee, Anne Levine, Herman
Maynard, Harrison Owen, Linda Peterson, Ravi Sahay, Anne
Stadler, and Bob Tannenbaum. I appreciate it very much.
11 Discontinuous Learning

Harvinder Singh helped design and implement an early

electronic version of some of this material. Special thanks, too, to
my friends Keith Allaun, Steve Johnson, and Michael Miley, who
worked extensively with me on the first draft of this book and
brought in dimensions that I had not perceived.
This work would not have been possible without the
stimulation and support from my wife Vinoda, my uncle Jayaram,
and my parents, Kamala and Lakshmi Narayana. Thanks, too, to
Pravin and Vidya for being my children and teachers: You provided
many questions, stories, and insights for me to reflect on as I
researched the nature of learning over the past nineteen years.
Ragunath Padmanabhan took special interest in this book and
became the project manager for past several months in creating this
final edition and the wikibook. He also recreated many of the
drawings and put together the pictures that go with various sections.
Thank you Ragu!
Finally, I acknowledge you, the reader, for integrating the book
in you and igniting the discontinuous learning through your
questions, suggestions, modifications that will keep this book a
continually changing book.
12 Introduction

0
INTRODUCTION

Starting with 0…
Many of us have experienced the occasional sudden jolt of
recognition, flash of inspiration, or burst of insight. In a moment, we
see a piece of truth that we did not recognize before. We see things
differently, understand the world in a completely new light, and
know that we have changed irreversibly in some thrilling way.
Such experiences always leave us feeling good. Tying up the
loose ends of our brains is profoundly satisfying. It creates a surge
of warmth and energy, and we feel more complete. We never doubt
the validity of the new wisdom. Somehow, we simply know it to be
true.
When we receive these learning experiences with an open
mind, they have systemic effects on our perspective. Our entire
system of thinking, feeling, moving, and interacting shifts. I call this
shift discontinuous learning because it catapults us to a radically
different level of thinking. When we are not open to learn from
these experiences, we tend to regard them as anomalies, ignore
them, and continue perpetuating our old thought patterns.

The number of this chapter, zero, is an example of an

opportunity for discontinuous learning. In India and many other
countries, elevators begin at zero, the ground level, whereas most
13 Discontinuous Learning

u.s. elevators do not use the zero. Perhaps this has something to do
with the fact that the concept of zero came from Aryabhatta, a man
from India. Arabic numbers did not include zero. Similarly, when
Americans say how old they are, they name the year they’ve just
completed. People in India tell you the year they are in.
In the context of learning, starting from zero means starting
from a completely open mind without a trace of past thought
patterns. Zero is also critical because that is what differentiates
between 1 and 100,000. In discontinuous learning, we learn to be
open minded at the right times - it is as though we learn where to put
the zeros so that we multiply the value of learning to a whole new
level. Rather than moving from 1 to 2 to 3 to 4, we can move from 1
to 10 to 100 and so on.
Growth and development emerge from a foundation of learning
and unlearning. Any new idea or outlook that conflicts with an old
one in some fundamental respect cannot enter our mental model of
the world. If we want to adopt the new one, we must discard our
allegiance to the old one. This unlearning is the first step in the adult
manifestation of discontinuous learning.

In ordinary learning or thinking, continuity runs from the past

to the present to the future. In discontinuous learning, on the other
hand, our openness enables deep and rapid change along that path.
We encounter a break as well as a ‘choiceful moment’, and our
openness is the key. We go from ordinary to extraordinary thinking,
14 Introduction

transcending our usual state of consciousness. We are suddenly free

to think, feel, and act differently. This book is about such learning,
how to understand it, and how to foster it.
The wisdom we uncover through discontinuous learning
triggers countless other reactions of the mind. It often takes care of
unresolved issues that then cascade down to affect smaller and finer
loose ends. In light of all these shifts, our old thought patterns lose
their grip and realign, and we feel more alive than moments before
the breakthrough.

Dimensions of Discontinuous Learning

The capacity for discontinuous learning creates a much more
exciting and prosperous future than ordinary learning. Ordinary
learning usually means gaining new knowledge or developing new
skills. This kind of continuous learning has a linear relationship with
our effort: the harder we work, the more we add to our knowledge or
skills.
However, knowledge of the past and of existing technologies is
no longer sufficient to navigate our current turbulent times. We need
to develop new knowledge and new skills on a regular and
accelerated basis. The individuals and companies that thrive in the
third millennium will be those who understand competence,
capacity, learning, and the unlearning process. Aside from nurturing
and developing these, success means employing them to manifest a
future in line with what we value.
Competence and capacity building are meta-level skills. For
instance, developing competence and capacity in new areas may
require selectively setting aside our unworkable assumptions or
emphasis on old skills. In this case, competence includes the skill of
unlearning formerly helpful skills.
Knowledge and skills are the explicit and most familiar parts of
learning—what we learn in school and at work—while competence
and capacity are subtle or hidden factors that drive the other two.
Competence is not a skill or knowledge or potential. It has more to
do with attitude and feeling and the ability to get a job done. It is not
easily measurable. “Competency combines knowledge, skill,
potential, and personality traits in an integrated way to carry out a
complex mission,” according to Robert Aubrey, a management
thinker from France.
15 Discontinuous Learning

Competence is about creating something in the present, while

building capacity is about creating the future. We develop
competence and capacity from experiences in our personal and
social relationships.
Gaining knowledge and skills may result in degrees,
certificates, and experience; Feeling competent and building
capacity, on the other hand, tap into the heart and spirit of who we
are. Know-how and skills allow us to work with what’s around us,
whereas competence and capacity help us understand ourselves in
the context of the world.
Building capacity in an organization is about unleashing
employees’ latent creativity and creative capabilities. This is
obviously incompatible with a command-and-control culture, which
usually attacks problems by stepping up resources—human or
material. This seldom works over the long run. Nor can control-
minded managers keep expanding their capacity, which requires
tapping into their mindsets, assumptions, and shared values. Such a
process generally requires aspiration and mutually trusting
relationships, which do not thrive in a command-and-control
culture.
When we do tap into our hidden—or resigned—aspirations and
see a possibility for them to come true, discontinuous shifts take
place and anything blocking our capacity melts down, resulting in
increased capacity. Such aspirations reflect discontinuous learning
and thinking.
To build capacity, we can wait until the command-and-control
approach breaks down and feel desperate meanwhile, or we can
choose to create a new culture out of our generative aspirations.
Building capacity through discontinuous learning is not about
enhancing existing products or marketing existing companies. When
we are in the vanguard with new technologies and new ideas, we
cannot force-fit them into the old business. Rather, we need to create
a whole new business in an entirely new industry that others have
not yet imagined. Sometimes, we have to come up with new
business models and approaches that are dramatically different from
the old ones. Manifesting a thriving future takes a special kind of
thinking and being.
We need to shift our attention from external sources of wisdom
to improving our own learning process. In the workplace of the
future, outside-the-box innovation will come from learning not what
16 Introduction

others have already done but what we alone can do. This kind of
self-understanding and self-knowledge merits much more focus than
in the previous century. This sort of learning process ignites our
natural genius and initiates breakthroughs in thinking.
When breakthroughs occur, we usually experience a torrent of
creativity and significantly accelerated learning. Or as Michael
Lindfield of Boeing says, “Learning is what you breathe in, and
creativity is what you breathe out.”
Designing organizations that learn in all four dimensions—
knowledge, skills, competence, and capacity—is the challenge for
today’s organizations. To survive in today’s economy, we need to
make a discontinuous leap between the past and the future. We need
to create new systems, cultures, learning paths, and communities,
while unlearning and unthinking old structures, mindsets, and
procedures.

A Three-Dimensional Model of Learning

To help make this leap, and to examine the (un)learning process

and how to enliven it, I have created a three-dimensional model.
Continuous (ordinary) learning can be shown in two dimensions,
such as lists of sequences or steps. To represent the richness of
discontinuous learning, however, the third dimension is essential.
Conveying the dynamic interplay of multiple factors, this three-
dimensional model looks like a tetrahedron, or pyramid.

The reason for a three-dimensional model is that, in some

respects, our thinking has much more depth than what language can
usually communicate. Language is what frees us and also is what
binds us. It’s represented in two dimensions, even though linguistic
expressions such as poetry and haiku often transcend this. In
17 Discontinuous Learning

general, language limits our thinking to two dimensions. What we

are missing is the dimension of depth.
The tetrahedron framework is a powerful tool for mapping any
system. It represents the essence—what I call the “DNA” of a
person, or an organization. The tetrahedron’s nature is interactive—
every corner, face and edge connects and affects each other—so it is
particularly suited for mapping connections among any group of
people, ideas, or factors. If we list four words—grounding,
nurturing, stretching, inspiring, for example—we get one effect. If
we put these words on the four corners of a tetrahedron, they
suddenly create a space by literally mapping out a three-dimensional
territory.
Three-dimensional thinking helps elucidate and inquire into the
nature of things. The tetrahedron (sometimes loosely called a
pyramid) presented in this book is a map of the discontinuous
learning process.
The tetrahedron shows three paths to reach any apex, rather
than moving linearly from the current state to the desired future
state—the way we’ve always done something or the way our
teachers or parents taught us, or the way we learned from someone
else who inspired us at some time. Having three modes gives us
three times as many ways to accomplish things. This is like
expanding our freedom, our options, three hundred percent.

In companies such as Boeing, Quaker Oats, Xerox and Cisco, I

have used three-dimensional thinking to help people develop more
innovative capabilities, leadership capability, and tap into their
passion.

I chose the tetrahedron because it is the simplest three-

dimensional solid. It is beautiful and elegant in its simplicity.
Mathematically the length of the tetrahedron’s edge is the only
dimension that we need to create it. The tetrahedron is very
symmetrical, and we can turn it any way we like without losing its
shape.
18 Introduction

cornerstone

edge

Each cornerstone of the tetrahedron connects with the other

three through the three edges. Each face connects with the other
three through the edges. The interacting parts of the tetrahedron
create a dynamic tension that can either help or hinder discontinuous
learning. They indicate how quickly and how well we learn, as well
as the obstacles we face.
Each cornerstone pulls us to maximize its growth while sub-
optimizing our potential for discontinuous learning. Maximizing the
potential for discontinuous learning is dependent upon balancing the
paradoxes, oppositions or polarities between our intentions, two at a
time through the edges and three at a time through the faces.
Edges represent how we balance the tension and interaction
between any two cornerstones. Each edge names a competency we
need—or need to develop—to balance that tension. When we focus
on only one intention (cornerstone), then the edge becomes
unbalanced and loses its tension and energy.
Each of the pyramid’s four faces represents the arena in which
three of our intentions balance the tensions that arise among them.
Finally, there is the union point that we have not yet addressed.
The center of the tetrahedron, invisible to us because it is inside and
not on the surface of the tetrahedron, represents the essence or DNA
of who we are and informs all our intentions and actions. This is the
central point that remains unchanged and unmoving while all the
changes take place around it. All intentions are generated from this
point and pull away from it. All domains remain equidistant from
this point and polarities and interactions take place around it but
never affect the union point. This point represents the shared truth,
the seed of our consciousness or essence and holds the key to
building our capacity.
19 Discontinuous Learning

We now have a tactile representation that we can hold in our

hands, turn, and explore consciously. We can examine and consider
the various parts and relationships that bring integrity to the process
of learning. Naming these factors and giving them a structure helps
us appreciate what we experience.

Part of the Meaning Component of

Tetrahedron Learning
Grounding
Nurturing
Cornerstone Intention Stretching
Inspiring
Physical domain
Emotional
Face Arena domain
Intellectual
domain
Generative
domain

Play
Edge Competency Care & Empathy
or energy Opportunities
Love &
Commitment
Purpose and
Vision
Appreciation

Union Point DNA, Essence Capacity, spirit

20 Introduction

To foster discontinuous learning, Part I of this book examines

the four cornerstones: grounding, stretching, nurturing, and
inspiring. Each of these intentions plays a necessary role in learning,
and they also help us define an individual’s uniqueness or a
company’s leading edge. Then, Parts II through III explore the
pyramid’s other components— four faces and six edges. Part IV
talks about the process of discontinuous learning. The final chapter
invites us into ways to keep the discontinuous learning alive.
In conclusion, this book offers a way to reflect upon and
integrate discontinuous learning so that we can connect with and
balances our organizations and ourselves as we create the kinds of
places in which we love to work, play, relate, and learn.

Stop learning. Start knowing.

The rose opens, and opens,
And when it falls,
Falls outward.
—Rumi

Food for Thought:

Where have I mistaken skills, knowledge, and potential for
competency in myself?
What has kept me from building my competency and capacity?
(Choose a specific example)
Where have I already experienced discontinuous learning in my
life? What came out of it?
When did I break out of my old ways of thinking and discover an
innovative approach to something?
21 Discontinuous Learning
22 The Cornerstones

THE CORNERSTONES

When we encounter the latest idea in self-improvement or

management, the cornerstones provide a framework for
understanding topics systemically. This lets us find inspiration and
add to our strengths rather than constantly acting out of the fear of
losing our edge. Finding our own authentic differentiation means we
can be inspired from any direction, any field.
I’ve never been an artist or shown any interest in art, but I
doodle. I get bored easily, and I’ve found that doodling helps me
listen and engage with what others are saying. During a gathering
last fall, the host had put out colored pens, so I doodled various
patterns and colored in some of them.
My friends there loved these “energy patterns,” as they called
them, and made copies of some. This inspired me to take some art
lessons at my local community center, but I could attend only two of
the classes. We squeezed paint out of big tubes, and the teacher told
us how to mix colors and paint various objects. I struggled. In the
domain of painting, I had no practice in making distinctions.
Then, over the Christmas holidays, I kept having vivid dreams
about painting some of my favorite Hindu deities. One dream was
so inspiring that I bought a set of paints and began my first work.
Nothing went the way it had during my classes. When I dipped my
brush into water and tried to use it, it didn’t work. The paint was not
drying, so my hands and clothes were sticking to the picture. I was
completely baffled, not realizing that the acrylic paints we’d used in
class were from different oils. The tubes looked pretty much the
same.
I went ahead with the painting and stretched myself to the
fullest possibilities because I was committed to doing this picture. I
had a very clear vision of the finished image, and I told myself I was
just going to play with it. “I’m not going to look at it with any
judgment, because I don’t have any formal training. It doesn’t have
to be a great painting or even a good one. I’m just going to do this.
It’s an inspired painting, it came in my dream!”
It took three weeks for that painting to dry, and it’s still one of
my best paintings. Through all this, I found out that if I can play
with something, have a clear vision of what I want to accomplish,
23 Discontinuous Learning

and create an opportunity to express myself the results are very

fulfilling.
In my story, the enthusiasm for my doodling nurtured my
confidence, and I took an art class. I ran into trouble, however,
because I bought oil paints instead of acrylics. Without being
grounded in what tools I needed, I created unnecessary headaches
for myself. What I learned therefore is that the right tools need to be
in place to create the space for my fullest capabilities to come to
light. Despite of this experience, the vivid inspiration of my dream
kept me going, and I stretched beyond what I already knew, creating
a new picture as well as a new sense of confidence.
Many of us work just as hard at learning. We keep up on the
latest books, hoping to find advantageous ideas from among them.
Last year’s hot topic may have been balanced scorecards; some
years before, core competencies; and in between, perhaps re-
engineering. This shifting focus among organizations leaves us
feeling that whatever we’ve got is not good enough—something else
is now more important.
Discontinuous learning differs significantly. By identifying the
pyramid’s cornerstones as part of an interdependent system, we
begin building a durable matrix. Like a skeleton does for the
muscles and other tissue that connect to it, this matrix provides a
frame and a context for understanding why particular ideas catch on
in the business world. On the pyramid, the corners represent these
four intentions:

• Grounding (foundational)
• Nurturing (essential)
• Stretching (growth)
• Inspiring (transformational)
24 The Cornerstones

Each one of the cornerstones answers the question of what we

intend to manifest in our organizations, the world, or ourselves.
Discontinuous learning requires a balance of all four intentions.
Otherwise, a deficiency in one leads to overemphasizing the others.
If we decide that generativity is the most important, for example,
and that we’ll focus only on innovation, we steer straight for
mistakes. Not enough balance with the other intentions results in
overstretching and frustration in our attempts to explore new
information or perspectives. Discontinuous learning emerges when
all four intentions are flowing freely and interacting dynamically.
We are not attached to the power of any one cornerstone.
All four cornerstones are equally important at different times.
Sometimes, we need to focus more on a particular intention. As long
as we pay attention to the fundamental ebbs, flows, and connections
among these components, no problems arise. If we omit or neglect
any cornerstone, chances are that we end up as a one-trick pony
going down the same old path, even after it stops working for us.
Discontinuous learning comes when we are detached while we
engage in all four processes, deal with their interactive tensions, and
discriminate among their effects.
25 Discontinuous Learning

Ensuing sections elaborate on the unique contribution of each

cornerstone. This helps us understand how we learn and how we can
make discontinuous leaps in our comprehension or creativity.

O friend, behold my chariot through which

I am always decidedly victorious.
Strength, discrimination, self-control
and charity are its horses.
—Ramayana

Food for Thought:

What ideas or events have stopped me in my tracks and

truly changed my personal or my professional life?
How have they changed me specifically?
Which cornerstone is getting most of my attention today?
What is the reason for my energy going into this particular
cornerstone at this point in my life?
Which is getting the least? And what is stopping me from
giving more energy to this particular cornerstone at this
point in my life?
26 The Cornerstones

1. GROUNDING

Grounding is the foundational cornerstone of discontinuous

learning. Being grounded in our own nature, manifested in body,
mind, ego, and spirit, creates safety and security. It takes
intentionality to know our true nature. Self-mastery and inquiry
become important here. Nobody else can do this for us.
Grounding comes through three behaviors: having a clear
intention, knowing the context (such as knowing the market), and
being aware of the exact question or problem. Any of these
behaviors ground us in ourselves, in the situation, or in the present.
Being grounded allows us to mine our insights. Insights create
tremendous energy, like lightning bolts (“Wow, I guess that’s
possible. I could be like that. Maybe I should try that!”). Only if that
kind of energy is grounded, it will be available to us and we are able
to act on our insights.
Being grounded lets us harvest energy. When we are open and
aligned, we become a lightning rod, the path of least resistance for
the tremendous power of inspiration and genius. Mining this energy
provides the “electricity” for our system. Our greatest inspiration
can find what it needs to emerge into reality.
Grounding and inspiring are in polar tension with each other.
Most of us still need to learn how to mine our insights. Some of us
have inspired ideas but merely dismiss most of the meaning that
emerges out of our lightning. Some of us burn out in exhaustion
because we rush to manifest our ideas before we design systems that
are sturdy enough to support them.

Stretching, nurturing, and inspiring influence grounding,

through the edges that connect to this cornerstone.
27 Discontinuous Learning

Setting ground rules in the best sense of its meaning “grounds

us”. It is an important first step for interaction. In physical activities,
it provides the structure for safety. We all agree to drive on one side
of the road, for instance, and that expectation contributes to our
welfare as well as our sense of security about what to do. In a
manufacturing setting, disregard for the rules can lead to producing
items with lots of parts missing. At the same time, an overemphasis
on rules turns us into an extension of the institutions or machines we
serve. The supply chain—the assembly line, for instance—becomes
the critical part while everyone in them is an add-on. Stretching,
inspiring, and nurturing take a back seat to maintaining conformity
to the rules. In successful military operations, obeying the ground
rules obviously gets more attention than the other cornerstones as
soldiers learn how to separate from their fears enough to go into
battle. Nurturing, inspiring, and stretching are still just as important
but are curbed relative to the military regimen.
Other than the armed forces, organizations suffer when their
leaders focus on structure, discipline, and rules at the expense of the
other three intentions, or cornerstones. We need the safety and sense
of containment that ground rules offer, and we also need to stretch,
28 The Cornerstones

nurture, and inspire each other and ourselves to move toward our
goals, learn, and invent the future as we go.
When we appreciate each other for following the rules about
teamwork, quality standards, or doing things on time, for instance—
we feel inspired and committed to our work. Appreciation is the best
way to inspire each other.
Similarly, having opportunities to stretch allows us to see the
value of staying grounded. We are not just arbitrarily making rules
and expecting others to follow them. Rather, we are creating
opportunities that help us stretch.
Finally, when we demonstrate empathy and caring about each
other, we feel nurtured and grounded in our relationship. In other
words, we are willing to support and work with the ground rules we
set.
Professional relationships as well as matters of the heart require
grounding. What feelings do we allow ourselves to explore, and
when? What roles do we play when we experience something or
relate our experiences? How do we handle friction or conflict?
Without grounding, our interactions—inner, personal, and
professional—swell with discord. Showing appreciation, providing
opportunities, and demonstrating care and empathy allow others to
set and follow appropriate ground rules and make the energy of this
cornerstone come alive in the process of learning.
In learning, being grounded is usually less conscious and
explicit than having ground rules in formal contracts, yet it matters
tremendously. Without clarity about our roles and limits, we operate
without feeling secure or safe. This, as a later section shows, is the
greatest inhibitor to learning and igniting creativity.
Sharing a consensus about how to function and relate in the
world usually reflects the culture or community in which we grew
up. This chapter explores how we first encounter ground rules, how
they shape our learning patterns, and how we can use alternatives to
deepen and accelerate our learning.
To figure out our own personal capacity, we need to stretch far
beyond where we have been before. This means exploring,
reflecting, and spending time to become inspired to the greatest
heights we can reach. When we can look at what’s possible, what’s
potential, what truly inspires us, then we can see whether those ideas
overwhelm or frazzle us. If we can hold those visions and nurture
29 Discontinuous Learning

them and stretch our actions and continue to inspire ourselves or

others long enough, then discontinuous learning takes place.

“It is important to have our feet touching the ground and

head touching the clouds”

Food for Thought:

How do I ground myself? When? What happens

when I do?
Where am I not grounded? Why?
What tolerances do I have at work and at home?
30 The Cornerstones

Firm ground allow safe take offs

One way of grounding ourselves is to set ground rules for
whatever relationship, sport, or venture we are pursuing. Again, this
helps define intention, context, and exact question.

For example, the government of Singapore has strict traffic

rules, as the city is small in size. One day, a friend gave Heather a
ride somewhere. Just after they merged onto the freeway, a police
officer stopped them. Heather was concerned, especially after
hearing stories about strict laws in Singapore. But the officer simply
handed the driver a gift certificate.
Flabbergasted, Heather asked, “What is this for?”
“I observed that your friend’s manner of driving was very
polite,” the officer replied. “She let other drivers move in when she
was merging. We just want to acknowledge and appreciate that.”
This story completely reframes our usual relationship with
ground rules. Most of us follow the rules when we notice someone
whose job is to enforce them, but we may not feel like we want to
do something positive. We become careful. Our brains downshift to
make sure we are within the rules. In the gift certificate program,
people who work with the rules have a way to set a different
emotional tone and an appreciative relationship with the people they
serve.
Setting ground rules is about establishing elementary
agreements, including:

• What are we going to do?

• Who does what in this undertaking?
• How will we measure progress?
• When will we start and stop?

Setting ground rules for learning is like drawing up a business

contract, which specifies what we expect from each other in the
process we undertake, the results we desire, and the consequences of
fulfilling or not fulfilling their commitments. If we ignore setting
appropriate ground rules, we promise but never deliver.
31 Discontinuous Learning

Ground yourself; strip yourself down,

to blind loving silence.
Stay there, until you see
you are gazing at the Light
with its own ageless eyes.

--Rumi – translated by Andrew Harvey in The Way of Passion:

Celebration of Rumi

Food for Thought:

Do I believe in ground rules? What is my rationale?

How do I create ground rules for myself? For others? How is the
way I am creating ground rules useful?
What ground rules exist in my work? How do they help bring
out the best in me and in others? How do they limit me?

Effective leaders create safe playgrounds.

A fundamental role of leaders is to create a safe playground in

which we all help to identify, create, and evolve ground rules for the
game. These create safety and security for all the players. We can
then tap into our intrinsic motivation and body wisdom, and bring
our creativity to the team.
At a project review meeting for the Boeing 777, I heard this
story about ground rules from Alan Mulally, then general manager
32 The Cornerstones

of the commercial aircraft division. Mrs. DeKlaver, his son’s

kindergarten teacher, had asked Mulally to speak to her class about
his work. In the process, he talked about ground rules and
encouraged the kids to create their own rules for the class. They did:

1. Love yourself.
2. It’s okay to make mistakes. That’s how we learn—
plus, Mrs. DeKlaver makes them all the time!
3. Give and get at least four hugs a day.
4. Be crazy and silly. It’s wild fun.
5. Share.
6. Laugh a lot! It feels great.
7. Hug an animal.
8. Give at least 20 warm fuzzies a day.
9. Always remember that cold prickles are very freezing.
10. Try your best for you, not for anyone else.
11. It’s what’s inside that counts, not for anyone else.
12. Keep our Earth clean.
13. Smile, it’s catching.
14. Cheer sad people up.
15. Don’t forget snack time.
16. Make friends.
17. Try new projects. They are awesome
18. Be thankful for what you have.
19. Think.
20. Watch out for your buddies at recess.
21. Dance a lot, even sitting down.
33 Discontinuous Learning

22. Talk about your feelings.

23. A warm fuzzy is like a pillow or a blanket. It feels
very soft and fluffy.
24. Remember that everyone is special.
25. You don’t have to be perfect.
26. Imagine impossible things that you couldn’t do, like
flying. That’s neat.
27. Be nice.
28. Dream—good ones.
29. Tell someone you like their new hair-do.
30. Take your time. Don’t hurry.
31. Sing some really cool songs.
32. Build a city out of blocks.
33. Tell someone with your eyes and your voice and
your words if you get a cold prickly. Use their name.
They will probably say they are sorry.
34. Try a Hula Hoop.
35. Read a book or have your mom or dad or teacher
read one to you.
36. End each day with a “Happy Thought.”

If you have both feet planted on level ground, then the

university has failed you.
Robert F. Goheen.
34 The Cornerstones

Food for Thought:

Where do I feel energetic and empowered? Creative?

How do I create a safe space for others to manifest their
creativity?
How can I sue ground rules to work with others and have
fun?
35 Discontinuous Learning

Simultaneously, conditioning defines what is

acceptable and obscures what is authentic.

Many of the ground rules we bring to any situation come from

the ones we learned in our families, schools, workplaces, and other
communities. This kind of subtle but effective training, or social
conditioning, lubricates our interaction with the society into which
we’re born or with which we work. Conditioning helps us learn how
to function and be effective within a system of tacit constraints. We
learn what works in society.
Instinct alone is not enough to live by; we need to learn
efficient, reliable ways to handle life’s complex but predictable
events. Social conditioning helps develop our sense of belonging,
fitting in, and becoming part of our society. Our acquired habits and
ground rules thus show up in the scripts we write for ourselves and
live by throughout life. Our social selves evolve out of this early
conditioning.
As powerful and essential as this is to our growth, conditioning
also has drawbacks. Imagine it as an invisible box in which we each
choose to live. During early childhood, we form perceptions of the
culture, values, beliefs, and assumptions of parents, relatives, and
society in general. Adjusting ourselves to the energy that surrounds
us, we fall in step and play-act our roles. The mental box we
construct under these conditions is almost entirely outside of our
awareness, however, so we cannot escape it easily—or our
attachment to it.
This works well enough in childhood, usually, but some of us
continue playing the same role forevermore (even though conditions
have changed and society is not the same). Occasionally, we may
detect its inadequacy, but we may not see it clearly enough to reflect
on the matter very long. So this box of conditioning shapes our
reality. It is as if we have green colored glasses on (but forgot that
we have them on) and the world looks green. Only when we are
desperate—or inspired—enough to find a better role do we choose
to understand our conditioning better, and do something about it.
The first step is to notice our first reactions. Do we use
expressions such as, “We don’t do things like that in this company”
or “That’s impossible”? These typify responses from our
conditioned selves that formed limiting beliefs. It helps to write
36 The Cornerstones

them down and reflect: Can I change these reactions? Can I choose
not to listen? Is this really a fact or can I take charge and initiate a
change?
Both high aspiration and high desperation allow us to think
outside the box and act outside our conditioned responses. This puts
us in touch with our essence, and we tap into our authentic selves.
Otherwise, we ignore our authentic selves, suffer internal conflicts,
and experience gaps between our actions and our words.

Mind is consciousness, which has put on limitations.

You are originally unlimited and perfect. Later you take on
limitations and become the mind.
—the Taittiriya Upanishad

Food for Thought:

What are my main rules about relating with others?

How do my rules free me? How do they limit me?
Have I ever revised any rules? What brought about that
revision?
How has conditioning affected my life, positively or
negatively?
How do I help others and myself to grow beyond our
perceived limitations?
37 Discontinuous Learning

A boundary exists only after we discover that

someone’s just crossed it.

Each of us has many invisible boundaries. These are like

personal boundaries that we create and operate within to feel
comfortable. They reflect our ideas about what’s appropriate, and
we assume, in general, that others have similar boundaries and
comfort zones.
Let me illustrate this point. Talking with another participant at a
recent conference in Ireland, I realized that I was moving backward
every few minutes as this man moved his face closer to mine. He
kept moving into my personal space. Out of my discomfort, I kept
backing away to create more distance. With an obviously different
need for personal space, he kept coming closer.
In some respects, our boundaries are like ground rules. When
somebody encroaches on those invisible boundaries knowingly or
unknowingly, we feel uncomfortable or unsafe and act to bring more
safety.
Ground rules help define an interaction so that we feel secure
and safe enough to engage in it. In this respect, boundaries are
imaginary lines that delineate what’s okay and what’s over the limit
or out of bounds. As they are invisible rather than real, we do not
always recognize them until someone runs right over them. The
previous passage examines “undiscussable” topics and expressions,
such as “We don’t do things like that here” or “You’re out of line.”
These are all mental boundaries that indicate what is acceptable and
what is not.
We all bump into or cross each other’s boundaries, and those
interactions shape our experiences of each other.
Phil, a marketing executive for a communications company
does not recognize boundaries. He comes across to others as
pushing his own point of view even when he doesn’t have to. He
sees himself as having the right answer and keeps pushing until
others give in or leave him. His team members eventually stopped
supporting him. He lost his job, marriage and social relationships
but is still clueless about why these bad things keep happening to
him. He considers others to be unreasonable and unfair.
Our egos create our boundaries as well as our reactions when
we cross people’s lines or they cross ours. Depending on our
38 The Cornerstones

interactions, we make assumptions about each other and about

ourselves. Those assumptions become the filters that mediate further
perceptions and reactions. We quickly come to believe that we are
experiencing the truth—the only truth—about others and ourselves.
This mental box shapes our reality, and anything outside its
boundaries becomes insignificant or invisible to us.

Don’t believe what your eyes are telling you, all they show
is limitation. Believe with your understanding, find out what you
already know, and you’ll see the way to fly.
—Richard Bach

Food for Thought:

How do I know that I respect other people’s boundaries?

What feedback would be helpful?
Who gives me an honest opinion about my blind spots?
How do I react when someone crosses one of my lines?
Which boundaries matter most to me at work?
Which boundaries matter most to me at home?
39 Discontinuous Learning

Exploring our boundaries allows us to

discover new freedoms.

I remember going to a park with my son when he was two or

three years old. He climbed up a very tall structure while I was
looking at something else. When I turned my gaze and saw him, I
was afraid to follow him, yet I couldn’t reach him from the ground. I
felt frightened, and for him it was fun. I told him to be careful, but
he slowed down only after he noticed his feet slipping.
It is natural for us, as children, to play with and continually
push against boundaries and rules. This is how we establish the
limits of our freedom. When we recognize a boundary, we also
recognize—or learn—the consequences of crossing it. Without an
awareness of boundaries, we experience consequences as unfair and
arbitrary.
Learning by experience is usually more valuable than learning
by teaching. We cannot argue with our own experience even though
we may ignore its wisdom. The more we know about something, the
more we learn about our own ignorance. This is the first step to
greater awareness and freedom.
Paul and Vevee were on a team with Warren and Maryanne and
were developing a creativity workshop for their colleagues. They
did all the research and then asked me to facilitate their course.
After a brief discussion with them, I realized that they should take
on the leadership role because I knew that they would get more out
of creating and performing the workshop. It took some convincing
for them to trust their capabilities but once they believed in
themselves, it was magical. They split up the tasks because it was
clear to them how much research they had to do. The more they
learned about creativity, the more they realized their own boundaries
and worked harder. They involved others and created the course
that was most meaningful to them. I was available as a mentor and a
coach but my role was minimal as they came alive in unleashing
their own creativity and inspiring that of their colleagues.
40 The Cornerstones

It is from the depths of unconscious that the truly original

ideas spirit forth, where our wave of becoming resides. This is the
place you really have to dig. This is where the abilities to play,
fantasize, imagine, dream, laugh, and be spontaneous and crazy
actually live. Here is where 90 % of our potential lies. This is
where we connect with our wave of possibilities.
—George Land and Beth Jarman

Food for Thought:

Of the lessons that matter to me:

Which came from my experiences?
Which came from the warnings of others?
Which came from formal learning settings?
What freedoms have I experienced when I explored my
boundaries?
Where do I experience boundaries in working in teams?
How do I go about finding new freedoms?
41 Discontinuous Learning
42 The Cornerstones

2. NURTURING
A colleague, Nancy and I once worked as design consultants
with a large manufacturing company to create an executive
development program. Many of the design team members were
hard-core business executives typical of our future participants:
engineers, attorneys, quality-control executives, and so on, all at the
level of vice-president or senior director. They had never been part
of a leadership development program, let alone its design, so they
were not sure what they could contribute. In the beginning, their
focus was almost entirely on the content rather than the process.
At the first meeting, Mike, an ex-military executive, turned to
me and said, “I know about you consultants. You are the guys who
ask me what time it is, take my watch to see the exact time, put the
watch in your pocket, and then charge me for the time you engaged
with me.” I was uncomfortable going into that group, and I
wondered what kind of output would emerge.
At another meeting early in the project, Gary, the director in
charge of the development team, asked all of us to come to the next
meeting with an object that was very near and dear to us. We were
to share the story of that object and our relationship with it. Some
members looked around and snickered about this “touchy-feely”
request.
To our surprise, everybody did bring in something. They spoke
about the photographs of their families or the jerseys they wore
when they played football in college, and how they cherished those
memories and relished bringing them back up. As we went along,
some members said, “This is a waste of time. We’re not getting
anywhere.” But by the end of that exercise, the team began to gel.
Because members felt nurtured and heard more fully as human
beings, rather than just their professional roles, more of who they
were was brought into the design. The design community became
closer, and team members who had never seen each other except at
the office were now inviting the whole team to their homes.
Out of that, during the next several design meetings, we
brought in the emotional intelligence component that was present in
our own group. The time that Gary regularly set aside during the
design process created a space for nurturing who we were.
At the last meeting, Mike (who’d once made the joke about
consultants) shook my hand, then said, “What the heck,” and gave
43 Discontinuous Learning

me a hug. That was one of the greatest compliments I have had, and
one of my most powerful design experiences. By nurturing who we
were, we were able to stretch, play, and bring more of our expertise,
love, and commitment to the task at hand. Various papers and
magazines later wrote our design up as one of the most innovative
executive development programs.
Ten years later, I still see nurturing as one of the most ignored
parts of business. Whenever business gets tough, nurturing goes out
the window and we expect people to work twice as hard without it.
The lack of play, caring, love, and commitment means nurturing
disappears. This soon has a negative impact on the productivity of
the entire group. When care and empathy are present, if we need to
work extra hours, we are able to put in more energy because of our
relationships. It’s more than an impersonal transaction. Nurturing
allows for acceptance of each other, respect for one another and
fosters the ability to team. When combined with a clear direction or
an identifiable goal, nurturing empowers us.
Nurturing is the second and essential cornerstone of
discontinuous learning. Nurturing allows for dealing with ground
rules with care and empathy. Nurturing enables our love and
commitment to grow and empowers us to act when inspired. Finally,
nurturing brings playful ways to stretch others and ourselves in our
relationships. Learning takes place most easily in such a context.
44 The Cornerstones

In the physical domain, nurturing entails attending to such

things as our nutrition, exercise, and rest. When our physical selves
do not have adequate nurturing, we lose energy and stamina, if not
our health—all of which play key roles in our ability to learn.
In the emotional domain, we flourish best when we can express
our hearts and our curiosity to an audience that both nourishes and
challenges us. Such audiences can be colleagues, friends, family
members, ourselves, or any combination. Emotional nurturing helps
us to identify our true worth and thrive at our fullest potential. Just
as grounding and ground rules are vital to a military organization,
nurturing is the key cornerstone in families. It’s part of what goes
into the extraordinarily powerful bonding that endures life’s ups and
downs.
Without emotional nurturing, our passion does not get ignited.
When we are not passionate about who we are, and what we do, the
quality of our lives suffers—in our relationships, communication,
and work. We become emotionally brittle and have difficulty
making friends or sustaining bonds. We also lack what it takes to
answer for ourselves. Without emotional nurturing, we also operate
out of what we are supposed to do rather than what we feel inspired
to do. Teamwork becomes drudgery instead of fun when team
members are not bonded emotionally.
Likewise, intellectual nurturing involves both support and
stimulation. Especially for deep and discontinuous learning, our
brains need challenges and opportunities to develop new
perspectives, if not entirely new concepts. Only when such
opportunities show up and we are willing to rise to the occasion of
accepting them do our mental activities focus enough for us to leap
to a new level of thinking. Suddenly, we generate new ideas and
approaches rather than merely reshuffling our old thoughts and old
data, finding more evidence to support our old mindsets. Without
intellectual nurturing and stimulating, we stagnate and rigidify
intellectually.
Nurturing our generative domain refers to our creativity as well
as our coaching others. Creative impulses abound when we attend to
them, both in others and in our own lives. This kind of nurturing
might involve meditation, visualization, storytelling, and community
activities that have nothing to do with our regular activities. This is
because when we learn a new skill or play a new game, we
45 Discontinuous Learning

ultimately integrate those new experiential dimensions into our day-

to-day professional and personal lives.
The source and focus of nurturing shifts as we go through
life. When we are young, we receive nurturing from others. When
we nurture others, we complete the cycle. For example, mentoring
or coaching others creates self-acceptance and self-confidence to
risk trying new ideas and behaviors. The following sections in the
chapter show us how to nurture ourselves, so that we do not go
through adulthood depending on others to do all the nurturing for us.
They also examine how other kinds of nurturing inform our current
personal and professional desire for discontinuous learning.

Resentment begins as we give up our responsibility to take

care of ourselves and put it into the hands of others.
—Paula Englander-Golden and Virginia Satir

Food for Thought:

How do I nourish my creative self?

How do I nurture myself intellectually?
How do I nurture myself physically?
How do I nurture myself emotionally?
What kind of nurturing do I accept? How does that benefit me?
How does it limit me? (Consider a specific example)
What kind of nurturing do I reject? How does that benefit me?
How does it limit me? (Consider a specific example)
How do I create a nurturing environment with my team?
How do I create a nurturing environment with my family and
friends?
When do I nurture others?
46 The Cornerstones

Working together is the foundation for

learning together.

An excellent example of creating a solid foundation for

learning together in the corporate world was the Boeing 777
Program Reviews conducted by Alan Mulally, VP and General
Manager of the 777 program (since I met Mulally, he moved on to
become the President and CEO of Boeing Commercial Airplanes). I
attended one of the project review meetings that he managed and
was quite surprised at what happened there. Their ground rules
provide clarity of where they stand and how to proceed on a project.
The key was how Mulally nurtured his colleagues and took into
account the emotional, cognitive and generative aspects of learning
together in each meeting. Here are the ground rules that he presented
at the start of every meeting:

Purpose/Review Together:

Where Are We Are On Our Plan?

Where Do We Need Special Attention to Accomplish
Our Plan?

Principles and Practices:

• Use Facts and Data

• Listen to Each Other
• No Secrets
• Help Each Other, Include Everyone
• Whining is OK Occasionally
• Enjoy Each Other And The Journey
• Propose a Plan, Find A Way
• Emotional Resilience

The aspect of nurturing the physical or habitual learning is

reflected in the consistency of their 'Project Review' meetings,
which were always scheduled on Wednesday mornings from 8 - 11
47 Discontinuous Learning

a.m. Alan Mulally starts the meeting exactly at 8:00 am with a big
picture review. He welcomes guests one by one, acknowledging
their notable contribution. He then reviews principles and practices.
He emphasizes the point that there is opportunity for team members
to complain. Once somebody complains, it is also his or her
responsibility to propose a plan and find a way that would work for
everyone. Another key measurement they use in their Project
Review meetings is based on a traffic light metaphor: All items are
marked in green on the 'moving on' schedule. Items listed in yellow
require special attention. Red listings are warning signals requiring
everyone to help each other. The emphasis here is that they are all in
it together.

I was curious about how willing his team was in sharing their
weaknesses as well as their strengths in public. When I spoke with
Alan Mulally, he made it clear that during his meetings he
encourages them to tell the truth and do not hide their mistakes from
others. This is because Mulally himself is willing to show his
vulnerability in front of others, to tell the truth, and to practice the
values he preaches. When he demonstrates courage, vulnerability
and authenticity in front of his team he inevitably nurtures those
qualities in others.
I also noticed that Mulally only talked about changing behavior
through rewards, never through punishment. He implicitly believed
in the goodness of human beings. As skill levels are not in question,
he is willing to support them in doing what is good for them. In
return, his colleagues seem to also do what is good for the whole
777 team. New people on the team might not want to practice
teamwork and may initially feel uncomfortable and exposed in the
"working together" culture of 777. This is likely to change as they
begin to become conditioned to the culture of telling the truth and
taking responsibility.

The meeting I attended was very nicely organized with no

blaming and no complaints. Customers, suppliers and visitors from
other parts of the Boeing company who go to these Project Review
meetings are impressed at how much information gets
communicated, how issues get resolved, and how each of the
participants, including guests, gets a chance to contribute, give
feedback, and become part of the larger project. Ownership,
48 The Cornerstones

responsibility and accountability all emerged out of nurturing the

working together and learning together aspects.

Coming together is a beginning,

Staying together is progress,
Working together is success.
-Henry Ford

Food for Thought:

How Do I nurture my team (in workplace, family, or

community?
What are my ground rules?
How do I practice those ground rules?
How do I nurture my ground rules in others?
How much am I acting out of team rather than individual
strengths?
When did I start focusing on myself instead of my team?
When do I start focusing on my team instead of myself?
When have I meaningfully worked together and learned together?
What worked?
49 Discontinuous Learning

Success is about nurturing the fullest future.

When I consulted for Xerox in the 1990s, I used to go to Rochester,

New York every month. I met an Indian CEO who ran an order
fulfillment company and seemed to be quite energetic and reflective.
In one of the conversations, he told me a story of how 40% of his
business was coming from Hispanic markets. I was curious because he
is not necessarily in Texas or California or other south western
states where he is continually exposed to opportunities in Hispanic
market. Apparently, a new MBA graduate, named, Jose joined his
company two years before. Jose was enthusiastic and came to be
known as a go-getter. He came from Mexico and still had a strong
connection with his family back home. In his visits to Mexico, Jose
identified opportunities and alerted them to his manager. However,
the manager did not pay enough attention or provide enough
encouragement to Jose about pursuing new opportunities in Mexico
as the business was doing well. But Jose was not, in fact, one to give
up easily. During the Christmas party that year, Jose cornered the
Indian CEO and passionately pitched his ideas. He also mentioned
that his manager did not show much interest. The CEO did not want
to discourage the young man. He asked Jose whether he could get his
work done in 80% of the time and spend the rest in creating a
proposal with a full cost-benefit analysis for a presentation it to him
in a month or two. That way, Jose can understand for himself
whether the business is real or not. During his analysis, Jose realized
that in addition to Mexico, the Hispanic market in the US was a
significant opportunity for his company and he presented his
analysis to my friend. To make a long story short, within two years,
they were a major player in that market.
If the CEO was not willing to nurture Jose and his seemingly
far-fetched ideas, he would not be sitting so comfortably now. His
success definitions and his personal experiences did not extend to
Hispanic markets. But when he was open, recognized the passion in
Jose, he created a win-win situation for Jose and the company.
50 The Cornerstones

What we prepare for is what we shall get

William Graham Sumner

Food for Thought:

How do I nurture myself (and others) in ways that unfolds

our fullest future?
How can I adjust my nurturing to fit circumstances that
keep changing?
What are my fears that stop me from nurturing others
explore their dreams and visions?

Love is worth a hundred books.

In the three-dimensional model of learning, nurturing’s prime

domain is the heart. In that sense, we can think of love as
nurturing’s essential energy. It has less to do with knowing than
feeling. Still, people like me attempt to know more than feel. When
I do feel at last, it hits me like a thunderbolt.
A few years ago, my wife was thinking of going back to her medical
practice and had to take medical board exams. As she was away from
the field for several years, she joined Kaplan test preparation and
wanted to spend most of the day in the Center and prepare for six
months. I felt that it was appropriate for me to take a year off and
be a “soccer dad” so that she could do what she wanted. In the
beginning, it was fun. We both were getting the kids ready to go to
school and then I used to drop my wife at the Stanley Kaplan
center. Then come back, take care of other things at home and
prepare snacks for the family. Later I used to bring my daughter
back from school, feed the children, take them to tennis, to the
51 Discontinuous Learning

library or to friends’ houses and then go back to pick up my wife

from Kaplan around 8:00 pm.
Very quickly, I found myself impatient, snappy and overwhelmed.
What comes naturally to my wife was very difficult for me.
Nurturing my kids, myself and my wife I found, is an intentional act.
I realized that I don’t love what I do every moment and when I
don’t nurture that feeling of love continually, I become
overwhelmed.
Until that point, I was under the impression that I understood what
my wife did and it looked really easy from the outside. When I
really got down to doing it, it was not only difficult but also very
demanding. Further challenge was that my two children were very
different in their individual food habits. Their daily schedules were
different. I struggled to balance their needs with my offerings. There
were several times, I was upset with myself about my emotional
reactions and impatience. I was trying to read books and understand
how to deal with my kids, the situation and myself.
When I asked my wife how she manages the chaos, she smiled and
said “when you love someone, you do what works for them. You
might have 100 reasons for not doing something but if there is one
good reason – you love it—then you might want to do it.”
It was quite revealing to me that I have been traveling the world
attempting to understand learning and here she is, sitting with
mother load. What was even more revealing was the reaction of my
mother when I told her about my experience. She smiled and
nodded. My mother knew it too.
It took a while, but I did finally understand that nurturing has
nothing to do with what I think should be done. It is about doing
everything that I do with love and with care. When I can come to
that place of love and care, whatever I do bears my signature!

"The smallest act of kindness is worth more than the

greatest intention."
 Kahlil Gibran
52 The Cornerstones

Food for Thought:

Who nurtures you at home? Who nurtures you at work?

Make a list.
What exactly do they do that nurtures you?
How do you nurture others in your life?
How does nurturing at work differ from nurturing at
home?
53 Discontinuous Learning
54 The Cornerstones

3. STRETCHING
In the Hewlett-Packard circles, one story goes that their
dominance in the market for dot-matrix printers was about to face a
new challenge from Canon. Nobody knew much about Canon’s new
printer, but the rumor was that it was a whole different kind of an
animal. It would be much smaller, priced at a fraction of the cost,
and capable of printing in color.
One of the HP managers talked about this with one of the lab’s
top engineers. “I’ve known you for many years, and you always rise
to the occasion by coming up with new ideas. Can you think of a
way we can keep this Canon product from hurting our bottom line?”
The engineer, grounded in his technical capabilities, nurtured
by the confidence of his manager, was intrigued and stimulated
enough to go to work on this puzzle. Playing with concepts of
bubble jets and not knowing what Canon could be doing, he
stretched beyond the paradigm of his dot-matrix printer expertise
and came up with the ideas behind the ink-jet printer. By quickly
putting a team to explore these new ideas, HP got it to the market
before Canon’s new offering.
This story exemplifies the third cornerstone of discontinuous
learning, stretching. The act of stretching beyond our current limits
pertains to all of the domains—physical, intellectual, emotional, and
generative—and often signifies our first impulse to change, if not
learn.
When we feel stiff physically from staying in one position too
long, for instance, we naturally stretch our limbs and move around.
Or, when we’re taking up a new activity or sport, our muscles
usually need to expand their repertoire of tensing, relaxing, moving,
and coordinating with each other.
Likewise, on an intellectual or emotional level, feeling stuck or
stagnant tells us it’s time to find a different perspective, explore our
responses or ideas, or learn alternative approaches to what we’re
doing. This may lead to generative stretching, in which we stretch
beyond our current limits to add to what we know or create
something novel. Generative stretching also includes supporting
others to stretch beyond their comfort level.
55 Discontinuous Learning

Without stretching, we don’t learn from our failures or take

actions that move us beyond our status quo. We then we repeat
those failures because we haven’t developed any other way to do
things, and ascribe our lack of success to destiny rather than
exercising our free will to change the course of our future.
When we find innovative ways to do something, we are
stretching our old ideas, attitudes, and assumptions; Self-limitations,
fears, physical endurance and creative energy. The more we stretch,
obviously, the greater the change in us. And the more a new
perspective or idea stretches or transforms our old ones, the deeper
the learning.
We stretch whenever we have a clear vision or sense of
purpose, playful attitude, and opportunities to grow. Vision creates a
desired future state that pulls us forward. By inspiring us, purpose
also has this effect. Playfulness connects with emotional stretching.
When we explore opportunities that life presents to us, we stretch
intellectually.
One reason that stretching is a cornerstone of learning is that
our capacity to learn grows as we keep stretching. Conversely when
we get too grounded and attached to what we have learned before,
past, knowledge gets in the way of what is yet to be learned. It
shows up in our assumptions, rigid attitudes and positions we take.
For deep and discontinuous learning, unlearning is essential. To the
extent that we unlearn and let go of old unworkable mindsets, we
create mental space that allow new learning and build capacity.
56 The Cornerstones

How can we remember our ignorance, which

growth requires, when we are using our knowledge all
the time?
—Henry David Thoreau

Food for Thought:

What scares me about stretching?

What excites me about stretching?
When was the last time I wanted to consciously stretch
myself professionally or personally?
What past incidents in my life really stretched me?
What did I learn from past incidences that stretched me?
What were the surprises?
What concerns arise when I help another to grow
professionally?
57 Discontinuous Learning

We understand learning before we even

begin to learn.

Another aspect of innate learning is that we engage in it long

before anyone tries teaching us. More impressive still, as children
we acquire many more skills much more quickly than we do as
adults.
When Vidya, my daughter, was ten months old, she stood up
for the first time and tried to walk. She usually walked only two
steps before she fell, but falling never seemed to discourage her.
That June, I watched her make sixty attempts in one day. The
thought of failure never seemed to enter her head. What began as
curiosity quickly became a compulsion to learn. In between, she
showed no period of fear.
By the end of July, she was running all over the house and
comfortably climbing up and down the stairs. That means she
probably attempted to walk a thousand times before she mastered
the process.
We adults normally give up trying something new after our first
or second fruitless attempt. Our discomfort with taking risks and
failing stems from a habit of focusing solely on the desired end
result.
In addition, many of us fail to appreciate failure. Often, we
erect mental blocks or boundaries in the hope that they will protect
us against future so-called failures. This comforts us for a while—
and then these self-imposed limits sabotage our growth and
enjoyment of what life offers.
By learning to stretch, we can break through mental barriers
and discover our untapped potential. Especially when we know that
others are appreciating rather than judging us, we have an easier
time stretching beyond our former limits.
It is still the rare individual who persists after repeated failure,
but in diverse fields—including sports, music, literature, and
business—we all know of people who achieve greatness after
practicing something over and over. Why didn’t they fear failure
and stop trying? Have they found a way to reconnect with the drive
they had as children?
58 The Cornerstones

Age 1,000
1 or 2 attempts

Age
20+
1 or 2
attempt
s

In our personal and professional lives, we face more complex

tradeoffs than we did as toddlers. Nonetheless, the clues here are
significant for deepening and accelerating our learning. After all, we
also have access to far more resources and resourcefulness than
toddlers do.
59 Discontinuous Learning

Childlikeness has to be restored with long years of training

in the art of self-forgetfulness.

—D. T. Suzuki

Food for Thought:

When do I pursue learning?

What supports my learning?
When do I avoid it?
What initiates my disengagement?
What kinds of things do I persist in until I succeed? Why?
When do I experiment?
Can I create those conditions more often?
How am I encouraging others to increase
persistence and experimentation?
60 The Cornerstones

Vulnerability is strength
We can learn without stretching, but we cannot learn as deeply or as
rapidly unless the process moves us beyond our limits physically,
cognitively, emotionally, and creatively. Stretching takes a
willingness to be vulnerable.
Most of us avoid being conscious of vulnerability because it
reminds us of feeling weak. However, vulnerability is about not
knowing—the only state in which we are open to learning. It is a
mandatory asset for discontinuous learning.
How deeply and quickly we learn is directly proportional to our
willingness to occupy a vulnerable position consciously. At a
gathering of couples, for instance, many of us husbands got excited
about taking a bicycle tour of a nearby village. Then one gentleman
quietly said he could not go with us because he’d never learned how
to ride a bicycle. To my surprise, another friend admitted he did not
know how, either. The first man had given him the courage to say so
in front of others. Our spouses quickly joined the conversation and
we found that only two of the eight wives knew how to ride a
bicycle. In short, touring as a group had never been feasible and we
found out only because of one gentleman’s willingness to be
vulnerable. Fortunately, his courage resulted in our having enough
time to plan something else.
Starting from relatively vulnerable positions like this, we use
our inborn predispositions to stretch, grow, and make successful
transitions from a dependent infancy to an interdependent
adulthood. In the stretch mode, we become immensely creative and
passionate. Our passion fuels our attempt to stretch in the first place,
and it is one of the characteristics of those who garner success.
Another factor in success is intention. To stretch optimally, our
intentions must be clear, active, and flexible. Being willing to
stretch beyond our own perceived limits, of course, requires taking a
risk.
Risking vulnerability means being willing to fail, look stupid,
and ask questions instead of pretending to know or making
assumptions. It also sometimes means speaking our truth without
being sure what consequences may follow. The benefit is that, in
risking this way, we model a behavior that leads others to stretch,
too. We create an environment of nurturing and caring in which we
61 Discontinuous Learning

can also let our guard down and discover ourselves to be bigger than
we ever imagined.
Curiosity, genuine inquiry (not inquisition), empathy, and
appreciation provide the impetus and support for us to stretch
beyond our self-imposed limits into openness and vulnerability to
discover new possibilities. We can then employ all kinds of learning
styles, including innate, instinctive, and imitative ones. After that,
how deeply and quickly we teach or learn depends greatly on how
inspired we feel by the vision we’re dancing with.

Why is ‘uninhibited wonder’ something we generally

restrict to children? If doing good inquiry is at the heart of
organizational development, why then so little talk of things like
awe, curiosity, veneration, surprise, delight, amazement, and
wonder -- in short, everything that serves to infuse what has
traditionally referred to as the “spirit of inquiry”?
—David Cooperrider

Food for Thought:

To practice stretching, how can I find opportunities to

learn and be vulnerable?
What helps me enter a vulnerable state? What hinders
me?
How can I foster vulnerability in others?
62 The Cornerstones

Competence sometimes breeds incompetence

Exploring our vulnerability includes becoming aware of our

core incompetence—the area of our lives where our feet are stuck to
the floor, where we experience only one option. Statements such as
“I have no choice but to—” often point toward this facet of
vulnerability. In other cases of core incompetence, we feel paralyzed
by delusions about our gifts, fears about our abilities, anxiety about
productivity, or judgments about how others judge us. We cannot
see how to stretch beyond what we already know.
We develop core incompetence whenever we automatically rely
on an area where we think we are strong. Our core incompetence
hurts us not because it is bad or inadequate but because we overuse
it. It tends to be a trait or a process that served us very well in the
past, but as we repeat it over and over, we get stuck in our thinking.
Our former success traps us, and our strong suit becomes a blind
spot, an area of incompetence. If we were playing basketball, we’d
lose possession of the ball for holding it too long without moving
(or moving it).
For instance, one customer service manager I knew was very
charismatic. Whenever she met with a customer, that person walked
away happy. Having heard such feedback many times, the manager
learned over time that she excelled in one-on-one situations. She
found she could also charm colleagues, bosses, and suppliers.
Soon, however, many of them dreaded meeting with her
individually. They preferred to deal with her by phone or e-mail
because they felt vulnerable to her charm and feared she would take
advantage of them again. In her company and among many of her
business contacts, nobody trusted her to be fair or to be on their side
of any transaction. Used indiscriminately (and unconsciously, I am
sure), her gift with people became her core incompetence and
backfired. She focused on scoring baskets for her own record, as it
were, rather than for her customers or her team.
In a more general scenario, let’s say I ignore all other tools in
my box because I can do magic with a hammer. Unconsciously, I
choose to do everything with my hammer, even though other tools
would be more effective in many cases. I tell myself I am learning
and demonstrating how much better I am becoming with my
hammer. Meanwhile, others see my showing off (ouch! their
63 Discontinuous Learning

judgments really hurt) and feel sorry for me because I am making no

other choices.
In both situations, we rarely find freedom from our foot being
nailed to the floor, and others see it long before we do. As long as
we are unaware of it or not willing to pay attention to it, our core
incompetence controls us and keeps us from moving forward toward
our vision.
Once we discover where we are stuck, we gain the freedom to
make a new decision. In other words, whatever we become aware
of, we can use. The first question is whether we’re willing to accept
our predicament, that is, what currently exists. Next, are we willing
to explore other tools and become aware of the alternatives we
have? When I really find out where my foot is stuck to the floor, I
gain the freedom to do something with it. Then it is truly possible to
turn a weakness into a real strength.
Focusing on our vision or purpose also helps free our foot from
the glue of past successes. Focusing solely on our core
incompetence gives it more power. To loosen the grip of the past
requires becoming aware of bigger perspective, a different future.
The unknown can bring tremendous magic if we stretch ourselves
into it.
This process—becoming aware, accepting the dance that
currently exists, exploring a fuller menu of choices, and
experimenting with new choices with an eye to our larger purpose—
allows us turn vulnerability into a valuable strength. We can tell an
immobile foot to pivot. We can also tell our stuck foot to become
even more stuck, more disconnected from our purpose, and then
watch what emerges.
64 The Cornerstones

Watch your thoughts; they become words. Watch your

words; they become actions. Watch your actions; they become
habits. Watch your habits; they become character. Watch your
character; it becomes your destiny.
—Frank Outlaw

Food for Thought:

What is my core incompetence?

Where is my foot stuck to the floor?
What is the core incompetence of my division or
organization?
How do we turn that vulnerability into strength?
65 Discontinuous Learning
66 The Cornerstones

4. INSPIRING

“I don’t think these kinds of sessions work with intact work

groups. It does not allow each other to open up and say anything
meaningful because it could be used against them” said Andy at the
beginning of a leadership development workshop for a company. It
led to a mini confrontation between the HR manager and Andy and I
had to step in to calm both of them down. On the last day, Andy
commented that he was wrong and he did get a lot of value and he
will withdraw his complaints about the HR manager. Those
comments stunned the room. Andy is normally a cynical executive
with critical opinions about everybody and is difficult to get along
with. He rarely makes positive comments about anything. The HR
manager was affected the most. She burst into tears, turned to Andy
and said, “I just want you to know that I resented your jokes and
your attitude. I ignored your requests because I wanted to teach you
a lesson. Instead, you taught me a lesson. You showed me that you
could be open, honest and take responsibility for your impact. It has
been difficult working in this company with all the legacy issues
that I have to deal with and I am realizing that I have been the one
who was resenting, closed and opinionated. I want to apologize to
you and others sincerely, and I will attempt to be more open and
receptive to you. I was hired to serve you and help you become
more effective and from now on I will get with it.”
The rest of the attendees gave both of them a standing ovation.
After the applause stopped, someone said, “Just by this one
exchange, you’ve eliminated what we’ve been thinking about
Human Resources being a hindrance to our work and not adding
value to us. Your authenticity, and vulnerability—that’s what we’re
taking away as your leadership gift. You’re able to tell the truth
even if it does not put you in a good light. That inspires us.” The HR
manager was shocked at their response. She could not see what was
so inspiring about telling the truth and admitting that she screwed
up. She was planning to pay more attention to her job. What are
these guys so excited about!
Inspiring means “making somebody feel more enthusiastic,
confident, or stimulated” according to the dictionary that comes
with the Office software. What we think that will inspire others may
not be inspiring to them at all. Authenticity, vulnerability and truth-
67 Discontinuous Learning

telling inspires us even though we might not be aware of them while

we are sharing ourselves. When we are operating out of our
authentic self, the spirit of who we are, what we do inspires others
because they resonate with us and connect with our authentic self.
The process is discontinuous, and we cannot predict or prepare for it
other than be aligned with our own spirit.
In discontinuous learning, inspiring each other is a central
experience as it allows us to let go. It is the “AHA!” moment when
our minds seize on a new perspective and release the old. Our spirits
soar, and our bodies rush with elated dynamism. In the deepening
that can take place, we can find new themes. Creative ideas and
applications set each other off like firecrackers on a string.

In the three-dimensional model, inspiring is the fourth and

transformational cornerstone, from a developmental perspective. It
refers both to feeling inspired and to inspire others. The ensuing
sections elaborate on the pleasure and speed of learning while
inspired.
Feeling inspired in the physical domain is having so much
energy that our bodies are eager to take on that morning jog, game
of handball, or glorious walk in the park at lunchtime. It is also
about appreciating our boundaries, grounding ourselves, and using
those as the foundation to grow and make discontinuous leaps.
In the intellectual domain, inspiration can suddenly grab our
curiosity or crystallize a new concept, sending us off on a grand
journey of exploration. When inspired, our insights could trigger
68 The Cornerstones

“what if” reactions in us and if those are explored appreciatively, we

could end up with a clear vision of what we could do and purpose
that stretches us and fulfills us. These ideas will be further explored
in the chapter that addresses intellectual domain.
In the heart or emotional domain, being inspired means tapping
into our passion and commitment. It is about finding what we love
and are committed to. Love with commitment is what allows us to
mine inspiration to its full extent by implementing it in our own
lives. Neither love without commitment nor commitment without
love can sustain inspiration. Both are necessary.
In the generative domain, inspiration fuels our imagination,
love and creative drive. Based on what we love and what we are
committed to, inspiration may give us visions of what we are about
to bring into existence or draw us powerfully along a path toward
creating some new process or product. Or, inspiration may wake us
up one morning by playing a few notes from the song we’re about to
write.
When we are not inspired, we put ourselves through some of
the dullest efforts imaginable. Exercising without wanting to is a
painful inner conflict between willpower and inertia. Intellectual
endeavors feel slow, stale, and flat. Questions cease engaging us,
and answers fail to emerge with any grace. Similarly, uninspired
emotional and creative lives feel alienated and empty. We yearn for
the far more illuminating pool of energy in which we once swam
and played.
When we act out of inspiration, it spreads quickly. Others
suddenly see new ways to act in areas where they felt stuck. When
we notice that others are inspired by us, we often feel inspired to
take more responsibility and accountability for our own actions.
This positive cycle continues.
69 Discontinuous Learning

. . . in moments of inspiration and

intuition, . . . the mind calms down and
we center in the inner Self.
—Joan Borysenko

Food for Thought:

Who are the people who inspired me in my life? What did

they do?
In my life, what have I done in an inspired way?
Where do I find inspiration nowadays?
What does it feel like to be inspired?
When I feel inspired, what happens?
When have I inspired another person? How did I do that?
70 The Cornerstones

We might travel the world for a lifetime trapped in

our own pond.

An old fable tells about a frog in a pond. Another frog arrives

from the ocean. The first frog asks about how big the ocean was.
“The ocean is very large, and the pond is so small compared to the
ocean,” the second frog responds. The first frog cannot imagine
anything bigger than the pond it has always lived in, so it goes away
thinking that the second frog is the biggest liar ever.
We might ask ourselves whether we look at the world this way.
Do we consider what we hear from others from our own pond? How
do we know that we are able to see things that lie outside our
particular frame of reference or mindset? What do we use as a way
of judging how big the ocean is?
These are good questions to ask because, being comfortable
within our “boxes,” we tend to think that we are learning and
growing. Learning within such a frame of mind, however,
essentially means finding more data to support our current mindsets.
It does not inspire us to stretch beyond our horizons and explore the
unseen and unknown. We find excitement when we stretch and
explore, and inspiration is the foundation for discontinuity.
Stretching toward something that inspires us gives us
immeasurable flexibility in learning deeply and rapidly. Nothing
stands in our way for long because the only barriers to learning are
those we have created. With a clear idea of where we want to go,
unlearning and dismantling those barriers are no problems.
Until we arrive at that magic mix of inspiration, vision, and
stretching, however, many of us assume otherwise. Once we settle
in an outlook, we believe we cannot change our fundamental
patterns, beliefs, or personalities. We somehow ignore the
unlearning part of learning, or we feel ashamed of needing to
unlearn current ideas. We feel generally resigned to our
“inadequacies” and assume that this is the way we’ll always be.
Such thinking becomes a self-fulfilling prophecy because we find
validation everywhere we look. This is self-conditioning.
71 Discontinuous Learning

Organizations get into the same trap as individuals. Traditional

printers and publishers neither invented nor embraced desktop
publishing. The CNN news channel did not come from the well
established ABC, NBC, or CBS networks. Kodak failed to see the
possibilities of photocopying when the Battelle Memorial Institute
introduced the inventor Chester F. Carlson with his faint imaging on
metal plates. That is how the Xerox Corporation was born.
If we work for a company that is not recognizing opportunities
lying outside its pond, what would we do? Are we willing to look
outside our own pond to discover what customers are clamoring for?
Would we be willing to hear what our colleagues are saying about
us?

Xerography was not the answer to a problem waiting to be

solved. Rather, the discovery of xerography was a case where
invention was the mother of necessity. I am convinced that,
without Chet Carlson, there might have never been xerography,
not in our time perhaps, not ever.
—Sol M. Linowitz
Chair of the Xerox Corporation
Board of directors, 1958–66
72 The Cornerstones

Food for Thought:

What do I believe about my capacity to change?

What inspires me to engage fully in things that challenge
my established thinking patterns?
How do I respond to others who feel hopeless to learn or
change?
How do I know about my own boundaries?
73 Discontinuous Learning

The self who sets goals usually differs from the self
who accomplishes them.
When we feel inspired by someone or something and suddenly
discover some new sense of purpose, we become willing to stretch.
Inspiration and stretching then evolve together. The more inspired
we feel, the more we stretch. This builds capacity. When we put our
inspiration into practice, we may also increase our skills and
knowledge.
When inspired, we see clearly and want to act. In this sense, our
guidance comes from within, from our essential selves. The part that
performs, however, is our acting self, which also holds our skills
and knowledge. Trouble arises when this acting self is at odds with
the essential self. Unless they are aligned, we cannot align our
actions and words. We lose our integrity.
This happens because our inspirations, aspirations, and
creativity come from a sense of connecting with the larger spirit. For
each of us, the essential self manifests a subset of this larger spirit.
The essential self is distinct from the ego, or acting self. We also
need to differentiate our essential selves from our physical
substance, our bodies, to move into a perspective in which powerful
learning can occur.
When inspired, we do align our words and actions. The acting
self is congruent with the essential self, in other words. Indian
spiritual tradition defines integrity as aligning words, thoughts, and
feelings with action. This is considered the highest form of
authenticity.
Discontinuous learning’s power connects with congruence. In
pulling apart our previous modes or models, we release tremendous
energy and integrate some part of the unlearning experience. This
happens not so that we can do anything in particular, but to
internalize things from our own success. In turn, this factors into the
alignment between essential self and acting self. The three-
dimensional model lets us map, clarify, and examine this as one of
the various things that also bring integrity to the process of
discontinuous learning.
74 The Cornerstones

Authenticity is an attitude of awareness in which we are

willing to experience our thoughts and feelings as they are.
—Joan Borysenko

Food for Thought:

How connected do I feel to a spirit larger then my ego?

How do I identify my essential self? My acting self?
When do my actions match my words, thoughts, and
feelings? In what situations do they differ?
What are my beliefs about integrity and authenticity?
How can I support others to be authentic?
75 Discontinuous Learning

More businesses now have a heart.

Inspiration is also a powerful approach to building creative

capacity in the corporate world, where words such as heart, soul,
and spirit are already occupying more and more space. Employees
who are uncomfortable with this changing scene and vocabulary
tend either to leave, fight a losing battle, or break through into a new
sense of their professions and professionalism.
Mastek Ltd. is one example of how heart shows up in
companies. An international software firm headquartered in India,
its various other divisions are in Japan, Germany, the United
Kingdom, and the United States. Using my three-dimensional
approach to thinking, they contemplated the dynamics in their
company and came up with a mission statement and a customized
pyramid to represent their company. An excerpt from the company’s
1999 stockholders’ report tells more:
At Mastek, we decided to make our Mission far
more dyna mic and action-oriented, providing people
with a tool to guide them in their everyday transactions
through The Mastek Pyramid. A way by which people
can carry our Mission around with them, every day.
The four vertices, or “Cornerstones” of the Pyramid,
are fundamental to the Mastek Mission. These are:
Love and Commitment
Growth & Sustainability
Systems & Processes
Creativity & Fun

Love & Commitment, the “True North,” is our

aspiration. Evoking the spirit of service—within and
outside the organization. Love towards our stakeholders
in increasing their capability, providing the space for
them to achieve their potential. And the commitment to
support them in translating this capability into actual
performance. Providing results for our stakeholders.

Being in win-win partnerships with our Customers

to evolve Information Technology solutions that
enhance the value of their business and enable them to
service their customers better.
76 The Cornerstones

Providing an open, nurturing, yet demanding work

environment to our Employees, grounded in mutual
trust and respect, enabling them to be their best.

Being a source of long-term capital appreciation

to our Stakeholders.

Having a synergistic relationship of mutual value

with our Suppliers and Alliance Partners.

Being a responsible Corporate Citizen in the

countries we operate . . ..

From my first conversations with its founders and executives, it

was clear to me that making a difference and leaving a legacy as a
humane company interest them more than just making money. The
firm has since doubled from 600 to about 1,200 people. All four
directors and founders are still there—and are still passionately
committed to making a difference.
Having a heart and caring for others can be a competitive
differentiation, as companies today are discovering. In a recent
77 Discontinuous Learning

article in Fast Company, Tim Sanders of Yahoo says that love is a

“killer application” that has not received enough attention.
In a sidebar titled “Why Love Conquers All,” he gives five
tough-minded reasons why having a heart and being generous is the
best strategy:

We differentiate ourselves from others and build an

outstanding brand.

We create an experience for people who interact with us

because we can be fun, interesting, and valuable.

People pay attention to us—a most difficult

achievement, and one that means results.

We harness the power of positive presumptions about

trust, knowledge and intentions.

We receive valuable feedback about what we bring in

terms of ideas, knowledge, and contacts—feedback that
is not easy to get these days.

So inspiration leads to more inspiration. Paying attention to what we

care about and bringing heart to work pays off handsomely. This is
especially true in these days of short attention spans and constant
uncertainties.
Helping us balance between work and life is another way heart
is playing more of a role in some organizations. Many Fortune 500
companies are attempting to take care of people who work for them.
Ultimately, though, it is people—inside organizations or outside—
who bring the heart and make the connection. Are you one of them?
If not, why not? How do you justify your role?
A developmental relationship exists among the four
cornerstones. Grounding is the foundational intention, and nurturing
others or ourselves is the next important developmental milestone.
Stretching becomes critical once our cognitive capabilities mature,
and then inspiring brings the element of spirit into our interactions
with others.
78 The Cornerstones

However, the process of developing each factor’s energy is

dynamic and is different in each person, household, or organization.
As the Mastek 1999 Financial Report states, “true alignment and
power are available when all four are pulling in the same direction.”
The same is true if we want to experience or engender discontinuous
learning.

The best and most beautiful things in the world cannot be

seen nor touched...but are felt in the heart.
—Helen Keller

Food for Thought:

Do I bring my heart to work?

How connected do I feel to a spirit larger then my ego?
What specific actions am I willing to take?
How do I respond to people and organizations that bring
more heart and sprit into their operations?
79 Discontinuous Learning
80 The Domains

PART II THE DOMAINS

The story goes that Dr. Bhimrao Ramji Ambedkar, one of the key
writers of India’s constitution, went to Mahatma Gandhi and told
him that he was resigning from the constitution committee. It was in
late 1947, India had just gained independence from British rule, and
people considered Gandhi the father of the nation.
Gandhi inquired why and found that Dr. Ambedkar was hurt
because of the comments of other people. He thought they didn’t
value his contribution. Gandhi reportedly asked him to find out
where the hurt was. Was it the ego that got hurt, or was it the self?
Dr. Ambedkar, it seems, reflected and decided to withdraw his
resignation. He resumed work on the constitution.
When I heard this story, it dawned on me that how we perceive
ourselves is not the same for everybody. For instance, I may think
highly of my intellectual brilliance and feel hurt if somebody calls
me stupid. Paul, who is creative, may react this way when other
creative people do not pay attention to his ideas. My friend Lilly
feels most hurt when others do not demonstrate caring or do not
listen when she is talking. Gene, on the other hand, has his total
focus on his body and muscles. His ego resides in his body image.
Our identities reflect how we perceive ourselves in four
domains:

Physical (kinesthetic intelligence)

Emotional (emotional intelligence)
Intellectual (cognitive intelligence)
Generative (creative intelligence)

While these do not include all the intelligences described by

Howard Gardner—the renowned Harvard University theorist on
multiple intelligences—they do correspond on a Meta level. Later
sections describe those connections. Meanwhile, we tend to be
unaware of how these various intelligences affect our self-
perception, so by learning about them and how each affects our
identities, we can develop distinctions that are important to
discontinuous learning.
We can also think of these domains as the arenas for potential
outcomes, which their corresponding cornerstones and edges
demarcate. In other words, these domains embody the effect of three
81 Discontinuous Learning

intentions at work simultaneously with three competencies. They

answer the question of where those intentions and competencies
show up, the field of intelligence in which our learning appears.

Outcomes in the intellectual domain, for instance, arise

according to how we ground, stretch, and inspire ourselves. If we
neglect or scrimp on any of these, our results suffer. This chapter
concerns itself with how we control these fields and how we make
our dynamic interactions work.
The components represented by the four cornerstones and the
magnetic interactions among them contribute to the domain’s
integral wholeness. As long as the interactions are heading in an
appreciative direction, the domain expands. Once they turn in a
negative direction, the field reduces and the results go south.

It’s like having a conversation with others, or when we form a

team within our organization. When we can respect each other’s
opinions and ideas, we create an appreciative field in which what we
build is no longer about managing tensions between “your” ideas
and “my” ideas. A different kind of domain—a domain of
workability—emerges in which we can create a flow and to will
something collaboratively.
82 The Domains

The degree of integrity we have in each domain determines our

level of awareness and the depth of our learning process.
Discontinuous learning is a process that reflects and affects our
entire system of thinking. By examining each domain in detail, then,
we can foster discontinuous learning by understanding more about
which domain it shows up in and how we can enhance that domain’s
particular intelligence.

I would like to propose another way of construing identity:

as a self-structure—an internal, self-constructed, dynamic
organization of drives, abilities, beliefs, and individual history.
The better developed this structure is, the more aware individuals
appear to be of their own uniqueness and similarity to others and
of their own strengths and weaknesses in making their way in the
world.

—James E. Marcia

Food for Thought:

When has my learning experience included all the

domains? What was that like for me?
How can I include all four domains in my current learning
process? In my coaching of others?
How do I perceive myself?
What uniqueness of mine do I value above the rest?
Of what am I most proud?
What hurts me?
What kind of intelligence do I value most: Kinesthetic?
Emotional? Cognitive? Creative? Why??
83 Discontinuous Learning
84 The Domains

5. The Physical Domain

Without playfulness, neither learning nor magic occurs much.

At the 2002 Olympic Games in Salt Lake City, Sara Hughes won a
gold medal for figure- skating. That amazingly inspiring
performance reflected something about the physical domain of
discontinuous learning. Sara was grounded in the situation at hand
but wasn’t feeling the pressure to win. She just wanted to play with
the energy that came in, enjoy it in the moment, and celebrate it as
she skated.
She became a physical movement of spirit. Several comments I
heard referred to her as a Zen dancer. That flow did not rest with her
alone. Her alignment with herself and with the energy of that whole
performance—mesmerized the audience and the television viewers.
She was in that state of flow, and it showed up differently than in
other athletes because she was just playful. Stretching beyond her
previous accomplishments, nurturing herself, and being playful all
contributed to a spectacular event.
The physical domain refers to the bodily aspects of our
existence, balance, and consciousness. As the foundation for our
experiences, the physical domain determines what we can perceive
and process in terms of information (perceptions and sensations) and
energy (intensity, passion, love, hatred, grief, happiness and
urgency).
That, in turn, determines what we can learn and, to some
degree, how quickly. In other words, our bodies hold a vast
reservoir of intelligence that is mostly unused because input from
our brains takes precedence. Many times, what we perceive
overrides objections from our bodies. If we overlook the physical
dimension of learning, we impede ourselves significantly.
As the domain that deals with kinesthetic intelligence, the
physical field is the foundation for all of our other capacities.
Without developing this domain and keeping it in good order, no
other capacities take root in our being. One such capacity is
awareness, the process of distinguishing and making concrete
connections between our perceptions, our subconscious thought
patterns & feelings, and our behaviors. For instance, we can develop
and practice awareness by observing what we eat and drink. Being
85 Discontinuous Learning

mindful in the moment of what goes into our bodies can help us stop
eating on autopilot. This mindfulness, in turn, unfurls new choices.
It is extremely important to develop mindfulness and awareness
in our actions because we are connecting and communicating with
each other at the speed of electrons. Pressing the wrong key or
sending the wrong note to the wrong person sometimes spells doom
in our work. Many of today’s transactions are so automated that we
need tremendous physical awareness and self-control to avoid
mistakes that we regret later.
Most of our awareness is tacit, which means that our brains do
not interpret it. We seldom understand what our body is saying.
Fortunately, it is possible for us to develop an awareness of our
awareness. We can deliberately choose to pay attention, for instance,
to our thoughts, feelings, energy shifts, and body sensations (such as
pains or pleasures). By developing awareness, we can detect when
we stray from the future we want to create for our work, our
relationships, and ourselves. In other words, when we become
aware, we plant a seed in the field of our physical intelligence,
where it continues to evolve even after we move our attention to
something else. When we are aware of our awareness, however, our
continued focus and attention nurtures the seed and it grows
stronger.
The physical domain speaks to us through breath patterns, body
sensations, and energy. Sensing tightness in our muscles, not feeling
right, or feeling excited for no reason are examples of signals that
merit attention. They signify messages from outside our conscious
awareness—from our observing self, as it were–so we benefit by
stopping to reflect on what those messages mean. The more aware
we are of our breath, senses, and energies, the more keenly we
become aware of both internal and external contexts and the
opportunities available to us. This way of being aware of our
awareness is an emergent principle. It means we are dancing with
life and what promotes life rather than with what is temporary,
decaying, or taking away life.
86 The Domains

On the tetrahedron, the physical domain connects three

cornerstones: grounding, nurturing, and stretching. The rules allow
for safety; nurturing for persistence in the face of setbacks; and
stretching for the development and expansion of what we are or
what we know. This chapter expands more fully on how these
cornerstones relate through the physical domain.

Know that the soul is the lord of the chariot, the body is the
chariot, the intellect is the charioteer, and the mind is the reins.
The senses, they say, are the horses and the material objects are
the fields of pasture. The wise men say that the soul, joined with
the mind and senses, enjoys the material objects.
—Kathopanishad
87 Discontinuous Learning

Food for Thought:

How aware am I of what I do when I do it?

How does my physical well-being affect my personal and
professional pursuits?
Am I aware of my own awareness? What is it like? What
do I notice now?
88 The Domains

Resisting the undesirable may also

shut out life’s desirables.

One story goes that Indra, an Indian king of Gods, learned that
he would be facing seven years of misfortune because of a curse by
Shani, the God of Bad Luck. To prevent the curse from taking
effect, Indra wanted to hide from Shani. So he went to a remote
cottage without telling anyone, including his family and everybody
in his kingdom.
At the end of seven years, he came back. The first person he
saw in his kingdom was Shani. Indra mocked him, saying that he
had escaped Shani’s curse and that soon everybody would learn how
to do the same, so that Shani would lose all his power.
Shani just smiled and was about to leave, but at Indra’s
insistence, he explained that he was unconcerned about losing his
power. If the curse had been ineffective, why had the king of Gods
spent seven years in hiding, with only the sparsest of comforts and
without his family and pleasures? Preoccupied with running away
from a curse that was difficult to imagine and accept, Indra had gone
through real physical hardship but had not even known it.
Change is not a discrete phenomenon. Even in the physical
domain, it is a continually occurring subtle shift that often remains
below our conscious awareness. We notice it only when a
significant difference exists between the current state and the old
state. We know when the temperature changes, for example, but we
perceive this only when it changes four degrees Fahrenheit or more.
This is sometimes a matter of awareness and attention to the
differences—the ability to distinguish, in other words. Sometimes, it
is a matter of the physical domain’s thresholds for perceiving and
reacting.
What does it mean? While we are busy avoiding change that we
can recognize, we miss out on major transformational shifts. Basing
our choices on what we like and dislike can mean overlooking
opportunities to play with exciting new approaches. Our thinking
does not stretch beyond its current level until we bring more
information—if not more of the physical domain’s perceptive
powers—into our process of gathering data, experimenting, and
nurturing the possibility of change.
89 Discontinuous Learning

Some people make things happen, some watch things

happen, and some wonder what happened.
–Author unknown

Food for Thought:

What kinds of changes do I welcome?

What kinds of change do I resist?
What kinds of change sneak up on me?
How can I actively create changes that I welcome?
How can I help others to embrace change?
90 The Domains

Nurturing the body nurtures the mind.

When my mother told me to eat and sleep well before my final
exams in college, I did not pay attention. During those stressful
days, I prepared late into the night every night and survived on junk
food.
Halfway through my exams, I found that my memory was
failing me. I had neither stamina nor clarity of mind. Over the
weekend, I fell sick and decided that I could not get through my
exams. Instead, I learned to relax.
After eating properly for two days and sleeping well, I took my
exams, feeling clear-headed and remembering what I needed to
know. When my grades came out, I was surprised to find that I had
done better in the exams that followed more sleep and less
preparation.
Even now, when I am exercising and maintaining regular food
and sleep habits, I am more equanimous and have better decision-
making capabilities than when I am stressed and overwhelmed. For
me, nurturing the body means exercising it properly, eating food in a
timely and balanced way, and resting six to eight hours a night.
Performance in skiing, tennis, golf, and other physical games
also benefits through nurturing. In team sports, players attain better
results when they play their games with relaxed tension, mindful
presence, and easy confidence.
When we experience caring in our physical domain, the payoffs
are huge. In workplaces, we can improve fitness, morale, and
productivity by creating break rooms, facilities for exercise, sports,
and meditation or prayer.

A pat in the back is only a few vertebrae removed from a

kick in the pants, but is miles ahead in results.
—L. J. Peter
91 Discontinuous Learning

Food for Thought:

How do I nurture my body?

What signals from my body am I aware of when I am
well? When I am ill?
What is my attitude toward nurturing the body while at
work?
What steps can I take to improve people’s physical
surroundings at work?
92 The Domains

Playfulness stretches, intensity breaks.

A friend of mine did everything he could think of to lose

weight. He is intense in everything he does, and he went from one
diet plan to another, from one fitness coach to another. Then he met
and started dating a wonderful lady. He was so busy having fun
being with her—playing tennis and biking on weekends—that he
stopped paying attention to weight and his obsessive habits. To his
amazement, he felt much lighter, lost more weight, and was in better
moods than he had been for several years.
When we take up new activities and bring new purposefulness
and clarity into life, we sometimes affect our bodies in a
discontinuous way because we are shifting our attention to fun and
play. We stretch not when we are rigid but when we are playful with
the boundaries we have. Children excel when challenged playfully
but stress out and lose when they feel pressure during games.
Anything in excess is bad, even challenges or exertion. Our physical
bodies certainly do not know how to deal well with excesses.
When times are tough in an organization, pressure, intensity,
and fear increase while productivity and efficiency go down
proportionally. But when we issue playful challenges, when friendly
competition exists in a group, people stretch beyond their old limits
and perform in an unexpected way. It is not competition per se that
is good. The keys are friendliness, fun, and playfulness. These are
the dynamic tensions that arise among the physical domain’s
cornerstones of grounding, nurturing, and stretching.

Life is like a game of cards.

The hand that is dealt you
represents determinism;
the way you play it is free will.
—Jawaharlal Nehru
93 Discontinuous Learning

Food for Thought:

How do I achieve what I want – through intense effort or

playful attempts?
When did I last accomplish something unexpectedly while
playing?
How do I create an atmosphere of fun and play at work so
that we stretch beyond our current stopping points?
94 The Domains
95 Discontinuous Learning

6. The Emotional Domain

The energies of the emotional domain are vital at work, especially
when we want to be more creative and want to demonstrate
leadership. On sabbatical in 1988 from the University of Utah, I
worked as a product marketing manager at Apple International.
Bored with that after some time, I felt I needed some new ideas and
challenges. Before leaving, I wanted to express a few points about
the management process. So I called the head of the management
development center at Apple University, who happened to be an
Englishman named Phil Dixon.
“I’d love to get feedback,” he said, and the care I experienced
as he talked made it clear that he was very appreciative that a line
manager was willing to take time to give him comments about
management processes that could be improved. So we met at a Sri
Lankan restaurant, where he asked, “What are you doing? Where are
you going? Why do you want to quit Apple?” Then, after I told him,
he asked more pointed questions about my competencies,
experience, and relationships with coworkers. He ended with, “I
recommend that you come and see my boss before you decide to go
back to Utah.”
“Why?”
“Apple would be losing a gem, if we lose you,” he responded.
“I’d like to figure out a way in which you could work with us. I
don’t know how, but I appreciate what you bring. Come and meet
my boss.”
I was deeply touched and inspired by this man’s commitment to
Apple, his commitment to make a difference to me, and his
commitment not to lose someone with my experiences and
aptitudes. Within twenty-four hours, he had made an appointment
for me to meet with his boss. Two weeks later, I was working with
Apple University. That work changed the course of my career, for
which I am very grateful. Looking back, I see that the key parts
were Phil’s commitment to and love for Apple, his empathic and
careful listening, and his appreciation for me, even though the points
I raised were pretty elementary. This kind of nurturing represents
the emotional domain at work.
In discontinuous learning, this domain has three cornerstones:
grounding, nurturing, and inspiring. Given the grounding that
provides the kind of limits in which we feel contained and secure,
96 The Domains

we can receive the care and attention that then give us solid footing
to open ourselves to inspiration.

By the same token, when we manage or coach or parent, we

need to fulfill the same needs if we want them to learn. We need to
set out clear conditions so they can function with a sense of
knowing what we expect. Our attention and care for their interests
needs to be timely, reliable, and appropriate if they are to flourish
enough to find the inspiration to grow.
Branding is extremely powerful when it is consistent with an
organization’s emotional tone. We also create our organizational
cultures in the emotional domain. Grounding, nurturing, and
inspiring create the foundational field in which we foster loyalty and
retain and motivate people’s talents and unique capabilities.
In such fields, which ideally align with a larger purpose for
collaboration, the impact of the larger spirit is far greater than that
we bring through our respective acting selves. Meaning emerges in
the field because it is no longer contained merely by each individual
container. Fear diminishes, and the field becomes larger. The group
has more magic available to it as a dance begins to take place in our
midst, in an open way, in which that spirit gathers the strength of
our focused attention.
The emotional domain’s downside is also significant. Structure
engenders a love–hate relationship if it comes with too many ground
rules, too little appreciation, and too little inspiration. When others
97 Discontinuous Learning

don’t appreciate hearing our truth, most of us resort to seeking

approval rather than saying what’s on our minds. Morale plummets
when we sense that others are not caring about us, and our
commitment to the work or the relationship eventually dwindles.
We thus need to devote ongoing attention to having appropriate
parameters, nurturing each other to grow and learn, and pursuing
goals that inspire us. Discontinuous learning and innovation depend
on the health of our emotional domain.

Where appreciation is alive and generations are re-

connected through inquiry, hope grows.
—David Cooperrider

Food for Thought:

How much attention do I give the emotional domain?

In what learning experiences was I aware of the emotional
dimension? What do I remember?
Can I deepen the learning process (for other or for
myself) by adjusting or clarifying the grounding,
nurturing, and inspiring?
98 The Domains

Being studious leads us away from learning.

Or trying to learn really hard, one may end up
hardly learning.
Perhaps the worst thing we can do when studying is to be
studious. Cramming usually reflects our fear of failing the exam
rather than our intention to learn. When we genuinely want to learn
the material, we do better to follow our instincts, relax, and simply
read with interest.
We cannot rush or contrive deep learning any more than we can
guarantee laughing or falling in love by trying harder. If we are
enjoying the material, we may stop every now and then to
contemplate the subject and perhaps walk about awhile. Before
continuing to read with yet more fascination, we may want to refer
to another book that this one reminds us of.
Such acts reflect the inspired and nurturing energies of
learning’s emotional domain. Approaches like these help us learn in
a deep and powerful way. It is hard to do, obviously, if we are in
panic mode. Most of us think we should sit still and glare at the
book until well into the night. We hope that its contents will
somehow transfer to our brains. Trying too hard produces
constrained focus. It is difficult to sustain attention when we strain.
Fun, play, and learning are all the same to us as they are for
children. Learning at a fast rate occurs when children are laughing,
making noises, and trying new things. It rarely occurs when we are
sitting quietly, working alone, and following rigid rules. (Structure
has important uses, but it does not necessarily have much to do with
learning, as such.) By allowing ourselves to divert our attention
from what looks like education, we can accelerate our learning.
It is difficult to think of anything we’ve learned well that was
not enjoyable in some way. Without enjoyment, the most we can
gain is some factual knowledge. Sometimes this is good enough, but
generally, we do not use this type of knowledge in any deep or
creative way.
Some time ago, for example, I was playing in a finals match of
a tennis league. After losing 6–1 in the first set and trailing at 2–5 in
the second, I was ready to give up. I had lost hope of winning the
match, and I just wanted to go home and hide my face.
99 Discontinuous Learning

As I prepared to receive my opponent’s serve, a wave of

hopelessness came over me. Then I felt a strong intention to fight.
With nothing to lose at that point, I deliberately loosened up. I
returned the serve aggressively and focused on returning the ball.
Within a short time, my opponent and I were tied. Somehow, I won
the second set and then the match.
In his famous book, The Inner Game of Tennis, Tim Gallwey
describes the state of mind that produces such results. What he calls
the zone is an inner place from which we play like a dream. Nothing
goes wrong. By playing the game without worrying about the result,
we draw from deeper reserves of talent and so develop new skills
rapidly in real-time.
Gallwey also talks about two selves: the “I” that performs,
learns, and plays; and the other “I” that observes, judges, and
evaluates. When our observing self gets out of the way and allows
our playing self to play, we can achieve dramatic improvements in
performance.

I have learned throughout my life as a composer chiefly

through my mistakes and pursuits of false assumptions, not by
my exposure to founts of wisdom and knowledge.
—Igor Stravinsky

Food for Thought:

What relaxes me when I am learning? When do I strain?

How can I get my inner evaluator/judge to step aside while
I am learning?
How can I create an emotionally healthy environment
for working with others?
How can I create an emotionally healthy environment
for promoting curiosity and learning?
100 The Domains

High IQ does not mean high EQ.

Roger had a high IQ and was very smart. After graduating at the
top of his class from a prestigious university, he got a master’s
degree at an Ivy League school. He was charming, passionate, and
articulate. Yet he lost his marriage, job, money, and many of his
friends. People avoided him like the plague.
Easily distracted, Roger got bored in meetings yet wanted
everybody to pay attention to his questions and requests. His
colleagues learned to ignore him or sympathize with him but soon
became unwilling to work with him. They knew he would take all
the credit rather than learn how to value their contributions. Roger
blamed every misfortune on anybody but himself.
His case is not unique. Just being brilliant guarantees us neither
accomplishment nor satisfaction. Appreciating, loving, committing,
caring, and empathizing are exactly what they would like to receive
from others, yet these are not at the top of their own priorities.
Emotional intelligence (EQ) has little to do with external
measures and approvals. It is about self-awareness, self-control,
self-discipline, self-management and good communication. In
addition, it is about building and managing social relationships. By
paying attention, we can develop these key competencies of the
emotional domain. The attitude with which we practice also
produces surprisingly wonderful results.

Leaders’ emotional states and actions do affect how the

people they lead will feel and therefore perform. How well
leaders manage their moods and affect everyone else’s moods,
then, becomes not just a private matter, but a factor in how well
a business will do.
—Daniel Goleman, Richard Boyatzis
and Annie McKee
101 Discontinuous Learning

Food for Thought:

What would I let go if I had to choose between IQ and

EQ? Why?
Which one is behind my success so far?
How did I develop it?
What parts of my IQ do I value the most?
What parts of my EQ do I value the most?
Which one contributes to wherever I am stuck in my life?
Which one helps me move?
102 The Domains

What we appreciate, appreciates.

Appreciative Inquiry (AI) is an effective tool for interviewing

people and simultaneously creating positive effects. David
Cooperrider and others originated this AI process at Case Western
Reserve University in Cleveland. It then spread to all parts of the
world.
In 1993, Harvey Hewitt was a factory manager in Rochester,
New York, for Xerox Corporation. He and his colleagues had been
struggling for some time to improve the morale of employees in the
factories. Experts had advised them on how to implement
empowerment at work, but the end results were not satisfactory.
I offered to work with Harvey on a different approach to
empowerment. We designed a workshop to help people discover
what empowerment meant for them.
About 35 senior managers came from various Xerox factories
and sat around tables of six. The first exercise was to share a
personal story about the time when they were most empowered and
motivated to act. Once people started relating their experiences, the
energy in the groups soared.
I then asked the people at each table to pick one resonant story
and to share it with everybody in the room. After that, I asked
everyone to identify three key characteristics of their empowerment,
and we pooled that data to create a three-dimensional model for
discontinuous empowerment.
The four cornerstones for their pyramid were:

Communication from the heart

Trust

Knowing the boundaries

Information to get the job done

All four factors were essential. When heart was missing, they
said, they might understand what needed to be done but had no
intrinsic motivation to get it done. In the learning pyramid, this is
comparable to the emotional domain.
103 Discontinuous Learning

Without trust, they experienced ownership in their individual

jobs but did not collaborate in their teams. When information to get
the job done was missing, they had high self-esteem but did not
make decisions well. Finally, when boundaries were unclear, they
had a shared vision but did not increase their productivity.
By end of that day, the room was fully charged. By
appreciating what empowered them, they were clear about what to
do to ignite intrinsic motivation in others. Before the workshop, they
were confident only about their ability to empower themselves.
After the workshop they knew they could create conditions for
others to empower themselves in the workplace.
This experience was very satisfying for many of them because
they had connected with and added to what they already knew about
how to do this. During this workshop, they each ignited their own
natural genius by making conscious connections between their
experiences and their choices of action. Like appreciative inquiry,
the answers often lie in amplifying what works. The energy of the
emotional domain is vital yet easy to overlook.

Don’t hide your heart but reveal it,

so that mine might be revealed,
and I might accept what I am capable of.
—Rumi

Food for Thought:

When did I feel most appreciated? What were the

essential ingredients?
When was the last time I appreciated somebody openly?
What prevents appreciation from taking hold in my
organization? What more can I do to help it take hold?
104 The Domains
105 Discontinuous Learning

7. INTELLECTUAL DOMAIN

In 2001, conflict boiled up between India and Pakistan. It was a

major problem in India, although it did not turn into war. A friend of
mine (brother of my friend to be more accurate), Sunil Sachdev, was
tremendously inspired by the soldiers who were trying to make a
difference in the cold heights of Kashmir. Out of his total
appreciation for them and their families, who subsist on meager pay,
he turned his energies toward producing a simple yet effective
television ad. At the small advertising agency he owns, he worked
day in and day out, ignoring another important project that would
have benefited his company. Stretching beyond his normal
capabilities, he created a powerful ad that conveyed a clear picture
of what it meant to be one of these soldiers, their vision for the
region, what they were going through, and their willingness to risk
death in service to their country.
For the next few days, he was concerned that the hard-worked
ad may not raise much funds. But the ad inspired so many people
that it raised 150 million rupees, a significant sum in India. In
addition, the British Broadcasting Corporation apparently played
that ad in Europe. An executive in France was so impressed by the
ad’s creativity and intellectual clarity that he sent someone to India
to hire him to work on a project in France. It was the agency’s first
international contract, and that opportunity was created when my
friend felt inspired and stretched beyond his own personal interest.
This shows that in the intellectual domain, we draw on more than
just the intellect, and we create more than just ideas.
The intellectual domain is the last face of the learning pyramid
that includes grounding. Grounding ourselves implicitly or
explicitly for this part of our lives—the first cornerstone—is a
straightforward matter of establishing the material we want to learn,
how we plan to do that, how we measure progress, and so forth.
Without such fundamental agreements, the process can end in
frustration rather than learning.
106 The Domains

Inspiring is the second corner of the intellectual dimension.

Consider how easy it is to learn something about which we feel very
curious or uplifted. Being inspired releases tremendous energy, and
learning without it is far more difficult, if not tedious.
True learning also requires intellectual stretching, the domain’s
third component. Given inspiration and a secure sense of
containment for it, we are both equipped and motivated to move into
unknown territory. Even ordinary learning often stretches our
mental muscles and our cherished beliefs and ideas, so it is vital to
balance the elements of all three cornerstones here.
Cognition is only one part of the intellectual domain. We also
have intelligence at many other levels, including the body, the
emotions, and at the level of creating something new. Discontinuous
learning can flow into any of these.
To become more aware of our myriad processes, we can use
reflective or contemplative practices. Writing a journal and
examining our intentions on a frequent basis is an example that
many people find helpful to develop an awareness of their
awareness. By the same token, questions that punctuate the passages
in this book aim at encouraging even more contemplation than we
engage in as we read.
Without stretching in the intellectual domain, we may engage in
a lot of work without new learning. Just as radical change entails
107 Discontinuous Learning

moving beyond the status quo, deep learning involves stretching

beyond what we already know.

No amount of sophistication is going to allay the fact that

all your knowledge is about the past and all your decisions are
about the future.
—Ian E. Wilson

Food for Thought:

What kind of intellectual stretching do I enjoy?

How does inspiration affect my willingness to stretch?
How can I encourage others to stretch while learning?
108 The Domains

You may circle the globe seeking the best teacher,

only to discover that it is you.

Many employers provide information access to their employees

on what they call “need to know basis” just as parents prevent their
children from going to internet chat rooms. These restrictions seem
like good ideas at the time. Yet we all tend to be more interested in
areas that are forbidden.
Unlike these situations, the scope of human intellect is
unrestricted. We have no real limits to learning. It is easy and deep
when we are free of filters, hidden agendas, complications, and ego.
As deep learning stays with us, we are also free of any fear of
forgetting.
If we do experience limits within the intellectual domain, it is
because we have put barriers in our own way. These include our
scripts or mental models—the boxes we build around our habits,
attitudes, and relationships. As we can see only the inside of those
boxes, we resort to instinct much more than cognitive modes of
learning.
Our habitual boxes can trap us and fool us into thinking we
have reached our boundaries when we are actually far short of our
capacity. Fortunately, we can remove our own barriers as we have
direct control over our learning capabilities.
Unfortunately, perhaps, only we can deconstruct our respective
boxes. No external teacher can accelerate our learning as much as
we can. After years of seeking someone who has mastered exactly
what we want to learn, many of us realize that our time is better
spent following our own vision and increasing our own
understanding.
Even the most humble of situations offers something to learn.
Consider the man who receives a spelling book intended for small
children. Someone tells him that he can learn from it. He glances at
it, sees that it explains how to spell cat, and throws it down
disdainfully: “What an insult to my intelligence!”
The book then goes to a wiser man. Instead of allowing his ego
to intervene, he decides to read the book from a child’s point of
view. It not only sheds light on the thinking process of the young
mind, but also he experiences what it is like to be learning
something important for the first time. He contemplates how
109 Discontinuous Learning

challenging a book of strange symbols must look, particularly if the

child has no clear understanding that books contain knowledge.
They have to learn that symbols on the page represent spoken
words. When the child’s breakthrough occurs, the scale of that
empowerment can hardly be overstated. “Perhaps,” the man decides,
“equally challenging but empowering symbols are all around me,
which I have overlooked.”
Only we know where our own boundaries lie, and therefore
only we can be our own ideal teachers. What is the equivalent to cat
at the next level of our particular learning?

Just as eating against one’s will is injurious to health, so

study without a liking for it spoils the memory, and it retains
nothing it takes in.
— Leonardo Da Vinci

Food for Thought:

What limits to learning do I encounter?

How do these reflect my script?
Am I willing to unlearn my internal barriers?
How do I inspire others to transcend their sense of limits
to learning?
110 The Domains

Beliefs lie along the edges that learning

moves us past.

Discontinuous learning and innovating depends on detaching

from the limits of our current mental models of the world and our
place in it. To understand how we came up with these models, we
can turn to the development of our intellectual domain. As earlier
sections show, we start by soaking up as much information as we
can in infancy. We then learn how to walk and talk by copying
people around us. Overlapping slightly with all this is the process of
writing our first script—our preferred way of responding to the
world. We begin building these models of the world and ourselves
at a very early age.
Bit by bit, decision by decision, we construct and refine our
entire belief and value systems. This is part of exploring our
personal boundaries and creating our own character. Once we satisfy
ourselves that our model of the world is workable, we forget the
tortuous path we traveled to arrive at it. We assume that we have
always thought this way. At an early age, large parts of our
personality become set. We have our models, our beliefs, and our
bearings, or scripts.
Scripts are the old “tapes” that keep replaying in our heads,
often when we least expect them. These include our explanations
about the world, our criteria for choices, our habits, and our
formulas for success. When we learned to walk, for example, failed
attempts didn’t prevent us from continuing to try. As we grow,
whether we persevere in anything depends on how we interpret the
situation and set our expectations—which are parts of our script. We
succeed when we interpret our learning situation as part of our
ultimate success, and we fail when we see our thwarted attempts as
signals to stop.
How we interpret things reflects our particular intellect’s mix of
grounding, stretching, and inspiring. We establish our interpretive
patterns early, according to what we experience around us, yet we
can also revise them later in life. To deepen and accelerate learning,
such revision may prove especially potent.
111 Discontinuous Learning

Our self-image and our habits tend to go together. Change

one, and you automatically change the other.
– Maxwell Maltz

Food for Thought:

What is my process of interpreting what I see, feel, and

hear?
How do my interpretations help my learning?
How do my interpretations hinder my learning?
What keeps me learning in spite of mistakes or failures
along the way?
112 The Domains

Perception is a habit.

Learning hinges on perceiving the world around us and within

us, but our very perceptions are governed by habit. What might we
find when we stretch beyond the parameters of our current
intellectual domain?
Experimental research relates some clues. In one study, a
volunteer wore a pair of special glasses during all his waking hours.
The glasses made everything look upside down. Naturally, this was
highly disorienting at first, but gradually the volunteer adjusted.
Eventually, he could function quite normally. Then, when he gave
the glasses back, he was disoriented again. To him, everything
looked upside down once again.
In another experiment, researchers showed a movie on a big
screen to an audience of people who had never seen a movie.
Whenever an actor moved off screen, the audience stood up and
moved to the next room, expecting to see the actor there.
Both these examples are interesting and perhaps amusing. They
also raise a disturbing thought: How do we know whether our own
perceptions involve an element of illusion?
The very structure of our eyes helps us to form an impression of
reality. Out of that, we build the mental models and habits of our
intellectual domain. Yet no two people have an identical perception
of the same shade of green, say. Some people cannot differentiate it
at all from a particular shade of blue. Due to the structure of its
sensory organs, a bat sees reality in a different way altogether.
Is there a true reality? Who are we to assume that we are
always right? Yet how many of us question our ways of seeing the
world? Again, this is a fertile area in which we can stretch ourselves
intellectually.
113 Discontinuous Learning

As any action or posture, long continued, will distort and

disfigure the limbs, so the mind likewise is crippled and
contracted by perpetual application to the same set of ideas.
— Samuel Johnson

Food for Thought:

When have my perceptions blocked me from noticing

something I didn’t expect to see?
What do I remember about my feelings, what I saw, what
I heard during that incident?
What sorts of experiences share up my normal patterns
of seeing, feeling, hearing?
How can I expand the perceptive patterns of
myself/other people in my professional life?
How can I expand the perceptive patterns of
myself/other people in my personal life?
114 The Domains
115 Discontinuous Learning

8. THE GENERATIVE DOMAIN

Many people talk about generativity or creativity as something

that some of us have but many don’t. Or we say, “If I know how, I’ll
do it.” But generativity is something that emerges from us, within
us. So if we frame ourselves as being much larger, our generativity
also becomes much larger. It’s not about gaining information, or
gathering things from outside. It’s about getting in touch with and
allowing the fragrance of our own authentic nature to emerge. We
are attuned to our authentic nature when we are connected with our
passion, being playful, having fun, and being with people we
appreciate a lot.
The fourth face of the tetrahedron is where we find this
generative domain, the dimension of learning that involves creative
energy. This is where our values, principles, and capacities dance
together. The cornerstones of this domain are nurturing, inspiring,
and stretching.

Discontinuous learning both draws on and fuels our creative

nature. For creativity to emerge robustly, we need an environment
that nurtures its expression. Without feeding our generative energy,
we restrict ourselves to a limited kind of learning and a life of
habitual thoughts and automatic patterns rather than creative
116 The Domains

thinking. Our unique playfulness, gifts, and contributions never

come alive.
The literature about education traditionally discusses cognitive,
affective, and physical aspects of learning. Little attention has gone
to the generative domain, however. Its importance shows up more
clearly in our continued emphasis on creativity, innovation, and
knowledge creation, among others.
Competitive ventures thrive when they foster discontinuous
learning, which links inextricably with the generative domain.
Reducing the cycle time, for example, companies are now trying to
bring out new products every quarter. Companies such as Intel and
AMD reach most of their revenue goals through sales of products
introduced during the previous one or two quarters. This means
innovation and generativity are no longer simply nice to have in an
organization. They have become essential to the organization’s
survival.
Rich rewards come from embracing the generative domain in
parallel with the more familiar intellectual, emotional, and physical
domains. Putting our creative spirits to work also is fun and brings
out the best in us. Once something or someone inspires us to learn,
we can find unknown innovative talents as we stretch beyond
ourselves into uncharted patterns and concepts. In the case of deep
learning, we generate new frames of reference, new scripts, and new
perspectives for ourselves.
When we ignore the generative dimension, our experience is
flat, dull, and shallow. Neither our stretching nor our inspiration gets
full play, and whatever we take in does not develop in us or generate
new applications. We may add another fact to our stockpile, but it
sits on the shelf rather than being of much use.
It is useful here to distinguish acting from activities just as we
contrasted thinking and having thoughts. Our capacity to act, to
generate something in the present, likewise comes from a place of
detached engagement in which we can discern things with a clear
mind. Courage, for instance, exists when we are prepared to act in
the face of fear. Rather than waiting for an absence of fear, courage
detaches from it and engages with discernable possibilities for
success.
Meaningful actions are generative in nature. Our capacity to act
leads to creativity and to creating new knowledge. Like the physical
117 Discontinuous Learning

domain’s learning through touch, the generative dimension employs

more than our cognitive minds, as the next passage shows.

To ignore the challenge [of generativity] . . . will only lead

to greater immaturity and a stifling of creative and nurturing
energies . . .
—Edward C. Sellner

Food for Thought:

How do I use my creative energy when I learn?

What do I learn when I use my creativity?
How do I detach enough from my concerns to pursue my
goals?
118 The Domains

We increase our uniqueness by imitating others.

It may seem odd to talk about imitation in a chapter about

creativity. Imitating others accelerates learning, however, because it
frees the energy of our generative domain from having to reinvent
certain wheels. Also, as much as we imitate others, we still end up
creating distinct identities and organizations.
Many of us use benchmarking and other forms of imitation only
to address certain fears or social conditioning by acquiring specific
behaviors or processes. Ford Motor Company benchmarked
Toyota’s manufacturing processes, but they didn’t work at Ford. In
the United States, teamwork is an acquired skill. People like their
individualities, personal successes, and distinct rewards. We simply
do not recognize taking second place.
In Japan, on the other hand, teamwork is not only essential but
also a part of the culture. Promotions, bonuses, and other forms of
recognition are to reward collaborative rather than individual
creativity. Practices that evolve in Japan based on their culture
usually fail in the United States. The work cultures differ vastly in
terms of workers’ social conditioning and working relationships.
Where magic begins, therefore, is when we are inspired by
something and ask, “What allowed them to do what they did?” As
mentioned, when organizations imitate each other’s successes, we
call the process benchmarking best practices.
To imitate behaviors or processes that others use successfully,
we sometimes need to make various alterations. This starts with
exploring our purpose and identifying opportunities to pursue it.
This might entail looking, for example, at whatever materials or
people (including ourselves) we have to work with. Do the purpose
and the people suit each other? If not, what would it take to manifest
our vision?
Once we identify a suitable opportunity to adopt a new process,
we need to explore it with love and commitment. This means
gauging our relationship with the people involved. Are we all
willing to tolerate the difficulties that arise during any transition?
This is crucial before we can discern how we can inspire the kind of
magic that seems to show up in those involved. What engages the
119 Discontinuous Learning

best in us? Can we commit to getting through whatever comes up

during the coming learning and unlearning?
When the imitation is done well and the new practices fit the
organization’s culture, then they pay off handsomely. A useful
question, of course, is whether we are imitating yesterday’s best
practices. What are the best practices of the future? How do we
come up with them? This means we need to clarify the larger
purpose and vision with which we are dancing. What is your idea of
where we’re going? What’s my idea? For stretching and inspiration,
we need clarity.
Discovering our uniqueness depends on being attracted to a
particular quality or trait in others. When we like something in
others, chances are that we already have it. Exactly the same quality
is just waiting for us to recognize and develop it. When we desire to
make something our own, we unconsciously adapt it to our
situation. How we adapt it is more important than the act of
imitation. When we shift our attention onto how, we learn more
about ourselves rather than others. This is a key to self-discovery.

These leaves, our bodily personalities, seem identical,

but the globe of soul-fruit we make, each is elaborately unique.
—Rumi

Food for Thought:

What qualities have I picked up from others?

How have I converted them into my own “uniqueness”?
What other gifts have I seen that resonate with me?
Would it make sense to pick up these gifts and suit them
to myself? How could I do it?
What am I evolving that goes beyond the best practices
of other companies?
120 The Domains

We learn more than we understand, and understand

more than we know.

The generative domain includes experiences that happen

outside our awareness. When we refer to learning, we usually relate
only to our conscious minds—the part of our thinking that we use
all day long. We learn facts, recite data, and have fun playing games
about trivia. People talk to our conscious minds, and we talk to
theirs.
Being so familiar with our conscious minds, it is easy to assume
that we store all our information there. Yet, our subconscious minds
evidently learn much more. We do not understand much about the
subconscious, by definition, but it seems to recognize and record
everything we see, say, and do. It performs this very challenging job
effortlessly and tirelessly, without complaint, night and day without
break, for our entire lives. How awesome is that!
It is often frustrating that we cannot consciously communicate
with it. If we could, surely we would never forget anything, never
fail an exam, and always have boundless wisdom at our disposal.
Wouldn’t we?
Direct access might jeopardize its very integrity, however. To
function in its all-encompassing way, our subconscious minds must
operate very differently from our conscious minds. If we could gain
access directly, the subconscious would no doubt surprise us with its
utterly distinct form of logic, for example.
Its profound elegance of thought indicates a deeper language
than the one we use in our daily routines. The subconscious may
think in metaphor and profound patterning, given its lightening-fast
ability to recognize the potential for metaphor in a new stream of
information. It sometimes recognizes something new by comparing
it with a single experience from thirty years ago. As needed, the
conscious mind then interprets and translates this response into
verbal language.
How actively each brain searches depends on our respective
skills and learning habits, yet even the most unpracticed or slovenly
thinkers have access to a vast and complex subconscious collection
of patterns. Even their brains handle incoming information
immediately and elegantly.
121 Discontinuous Learning

In our ever-hungry subconscious minds, deeper and more

potent thinking can simmer and evolve. As with the electron field of
physics, ideas and creative thoughts operate in a collective field. By
tapping into that field, we learn different perspectives; and by
applying that perspective to the question (or intention) we have in
mind, we find our way to creativity and innovation. This is the
process of building individual and organizational capacity, which
involves recognizing a deeper connection with the collective and,
sometimes, the spiritual dimension of being human.
We can say that this subconscious field is the collective
capacity waiting to be unleashed. It also serves as the foundation for
an organization’s collective wisdom. In Competing for the Future,
Hamel and Prahalad urge leaders to develop corporate foresight by
shifting their points of view about unexplored opportunities.
As ideas and patterns simmer and evolve, the subconscious
sends coded hints up toward our consciousness. As these codes are
usually subtle, however, we often fail to recognize the patient
nudges. To hear anything, we need to listen hard to a quiet voice. In
moments of insight, stress, transition, growth, reflective solitude, or
in the nightly adventures of our dreams, we can receive the benefits
of wisdom from our inner voice or an unexpected contributor at
work.
Troubles arise when the connection to our collective wisdom is
relatively tenuous. Refusing to listen to people at work or to our
own quiet wisdom creates incompatibilities, learning inefficiencies,
stresses and perhaps, in time, even illnesses. Neglecting the energies
of our generative domain gets in the way of learning and innovating.
Genuine breakthroughs in learning—beyond the conscious
recall of mere facts—depend on recognizing our collective inner
resources. Breakthroughs also require a sense of wholeness. To
forge stronger links to subconscious or collective knowing, some of
us need merely an awareness of the brain’s duality. We can help
create this by spending regular moments in contemplation and
accepting the awe of the multi-leveled innovations in thinking that
can result from tapping into the vast reservoir of the subconscious.
122 The Domains

The things we know best

are the things we haven’t
been taught.
—Vauvenargues

Food for Thought:

What happens when I heed my inner wisdom?

In my personal live, under what conditions do I sue my
subconscious mind most effectively?
In my professional live, under what conditions do I sue
my subconscious mind most effectively?
Is there a difference in using of my subconscious mind in
professional surroundings to personal surroundings? How
does that serve me? How does it not serve me?
How can I use my subconscious resources more
effectively?
How can I inspire others to find and make use of their
subconscious resources?
123 Discontinuous Learning

Automating current behavior often creates

future problems.
Many of our “automatic” skills become habits that govern even
some of our most trivial actions. For example, when we fold our
arms across our chests, we almost invariably adopt the same method
every time: right arm over the left, or vice-versa. The other way
feels wrong and uncomfortable, even unthinkable.
Habits are powerful tools, but we do not benefit when our
automatic pilots rule us and exclude our generative domain. Many
of us have difficulty unlearning a habit—learning to drive on the
other side of the road when in another country, for example. The
conscious mind’s attempts to follow new rules conflicts with strong,
hard-wired messages from the subconscious. After some struggle,
we may adapt to driving on the “wrong” side of the road. Yet, under
stress we often revert to our old conditioned patterns. It’s hard to
unlearn things that have become automatic.
This is an important clue about learning. What other patterns of
thinking or doing are we taking for granted? What else is so
automatic that we assume it is the only way to do something?
Rethinking such habits can pose formidable challenges. It also
can be invaluable. We have to work hard even to become aware of
our established ways of thinking, let alone reverse them. Once we
do, the mere recognition that others ways exist can be enlightening,
even transformative. When we feel nurtured and inspired to stretch
beyond our current thinking, we are combining the three intentions
of the generative domain. This gives raise to our vision, our passion
and commitment about manifesting the vision, and our delight in
playing with our creativity along the way.
Learning does not always appeal to us, however. It works only
when we embrace the endeavor, find the subject agreeable and
worthwhile, and hold high expectations of success. How else could
we expect anyone to throw away the self-perceptions and habits that
have taken half a lifetime to amass?
124 The Domains

The unfortunate thing about this world is that good habits

are so much easier to give up than bad ones.
—Somerset Maugham

Food for Thought:

What areas of my life run on automatic pilot?

How does that serve me?
How does it restrict me?
What way of thinking is such a habit for me that I’m sure
it’s true?
How do my habitual opinions affect my expectations of
succeeding at something new?
125 Discontinuous Learning
126 The Edges

PART III THE EDGES

A monk once went to spend some time with Jiddu
Krishnamurti, the sage and philosopher. They talked and, after some
very good conversations, the monk said, “I keep searching with
various teachers. Where can I find some appropriate answers for
myself and for the problems that the world is going through?”
Krishnamurti replied, “Maybe you should stop searching.”
“But if I stop searching, neither the world nor I will find any
solutions.”
“I didn’t say anything about the world finding some kind of a
solution,” said Krishnamurti, “but you’ll find some solutions.”
The monk sat, puzzled and upset. Suddenly, he lit up. For
wisdom and self-realization, he’d always been looking outside
himself. Now he saw that self-realization might not be a place to go
to. It might be a place to come from. We don’t need to search for it,
and there’s nothing to be found beyond wherever we are. When we
are comfortable with who we are and when we act from that place,
we bring lots of power, energy, and peace to the people with whom
we interact. That’s how we spread what we intend to spread.
Becoming comfortable with ourselves is often a complex
process that involves discerning, understanding, and balancing
among competing values. The learning pyramid is useful for seeing
how four particular intentions interact to produce dynamic tension.
What results, as represented along the edges, is an opportunity to
use various competencies:

Care and empathy

Love and commitment
Play
Opportunities
Appreciation
Purpose/vision

Energy flows along these edges continuously, shifting our focus and
responding to changes around us and within us. This is part of
dealing with practical, tangible concerns in the moment—
recognizing and playing with the situations that face us. The six
edges answer the question of how our intentions affect each other en
127 Discontinuous Learning

route to their manifestation, which competencies move us from our

intentions to our desired results.

Dynamic interaction among the four intentions offers the

greatest points of leverage for deepening and accelerating our
learning process. If we alter the exchange of energy between our
grounding and stretching, for instance, we also change what happens
along the edge of opportunities. If we play more freely, by the same
token, we affect more than our stretching and nurturing. Our
physical feelings change, and then our thinking does, which may
produce innovative new questions to explore.
Again, the point of this book is to explore a three-dimensional
matrix so that our understanding of various components and their
interactions makes it easier for us to enjoy, contemplate, and benefit
from breaking through our customary patterns of viewing the world
and learning from it.
At times, we each get into a state of flow. Our capacity to name
and notice what we are experiencing helps sustain that flow.
Knowing how to recognize and deal with our experience, how to be
conscious of it, also keeps our egos from personalizing it. Taking
things personally poisons the flow.
128 The Edges

. . . real power is found not in dictating the flow of events,

but in having the flexibility to redirect our course to go with the
ever-changing flow of possibilities that the universe unfolds before
us.
—Joan Borysenko

Food for Thought:

Under what circumstances do I learn best?

What are my ideal conditions – physically, intellectually,
emotionally, and creatively?
What are less favorable conditions? How do I react to
these conditions? (physically, intellectually, emotionally,
and creatively)
How can I find out what matters to the people I work
with professionally?
How can I find out what matters to people in my personal
life?
What areas of my life run on automatic pilot?
129 Discontinuous Learning
130 The Edges

9. Care and Empathy

My friend Nina is an executive and coach in a big company.

Professionally, she’s paid to solve problems. At home one night, she
was taking a leisurely bubble bath when her husband, Bob, an
executive in an automobile company, came home and started
complaining about how things were not working with this
government and that government.
She interjected suggestions about what he should be doing and
what he might want to consider. She also suggested someone who
might help with one of her husband’s problems.
After three or four of these interruptions, Bob stopped, turned,
and put on the best smile he could. “Nina,” he said, “if I need my
problems solved, I will hire you as a consultant. As a wife, will you
please listen to me and say, ‘Poor Bob that must have been so
difficult. Oh, I’m sorry, honey, you had such a bad day. I love the
way you care about all these details. You’re great about that, did you
know that?’ That’s the kind of support I need. I need someone to
whom I can bitch and moan.”
He was looking for a demonstration of empathy and relatedness
that would let him know she cared about him and his problems. This
happens many times in organizations, where we try to fix problems
when none need to be fixed. Especially in employee motivation, or
when we talk about people feeling disgruntled, many of them need
an opportunity to know that somebody cares and is empathic with
the situation that exists or the position they’ve taken. If we can only
bring that kind of a perspective, the emotional intelligence as well as
the relationships become a lot deeper and more productive.
In the framework of discontinuous learning, care and empathy
arise out of the interaction between grounding and nurturing. That
is, by nourishing something or someone (or ourselves) within a
securely defined context, we show consideration, compassion, and
emotional understanding.
We also engage in much more dynamic, of-the-moment
interactions, as we go along any of the pyramid’s six edges. Let’s
say we are concerned about an employee who’s not as productive as
he once was. We play with our options: warning him, working with
him, or laying him off. He’s been a high performer in the past, so we
may choose to be empathic.
131 Discontinuous Learning

A certain universality characterizes caring, in some respects, so

we can care about people without having to love or appreciate them.
An example is the nurses and doctors who care for patients or flight
attendants caring for passengers. This comes not from a perspective
of “I know them, so I care about them” but from “I care about them
because this is the choice I’ve made in choosing this profession.”
We may also care about and empathize with children who do
not belong to us. We may care because they move our hearts. Our
empathy may come from the times we scraped our knees when our
moms weren’t there. We may be touched by the pain they’re going
through.
While clarity of intention and awareness get us onto the path to
success, empathy and compassion help us to extend support to
others and gain it from them. As social beings, we discover who we
are in the context of our relationships. Initially, our families and
communities nurture and condition our self-awareness and context-
awareness. The many other systems in which we live—school,
work, social circles, and so on—continue to shape our awareness
throughout life.
As we develop ideas of who we are, we also expand our
awareness of what we are not. When we become more deeply aware
132 The Edges

that we each have our own perspectives, we may be able to relax

and become interested in how other people have evolved their
respective points of view. Extending empathy is the imaginative act
of being the other person. This is the foundation for emotional
intelligence, which requires all three of this domain’s dynamics:
appreciation, love and commitment, and care and empathy. Only
through the mediation of others do we look at the world differently.

By being kind and empathic when we could be harsh, we allow

ourselves to build lasting relationships with colleagues, customers,
and those we mentor. Loving compassion naturally goes a long way
toward building deep and meaningful friendships. Without being
attached emotionally, we can care about and appreciate each other
for who we are or what we’re doing.
When both grounding and nurturing exist in a personal or
professional relationship, we give each other good soil for growing.
Rules without nurturance are merely restrictive, and nurturing
without limits yields indulgence out of proportion to the context.
133 Discontinuous Learning

Genuine compassion is based on a clear acceptance or

recognition that others, like oneself, want happiness and have the
right to overcome suffering. On that basis one develops concern
about the welfare of others, irrespective of one's attitude to
oneself. That is compassion.
—Tenzin Gytso, the Dalai Lama

Food for Thought:

How and under what circumstances do I create a context

for showing people care and empathy?
How important is it for me to be caring and
compassionate?
When do I demonstrate care and empathy toward people
with whom I’m not attached emotionally?
How did I feel when I was caring and compassionate in
past situations? (think of a certain situation)
How did my environment react to me being
compassionate in this situation? (reflect on same
situation)

Relating well is the foundation for success.

Relating well to others underlies any successful professional
training and the ability to take ourselves and our organizations
beyond our existing strengths. This is because care and empathy
help sustain our awareness of the opportunities that give raise to our
future.
Self-awareness and an awareness of the world around us go
together like the front and back of our hands. Coupled with an
134 The Edges

awareness of our competencies and weaknesses, the awareness of

possibilities in the marketplace helps us turn potentials into realities.
Things do not move as smoothly without the care and empathy
that exist when we ground ourselves adequately and nurture
ourselves or receive nurturing. In uncertain times and when we
neglect nourishing ourselves, most of us tend to feel discouraged
and pessimistic about future success. Experimenting, taking risks,
and learning - all suffer. In some of us, rage or angry defiance
characterizes the absence of care and empathy.
When we see ourselves in others and genuinely feel
compassion, others reciprocate that feeling. Showing others that we
genuine care usually brings positive results. In situations of conflict
and divisiveness, tension often dissolves when we apply an attitude
of warmth and affection. At that point, we can relax enough to
entertain further exploration for an amicable solution.
The more we can incorporate care and empathy into our way of
living and working, the better situated we are to experiment, learn,
and change for the better.

To laugh often and much, to win the respect of intelligent

people and the affection of children; to earn the appreciation of
honest critics and endure the betrayal of false friends; to
appreciate beauty; to find the best in others; to leave the world a
bit better, whether by a healthy child, a garden patch or a
redeemed social condition; to know even one life has breathed
easier because you have lived. This is to have succeeded.
—Ralph Waldo Emerson
135 Discontinuous Learning

Food for Thought:

How do I nurture myself?

How could I nurture myself better?
How explicitly or consciously do I ground myself at
home?
How explicitly or consciously do I ground myself at
work?
How can I do an even better job in grounding myself?
When I think of someone who shows me care and
empathy, can I detect grounding in our relationship?
How can I even do a better job in grounding our
relationship?
136 The Edges

The person with the highest IQ may be

the least intelligent.

Care and empathy reflect an appreciation of our differences and

realities. Some of us find it easier to appreciate people who seem
intelligent and responsive, and many of us assume that intelligence
quotient (IQ) tests are the best way to assess intelligence. However,
research over the past few decades has shown that this is a very
narrow test indeed. Its persistent popularity is highly misleading.
We need to unlearn the importance of IQ scores. Otherwise, we
run the risk of demotivating intelligent people who fail a limited and
fairly arbitrary but ubiquitous test. Furthermore, those who score
well may receive undue accolades and close themselves off to
further learning.
In Frames of Mind, Howard Gardner writes about multiple
intelligences. His thesis is that we have at least seven equally valid
ways of knowing the world, not just the logico-mathematical
intelligence that standard IQ tests measure. The other six are:
language, spatial representation, musical thinking, kinesthetic
intelligence, interpersonal intelligence, and intrapersonal
intelligence.
When solving problems, we each use our own particular ways
of relating to the world. In other words, we all have different
approaches to finding solutions, just as we have individual learning
styles, learning modalities (visual, auditory, and kinesthetic), and
creativity styles. (Bernice McCarthy does a great job of describing
learning styles in her book The 4MAT System.)
Everyone has strengths in one or more of Gardner’s seven
areas, which combine to become part of that person’s individual
reality. Unless we use different approaches when engaging different
people, they may not hear our points. To communicate in a
meaningful way, we need to tailor our delivery. This is a specific
example of the dynamic tension between grounding (e.g., “we each
have our own approach”) and nurturing (“I respect your
individuality”).
Within our own boxes, we can be calm, collected, witty, and
intelligent. It’s easy and fun to relate to people who think and feel
like we do. Birds of a feather flock together. It is not that we have a
137 Discontinuous Learning

conscious bias against people with different personalities, but we

may not know how to relate to them unless we have a strong need or
interest to do so.
This makes life easier and makes learning more difficult. If we
cannot understand or like someone intuitively, it often helps to
speak to another of their “selves,” where we can find talents and
gifts we little suspected at first. This is true empathy: consciously
learning about someone’s world and dealing in that reality.

Intelligence is quickness in seeing things as they are.

—George Santayana

Food for Thought:

Among the multiple intelligences, what are my strong

suits?
How is having these intelligences serving me?
What is the intelligence that I like to improve most?
What is my preferred approach to learning?
What approaches are difficult for me?
How can I become more adept at one of these alternative
ways of learning?
138 The Edges

Our happiness gives us good health, not vice-versa.

To accelerate learning, we need to look at health. Our bodies

and our minds are not separable. Many of us assume that being
healthy makes us happy, yet the reverse is true. Giving and
receiving care and empathy can create joy even when we are ill.
And our happiness has more influence on our health than we used to
think.
A high-level administrative officer in India told me the story of
his son, who was diagnosed as being severely mentally retarded.
Almost everyone gave up on the child when doctors told the family
that he would probably never be capable of eating his own food, let
alone taking care of himself.
That is, everybody gave up except the mother. Not even for one
second did she believe that her son was a vegetable. Nor did she let
him believe it. She spent all her time taking care of him. She kept
singing to him, telling him stories, and taking him for walks. Her
care and empathy for him continued for years.
This same son grew up to study music at college. He can type
100 words a minute, speak three languages, cook, clean, and take
care of himself. Doctors and educators come from all over to see
this miracle. The only answer the mother has for them is that there is
nothing that cannot be cured by love.
Whatever took place, it begs two questions: How many times
have we given up on learning because we felt incapable? How many
chances to learn do we give others before we brand them
uneducable?
We can learn how to improve both our happiness and our
health. Much evidence suggests a relationship between our mental
state and our body’s immunity to disease, as well between our
mental state and our ability to learn. During depression, for
example, we not only find it hard to learn but our forgetfulness
increases.
When we stop paying attention to our resolutions to eat well,
exercise, and take care of ourselves, it is because we tell ourselves it
doesn’t matter, we don’t care, or we’re waiting for a better time.
This reflects a lack of inspiration—a living and dynamic connection
with the spirit. Without inspiration, we stop growing and learning
and being healthy. Our egos and opinions move into the driver’s
139 Discontinuous Learning

seat. When we experience trust, love, and compassion, on the other

hand, healing starts between our inner and outer selves. Learning
thrives only when we feel free to learn, which in turn occurs only
when we feel whole—our natural state. This includes practicing care
and empathy in relating to people with openness, mutual respect,
and trust. Empathic relating includes deep and active listening—
attending not just to the words but the meaning behind them.
Sharing from the heart nurtures strong relationships, as does
empathizing with each other’s pain. Empathy begets more empathy,
and it is the source of creative partnerships.

Think before you speak is criticism’s motto;

speak before you think, creation’s.
—E. M. Forster

Food for Thought:

What needs to be in place so I feel free and open towards

learning?
When is it hardest for me to extend care and empathy to
myself?
When is it hardest for me to extend care and empathy to
others?
How many chances to learn do I give myself in various
situations?
How many chances to learn do I give others in various
situations?
What is my mood and outlook when I’m performing at
my peak?
What is the reaction of others when I perform this way?
140 The Edges
141 Discontinuous Learning

10. Opportunities

Asking people to do something creates opportunities for them.

Similarly, inviting them to linger over challenging questions offers
more opportunities to engage in discontinuous learning than rushing
to answers. This is because opportunities arise from the interaction
between safety (grounding) and stretching.
An Italian designer once came to the United States to study
design and its evolution here. After he spent a year in various
cities—San Francisco, Los Angeles, New York, Chicago, and
Boston—he returned to Italy. A number of other Italian designers
wanted to hear about his experiences and his opinions about the
state of their field in the United States, so he met with them. “First,”
he said, “let me ask you a question. What do you think Americans
do when you ask them a question?”
They looked at him, thinking it was a rhetorical question. Then,
realizing he was serious about getting an answer, they got into small
groups and explored this question. After half an hour, they excitedly
and eagerly presented thirty-six things Americans might do when
someone asked them a question. “Which one of these do Americans
do?”
He laughed and said, “When you ask them a question, they
answer it.”
The other designers were baffled. “If the question does not
remain open, where is the opportunity for design? If that is what
Americans do, Italian designers don’t have to worry about
competition from the United States for the next hundred years.”
Opportunities emerge from helping people ask questions that
stretch them, that go beyond the ground rules, boundaries, and body
of knowledge they already have. Questions that stretch them provide
a chance for new and innovative answers to come up witth.
142 The Edges

In other words, our secure framework frees us to stretch into

unexplored parts of the world in our quest for learning.
Without such opportunities, we might learn everything we
could about the things and beings and events that lie within our own
experience, but no more. Discontinuous learning is impossible
unless we have the safety and support to stretch beyond our
customary ways of viewing familiar things.
143 Discontinuous Learning

The aspects of things that are most important for us are

hidden because of their simplicity and familiarity.
—Ludwig Wittgenstein

Food for Thought:

How does my grounding encourage me to stretch?

How does stretching influence my awareness of
opportunities to grow and learn?
How do I help others recognize opportunities to learn?
144 The Edges

Change allows us to recognize continuity

How do we reconcile our resistance to change with the idea that
we change all the time? The answer lies in the scale of the change as
well as in our scripts. We recognize the opportunity to have fun with
something new that does not undermine other thoughts. On the other
hand, having to rewrite fundamental concepts is another matter. If
something challenges our entire belief system, we may feel strong
resentment and refuse even to entertain the idea. Stretching beyond
what we believe seems counter-intuitive, somehow.
Rapid or unwelcome change often evokes such reactions.
Sometimes we also resist even trivial change. From a certain
perspective, this makes sense. Imagine life as a boat. If we are living
on a fragile, over laden boat, any slight gust of wind threatens
disaster. Anyone who rocks the boat jeopardizes our future. Life
seems even more precarious if the sea is stormy or rocky. In these
circumstances, any change seems overwhelming.
Alternatively, if we live on a solid, reliable, ocean liner with a
dependable crew, we can happily relax. We can play on the deck,
suggest a new course, and invite friends and strangers on board.
In other words, we are never comfortable with change unless
we develop an attitude of equanimity in which we can dwell
securely, knowing full well that things change and outcomes are
unpredictable. This means thinking through how things are, how
they might change, and how we might prepare for various outcomes.
One piece of a stable mental model, for instance, might be that no
matter how fast change seems to be, we experience it in small
increments, step by step.
Stability comes when we pay attention to what is constant and
how that relates to changes around it. On a bicycle wheel, for
example, the hub controls the rim’s movement yet moves very little
itself. Similarly, we define a circle by its center, but the center
neither lies on the circle nor moves when the circle rotates. Ballet
dancers and ice skaters both use this principle to keep their
balancetheir stabilitywhile spinning.
145 Discontinuous Learning

Stable mental Change is

model manageable

Unstable mental
model Change seems
catastrophic

My hopes no more must change their name,

I long for a repose that ever is the same.
—William Wordsworth

Food for Thought:

What do I do when I encounter an idea that contradicts

my beliefs?
Under what conditions am I willing to stretch beyond
lifelong assumptions?
What is changing around me, and where does the center
of that change lie?
146 The Edges

There is all the difference in the world between a

glass that is half full and one that is half empty

Here is a simple experiment about how people come to

different conclusions—and see different opportunities—when
looking at the same data. It starts with an empty glass, into which I
pour water until it reaches the halfway point. How would you
describe the glass?
Now let us repeat the same experiment with a glass full of
water. I slowly pour its contents down the drain in front of you until
water is again at the halfway point. How would you describe the
glass at this moment? Is the description different?

50%

50%

We do not learn much merely by looking at a glass that is 50

percent full of water. But when we know the history and the process
involved, we learn to see the glass in a new way.
Conditioning determines how we view the glass. If our
conditioning is to see things a particular way, it is difficult but not
impossible to break the habit. By definition, our intellects are logical
and rational. Without some kind of transformative discontinuity in
147 Discontinuous Learning

thinking, our intellects are incapable of discerning their own

limitations or boundaries.
Given the nature of conditioning, optimistic children therefore
tend to become optimistic adults, instinctively seeking solutions
rather than being defeated by problems. To them, problems do not
even look much like problems.
Society rewards the optimistic adult more than the negative
one, because problem-solvers are more valuable in business and
more attractive in our personal lives. They achieve success not
necessarily through harder work or higher intelligence, however. As
solving problems is easier with their optimistic attitude, some of
these people’s success stems “merely” from earlier conditioning.
Significant people in their lives taught them that the glass is half
full.

The optimist proclaims that we live in the best of all

possible worlds; and the pessimist fears this is so.
—James Branch Cabell

Food for Thought:

Under what conditions do I see opportunities?

How can I create more situations like this?
In what respects have I stretched beyond the outlook I
had as a child? How has that benefited me?
How have I stayed with outlooks I created as a child? How
does that benefit me? How does that limit me?
What do I want others to learn from the way I recognize
personal and professional opportunities?
148 The Edges

Maintaining a mental box is easier than

building a new one.
We rarely venture outside the box that houses our respective
scripts and models of the world. Each time we attempt it, we
experience resistance. This can be a formidable challenge to
pursuing new opportunities.
This resistance to change is true of our physical routines, as
well. After a six-month break from tennis, I once played two sets.
My body did not like it at all, and I ached all over for two days.
“Perhaps my body thinks that tennis is not good for it!” I mused. I
had conditioned it in a particular way for the previous half-year, and
breaking out of that box required work, regular practice.
Maintaining a habit is easier than beginning it afresh.
Medical terminology refers to such resistance as homeostasis—
a system’s tendency to maintain the status quo. We accustom
ourselves to a certain lifestyle, say, without realizing that we are
trapping ourselves in a box. Failing to stretch our minds regularly
allows them to function only minimally. Like muscles, they go out
of shape.
Without motivation to stretch or change, we often reduce
ourselves to such minimal functioning. We easily forget that, in
creating our respective boxes, we have developed a fixed way of
seeing the world. What we selectively perceive of the world
reinforces our beliefs rather than motivating us to break out of the
box.
From inside any box, we depend on its windows to see out. We
could think of the windowpane as filtering and therefore distorting
information that passes through it. Perhaps the panes are bright, or
of stained glass, or difficult to see through. They might make the
outside look distant or frightening, playful or complex. In extreme
cases, they might not let any light through at all.
The world regularly sees new alternatives, but our boxes
reinforce the status quo. Depending on the box, new options out in
the world may not be visible. If they are, our filters may make them
seem inaccessible. Part of being in any box is a state of existing in
homeostasis.
When our box was new, it might have had bright, clear, or even
rose-tinted windows through which we could see opportunities all
149 Discontinuous Learning

around. But the glass of any box has a special and important quality:
It retains its clarity only through constant use. It also conforms to
our moods and developing personality. The glass easily turns dark
and distorts our view more when we lower our expectations or stop
looking out the window.
Fish living in two parts of an aquarium divided by a glass
partition generally continue to stay in their original half even if the
partition is removed. Like them, we quickly become comfortable
inside our individual boxes. We become unaware of our filters and
even of the box’s shape and size. We adapt to its constrictions. We
therefore forget that it has walls. Only when we try to stretch do we
notice them.

Two men look through prison bars; one sees mud, the
other stars.
—Frederick Longbridge

Food for Thought:

What distinguishes the box I in habit at work from the

one I use at home?
How does it benefit me to use these different boxes?
How does it limit me to use the different boxes?
What motivates me to look beyond my box?
How does my own homeostasis help me professionally?
How does it get in my way?
150 The Edges
151 Discontinuous Learning

11. Appreciation
On the edge between grounding and inspiring lies appreciation.
This refers to how we value things and people, including ourselves,
as well as envisioning the possibility of something greater. To
appreciate anything, we observe it as if from a distance and notice
what inspires us, what we feel we would like to have. As yet, we
have no attachment or relationship with it.
Someone told me once that life is like a rose. Rose petals have a
lot of qualities to appreciate: beauty, elegance, and the softness of
their texture. The flower’s budding and blooming and slowly falling
away is such a complex process that it’s a wonderful metaphor for
life.
Many times, we engage with life only when it’s wonderful, like
appreciating roses from a distance. We want to store those good
impressions in our mind forever. If we create our impressions just
by looking superficially, based on some good moments, we’ll never
have the ability to appreciate life in all its depth and complexity.
Like a plastic rose, it looks beautiful but does not have the depth of
fragrance or liveliness.
Keeping the memory of one incident in our minds permanently
means that it is always going to be the same way. Without change,
evolution, and devolution, nothing else gets a chance to take root. It
cannot be replaced by something else that emerges. So true
inspiration requires us to have liveliness, even though it might mean
there are change, depth, attachment, and smell. We get inspired not
by how things look but by their life energy.
Appreciating someone means embracing her genuineness and
her authenticity—the smell of the rose, if you will, in addition to
how she looks. This kind of appreciation goes directly to the heart of
the other person. Our own authenticity about what we are
experiencing in the moment inspires the other person. If we move to
a level of abstraction or generalization—“You’re a good person to
work with, I love the way you do things”—the remark always looks
the same, like an artificial flower.
In the three-dimensional model of learning, appreciation is one
of two edges that connect with the intention of inspiring.
Competence in appreciating allows us to savor beauty, art, or a
lovely garden without necessarily meaning that we love it or that we
152 The Edges

are committed to having it in our lives. Love is a state, while

appreciation is an attitude or filter with which we can look at things.
It is the mildest but sometimes the initiative point. While
empathy opens the door, appreciation welcomes us in. When we
appreciate something, we want to know more about it. Its value to
us increases when we appreciate it. We would like to do more of it,
often.

Without the platform provided by grounding, as mentioned, we

are unlikely to launch headlong into the space that inspiration clears
for us. Instead, we organize our endeavors to gain approval, which is
the shadow side of appreciation.
We need to appreciate who and where we are now, and what
we are receiving, before new possibilities hold much appeal.
Without a robust sense of appreciation, we tend to be more attuned
to finding fault than cherishing one another as gifts.
Appreciative inquiry, on the other hand, is an extraordinarily
powerful learning mode because it begins with acceptance. As
learners, we accept who we are, what we do, and what it is we want
to learn. Out of this self-appreciating, we’re inspired to do more. We
also find delineations between what works and what doesn’t work in
our experiments while learning.
153 Discontinuous Learning

When we embark on a particular line of inquiry, for example,

we usually do so because it holds some value for us. It meets some
criterion that we defined as worthwhile. If our inquiry begins paying
off, that strengthens our inspiration as well as our parameters—as
long as we can appreciate the indications that we’re making
progress. Again, this depends on interpreting frustration and half-
emptiness as milestones along the learning path.

The deepest principle of human nature is the craving to be

appreciated.
—William James

Food for Thought:

How did I learn to appreciate people?

How do I express my appreciation for people?
How do I express my appreciation for myself?
What do I appreciate about the things that inspire me?
How do I appreciate things that inspire me?
How do I express my appreciation at work? At home?
154 The Edges

Exit doors in mental prisons are invisible until we

look for them.

If we have no intention of escaping from the box, we never

even notice opportunities to do so. Before we can conceive of
escape, we need to appreciate that the box imprisons our thinking
and our energies. Given that, we can then find inspiration—if not
the door.

As the story goes, a beggar once lived on the streets of Calcutta.

Every day for twenty years, he went from house to house on one
particular street, begging for food. He was satisfied with his humble
life and never asked for more.
The goddess Parvathi asked her husband, Lord Shiva, about the
beggar. She asked him to give the poor man riches. Lord Shiva told
her that until the beggar asked for prosperity; he could not give it to
him. “He has to experience a desire to go beyond his poverty,”
Shiva explained. “Then I can help.”
Parvathi was not satisfied. She wanted to try anyway. With
Shiva’s encouragement, she dropped a bag of gold coins in the
155 Discontinuous Learning

beggar’s path one morning just before he started walking down his
usual street.
As it happened, however, the beggar had woken up that
morning with a desire to learn what blind people experience on the
streets of Calcutta. He decided that the only way was to close his
eyes and go about his daily routine, and hence he walked past his
fortune.
This classic story is not, of course, too realistic. If anyone had
told him about the gold, the beggar might have chosen some other
day to experiment with the experience of blindness. Or he may not
have. We’ll never know.
Meanwhile, the story does serve to highlight the topic of
intention. Unless we actively look for something, we tend not to see
it. This is true both literally and metaphorically. If we studied
everything within our view with maximum intensity, excess data
would inundate our conscious minds. That is the great benefit of our
ability to see patterns: once we glance at and recognize things, we
can safely ignore them, concentrating on newer information.
Yet, even that ability is not enough. Try as we might, we cannot
avoid coming to some conclusions that are quite wrong, as with
optical illusions. The same is true of our thinking process. We
cannot avoid living in one box or another, and we need to make an
effort to look for a way out. It is not apparent otherwise. The door
has become too commonplace to notice, and after a while we may
even forget the need for a door.
While I grew up in India, I did not care very much about Indian
values, its heritage, or its culture. I was mostly unconscious of what
it means to be an Indian. Moving to the United States brought my
culture, values, and beliefs into sharper focus, which provided me an
opportunity to learn more about my previous conditioning. If I had
never left India, I probably would have never wanted to learn many
of the things I now know about myself.
156 The Edges

No man sees far; most see no farther than their noses.

—Thomas Carlyle

Food for Thought:

What parts of my perspective feel like a prison?

How do I shape my intention to perceive new
opportunities? At work? At home?
When do I appreciate something that’s outside my own
values?
157 Discontinuous Learning

Compliments foster the very skills they appreciate.

We can help change people’s self images and beliefs by the

way we acknowledge them. Angeles Arrien, a cross-cultural
anthropologist, once said that each person is a leader, and effective
leaders are ones who know how to acknowledge others. She also
identifies four ways to acknowledge a person:

Acknowledgment of skills
(e.g., skills in delivery, performance)

Acknowledgment of character
(e.g., integrity, gentility, generosity,
strength, trustworthiness)

Acknowledgment of appearance
(e.g., smile, twinkle of the eye,
posture, beauty, grace)

Acknowledgment of impact
(e.g., inspiring, empowering, clarifying)

Positive comments invite change to occur in other people. Once

they accept that invitation, their beliefs and self-perception may
change, and then anything can happen. They may start to focus and
develop in the area we’ve acknowledged. Their expectations change
and, again, the new self-perception become self-fulfilling.
To foster change, we often do well to tell people the truth that is
pleasing to them. This means withholding what they do not like
hearing, even if it is our truth. The point is not that we should lie to
please others. Instead, people may be better off if they discover such
truths for themselves.
We can spend time each day to express our authentic
appreciation for what others are doing in their struggle to achieve
goals. This is good to do even when we then need to confer with
them about how we can work together to improve efforts to get the
desired results.
158 The Edges

By letting people know that we genuinely and specifically

appreciate what they are doing, we convey our honor and respect for
who they are. Appreciating people and their work boosts morale and
amplifies what gave rise to that appreciation in the first place.
If we find something to appreciate in every person we come
across, and look into their eyes when we convey that, wonderful
things happen. These include their seizing the opportunity to feel
happy. In turn, many of them pass along occasions for happiness to
those they touch. In the process, we all raise our openness to learn
and grow.

When you cannot get a compliment in any other way, pay

yourself one.
—Mark Twain

Food for Thought:

What comments or compliments have inspired me to feel

good about myself?
How do I decide whether to compliment someone?
When do I compliment skill, character, appearance, or
impact?
Remember a situation where you complimented someone
else on skill, character, appearance, or impact – how did
it effect this person’s behavior?
159 Discontinuous Learning

Appreciating paves the way for accomplishing

To value others as gifts in our lives, we need to value ourselves.

This means that appreciation is also about self-acceptance. Most of
us rarely appreciate who we are and what we receive. We tend to
spend more time comparing ourselves to others and focusing on our
flaws or unfinished work.
Accepting ourselves and acknowledging each step we take on
our path accelerate the process of self-development. When we
practice self-acceptance, it helps to create a daily ritual of
identifying something positive that we’ve done or some contribution
we’ve made to others. Even if our recent work has not yet produced
the desired result, we can appreciate the progress we have made so
far.
As distinct from flattery, appreciation is genuine
acknowledgment of a quality or contribution. Appreciating
ourselves requires focusing on our strengths and developing
strengths. This does not mean ignoring or discounting the edges
where we sense we can still learn and grow. We can appreciate
ourselves without being perfect.

Through our contemplation we might develop an ever-deepening

gratitude and wonder for all those who have loved us first . . ..
Such “going down into the cellar” might even help us begin to
accept and celebrate both our strengths and limitations, in their
totality. ...
— Edward C. Sellner

Food for Thought:

What do I value about myself?
What do I value about others?
160 The Edges

What do I value about what I value?

How do I value what I value?
How can I bring more appreciating and acknowledging
into my way of being with people?
161 Discontinuous Learning
162 The Edges

12. Play

Bill Atkinson, one of the three creators of the original

Macintosh computer, told me this story. When they were creating
the user interface, they wanted to come up with what turned into the
mouse. It was difficult to decide about what and how this device
should be, and be able to do, because they wanted something that
would help create “a computer for the rest of us.”
So they kept playing with any idea that came up. They had an
imaginary “Fred,” a fourteen-year-old boy. “How would Fred use
this?” they asked each other. “What would Fred think about that?”
This helped them explore and play with various alternatives;
especially because it took away the attachments they might have to
one way of designing software or doing business. Playing with that
imaginary teenager also let them go through their design process in
total secrecy and in a much more meaningful way than they would
have done otherwise.
In the process of learning, the energy that flows between
nurturing and stretching gives rise to play.

Nurturing provides the energy and substance for us to stretch

our limbs, minds, and spirits out into the world. We break things by
stretching them too far, and we fail to grow if we just stay with
163 Discontinuous Learning

things as they exist. When we combine nurturing and stretching,

however, we create playful attitudes and interactions about
exploring new ideas and approaches.
Without nurturing our bodies and our imaginations, we are in
no position to stretch far beyond survival concerns. When we are fed
but loathe to stretch, on the other hand, we become cumbersome,
slow, and prone to inertia. Life eventually loses any spirit of play,
and we stagnate. Everything takes on the feeling of obligation and
seems like hard work.
The loveliest part of combining nurturing with stretching is that
it makes learning tremendously fulfilling and relatively easy. The
ensuing passages offer clues about how this works.

Well-being means to be fully born, to become what one

potentially is; it means have the full capacity for joy and for
sadness or, to put it still differently, to awake from the half
slumber the average man lives in, and to be fully awake
—Erich Fromm

Food for Thought:

How do I think about play in my professional life?

How do I think about play in my personal life?
What kind of self-nurturing helps me take a playful
approach to complex issues?
How can I be self-nurturing more often?
How do I nurture and stretch others into playing as they
learn?
How can I do more of this?
164 The Edges
165 Discontinuous Learning

The person each of us is today - is but

today’s model.

We outgrow or revise our mental models or boxes only through

choice. Some of us look forward to exploring new alternatives,
while some decide to protect our existing models by making them
more rigid. Either way, our future models are not inevitable. Instead,
they reflect the clarity of our vision and beliefs today. The more we
nurture and stretch ourselves, the more free we feel to play with our
mental models.

10 years 5 years Today

ago ago

o o

Throughout life, we outgrow our mental models and focus on

different aspects of who we are. As unsettling as this thought may
be, we each become a series of different people. We also forget what
it is like to focus the way we did at, say, age ten. Effectively, we are
no longer that ten-year-old.
In addition, many of us shift our sensory focus as we grow.
Senses other than touch—vision and hearing, in particular—develop
during our earliest years and, in some of us, overtake touch as our
primary source of information. Some adults seriously consider only
what they perceive through sight. They give no thought to touch.
Other adults pay more attention to their auditory reality. Such shifts
in sensory focus may disconnect us from our earlier sense of reality.
166 The Edges

Perhaps meditation and physical intimacy are therapeutic

because touch reaches into the powerful depths of our
consciousness. In Buddhist meditation methods such as Vipassana,
for instance, paying attention to body sensations is extremely
important. I have seen spiritual healers and teachers touch people to
heal, to open spiritual chakras, to awaken kundalini energy, and
more.
Reestablishing the connection with our bodies may remind us
that the world is safe and worth exploring. Similarly, shaking hands
while meeting someone new at work may provide an important first
impression. Such information may be crucial to our sense of play
and nurture.
Regardless of which sense we rely on for perceiving
information, perception is everything. Or, as the phrase goes,
“Perception is reality.” For young children, according to the Swiss
psychologist Jean Piaget, people and objects that are out of sight or
touch simply cease to exist. If you hide a toy to which a toddler is
paying full attention, the child assumes it has suddenly
dematerialized forever. Even if the toy magically reappears
moments later and you repeat its concealment, the child again thinks
it has disappeared. This explains the extreme but temporary
emotions that very young children display in such games.
Later, a major breakthrough occurs when it dawns on the child
that the toy just might reappear. The youngster suddenly perceives a
167 Discontinuous Learning

reality beyond what can be experienced directly. This is a profound

moment of growth. As adults, contemplating this breakthrough may
help us stretch our own sense of reality.
Not every adult, it must be said, develops full confidence in the
continuity of this external reality. Perhaps jealousy and
possessiveness characterize those adults who continue questioning
whether people, objects, and relationships really do exist fully
outside of the viewer’s scope. Such viewers probably wonder
whether they really will see those temporarily hidden people and
objects again.
This outlook offers a glimpse of how important nurturing and
stretching are to our sense of play. Unless we learn to nurture
ourselves enough to risk stretching beyond our comfort zones, we
stand little chance of developing an adventurous or playful attitude
toward learning and change.

If man did not from time to time . . . close his eyes, he

would finally be unable to see anything worth looking at.
—Ralph Waldo Emerson

Food for Thought:

How much of a role does playfulness have in my attitude

toward new options?
What role does touch play in my personal and
professional sense of safety?
What realities have I encountered beyond what I
experience through my senses?
168 The Edges

Fear is the ultimate learning inhibitor.

Circumstances that lack love and care tend to disrupt our
normal human pursuits of imitation, exploration, and play. Such
environments thus inhibit our learning. We tend to fear
embarrassment, retribution, and hurt feelings—in short, we avoid
anyone who’s not understanding or accepting.
As social beings, we clearly have a need to belong. This drive
runs so deeply that many of us allow it to define us. We’d rather be
on a team, that is, than to assert ideas that might invite friction. In
conforming rather than risking conflict or ostracism, we build boxes
that again inhibit our exploration and learning. Any unexamined
drive or compulsion with such a profound effect blurs our ability to
tell whether our thinking is objective. Our fears pose risks for
perceiving, interpreting, thinking, and learning accurately.
Especially as children, we may need positive acknowledgment
to realize that playing, experimenting, and learning is helpful. Those
of us who lack enough encouragement may, at best, become passive
watchers rather than active contributors. At worst, we exhibit (or
bottle up) debilitating levels of resentment and frustration. These
can be the red flags that alert us to being in a box, needing to find a
door, and wanting to break through the limits we’ve set on our own
nurturing, stretching, and playing.
What kind of learning comes easily to us today? What still
seems too daunting? What would it take to change that?
Our scripts can have lifelong benefits or drawbacks. They
contribute to our mental and emotional states, which affect our
health powerfully. Those of us who tend toward anger, for example,
have a tenfold chance of dying from cardiac arrest.
Abundant documentation links negative thoughts and emotions
to hormonal secretions that increase the aging process, add stress to
the immune system, and ultimately manifest in disease. In a thirty-
year study, the University Of London School Of Medicine showed
that negative reactions to stress are more destructive to health than
cigarette smoking.
In another study, the Institute of HeartMath found that people’s
mental and emotional attitudes and states directly affect electricity
in the heart. The normally scattered and incoherent frequency
spectrum of the electrocardiogram (EKG) becomes dramatically
ordered and coherent when people use mental and emotional self-
169 Discontinuous Learning

management skills to focus on feelings of love, care, or

appreciation. Think of how much easier it would be to play with and
explore new realities under such emotional and physical conditions.
Rather than feeling the stress of anxiety, we could relax and enjoy
each new discovery.
Electricity generated by the heart may reach the genetic
material (DNA) in our cells much like a radio wave reaches a
receiver. Unlike radios, the heart’s communication probably
changes the cells. Since DNA determines the formation of genes,
which control enzymes, which control all cellular functions,
according to HeartMath, distortion in this communication might
explain a lot of health mysteries. It may also have significant
bearing on our resistance to learning in the absence of feeling
nurtured and well regarded.

We can easily forgive a child who is afraid of the dark; the

real tragedy of life is when adults are afraid of the light.
—Plato

Food for Thought:

How does my script affect the way I feel about my

competence to learn and change?
How does my script affect people I work or live with?
What might connect my mental scripts to my body’s
symptoms?
What script might I write (differently) today?
How do I support creating awareness for other people to
their scripts?
170 The Edges
171 Discontinuous Learning

13. Purpose / Vision

A friend of mine suffered for years from a certain debilitating

condition, found little help in traditional medicine, and spent
enormous energy and time researching the subject. He had no
medical degree or credentials in that field, but he knew about
research and learned a lot about the condition, the difficulty of
diagnosing it, and its significant and wide-ranging impact on health.
For him, it grew into a cause. Everybody—his doctors, friends, and
family—eventually discounted his conversations as ravings.
Gradually, he became a laughing stock in his community.
One day, listening to his frustration, I asked, “What do you
want to do with this? Where do you want to take this knowledge?”
“I want people to know about this. It’s so important.”
“Why don’t you document it? Put it into a form where other
people can see the evidence you’ve gathered.”
He wrote an article and included photographs of various stages
of his own healing, and the managing editor at a prestigious journal
has just agreed to consider it. The point is that my friend had all the
material, and my questioning his purpose suddenly created a
container to hold all his experiences. He got inspired and, once his
experiences became objective, they made a big difference to other
people.
We all have a purpose whenever we do anything in life. Some
of us are clear about our purpose, while others find it by the process
of rejecting everything that is not their purpose. Either way,
identifying and visualizing our purpose helps us to stretch beyond
our usual autopilot patterns to help create a more exciting future.
Nurturing is the base for stretching, and stretching then
interacts with inspiration, in a co-creative or co-emergent process, to
bring us our sense of purpose, a vision for ourselves. We know
when we identify our unique purpose because it inspires us,
challenges us, and gives us direction when we feel lost.
172 The Edges

Stretching moves us beyond the perimeters of our current

knowledge, which is paramount to deep learning. We sometimes
need to explore freely, without focusing in on any particular
direction. However, unless we ultimately do find inspiration, we
may become restless and discontent. Without feeling inspired,
stretching loses its appeal.
For example, with the accelerated change and increased
competition of the 1990s, many companies grew nervous about their
product offerings. In one popular strategy to face these changes in
the marketplace, companies demanded that employees increase
innovation and reduce product-cycle time. Unfortunately, creativity
levels do not shoot up on demand.
What happens instead is that people feel fear and desperation.
Many managers welcome these as powerful motivators, not
realizing that feeling pressured is usually antithetical to creativity.
As productivity stalls rather than climbs, some executives turn to
command-and-control behavior, which aggravates the situation.
People who are afraid, respond with their survival skills.
Sensing that security is at risk and feeling unsafe, they put all their
energy into survival. Many simply hunker down until the situation
improves. The goal is to keep their jobs, not necessarily to take
innovative risks or raise productivity.
173 Discontinuous Learning

In the same market conditions, other companies offer training

in creativity skills but do not change their fear-based culture.
Actually, many employers do not even see the connection between
the culture and employee behavior. They think that fostering skills
and asking people to perform is sufficient to produce results.

Requesting, dictating, or demanding innovation increases stress

and illness rather than productivity. Although we may have creative
skills, we do not have access to them when we’re afraid. When we
downshift our brain functions into survival mode, we tend to feel
and behave like victims. We blame the danger or potential danger
for our actions and results. Rather than taking personal
responsibility or ownership of our choices, we justify our defensive
approach.
Innovation comes, by contrast, from the hearts and souls of
people who feel inspired to create. The energies of stretching and
inspiring combine into our vision of who we can become or where
we are heading. Suddenly, we recognize a purposeful path for
ourselves. In turn, this clarity invigorates us toward manifesting that
vision.
174 The Edges

Everyone has his own specific vocation or mission in life. .

. . Therein he cannot be replaced, nor can his life be repeated.
Thus, everyone’s task is as unique as is his specific opportunity to
implement it.
—Viktor Frankl

Food for Thought:

What is my process for envisioning my path?

What is my current vision or sense of purpose at work?
What is my vision for my private live?
How do my personal and professional visions affect each
other?
How do I support others in creating a sense of purpose or
vision?
175 Discontinuous Learning

We can only see what we have already seen, unless

we learn to see all over again.

Our need to stretch beyond our current knowledge reflects the

nature of our brains. One fundamental ability of the brain is to
recognize patterns within the data we collect. Strange shapes,
sounds, and smells can be discomforting until we discover
similarities with previous experiences. Our brains constantly look
for these similarities, which provide some satisfaction when we
perceive them.
Metaphors are a higher order of pattern recognition, in which
we notice similarities between things that are normally not
connected. They help us ascribe meaning to the patterns we detect,
and this is often how we arrive at a vision or sense of purpose.
As adults, we occasionally add new patterns and revise existing
ones. Elise Estrin, a renowned educator, reminds us that the
constructionist approach to knowledge suggests that we base our
knowing only partially on what we already know (or think we
know). Although we assimilate new ideas or concepts into our
existing knowledge structures, we modify those structures according
to new experiences and information. The psychologist Jean Piaget
called this accommodation. This is all part of what this book refers
to as conditioning.

2. We add and
accommodate
other ideas.

1. We learn and are conditioned.

176 The Edges

Whenever any two people look at the same scene, they perceive
it differently. This is because we see things in terms of our previous
experience. Essentially, we see what we want to see. In a classic
early study by Hastorf and Cantril about how prior expectations
alter perceptions, two groups of Princeton and Dartmouth students
watched a film of a sports game between their schools. Researchers
asked them to keep track of any infractions of rules.
Most of the Princeton students thought the game was “rough
and dirty.” Ninety percent believed that Dartmouth athletes had
started the rough play, and they recorded twice as many penalties
against Dartmouth as Princeton. The Dartmouth students also
described the game as “rough” but blamed the two sides equally,
and recorded equal numbers of penalties to each side.
From the combined reports, it is difficult to believe that all the
students watched the identical piece of film. The point, again, is that
our expectations affect what our brains perceive and interpret about
the world (and ourselves). We do not stretch automatically, so
feeling inspired to move toward a vision or purpose helps
tremendously when we are learning.
In another experiment, Professor H. H. Kelley told his students
that they would be listening to a guest lecturer that day. He handed
out a brief biographical note about the speaker, but there were two
versions of the note. Half included a sentence that described the
lecturer as a “rather cold person, industrious, critical, practical, and
determined.” The other note was identical, except that “warm”
replaced “cold.”
This single difference had an effect. Students who read the
“warm” note liked the lecturer better and volunteered more in the
discussion. Similarly, the rest of us are only too enthusiastic to
create a frame of reference around any subject. Certain words act as
strong catalysts to set the scene. To function otherwise takes
awareness of our natural tendencies and the desire to stretch beyond
them. Awareness is dynamic. It requires being continually vigilant
against our complacency by reassessing where we are, where we
want to go, and where we were yesterday.
177 Discontinuous Learning

The eye obeys exactly the action of the mind.

—Ralph Waldo Emerson

Food for Thought:

Which words influence or set my expectations?

To what extent do I conduct my personal and
professional lives by recognizing patterns?
How much of my learning begin with tenuous equilibrium?
How much of my coaching?
178 The Edges

To go vaguely in the right direction is to go

in the wrong direction.

There is no such thing as a vague intention to change. If any

intention is vague, it is not an intention. Every large bookstore has
self-help bookshelves full of exciting exaltations such as “Do it
now!”, “Take charge!”, and “Turn your goals into a winning
formula for success!” Their gist is, “If you don’t know where you’re
headed, how do you expect to get there?” They are right, of course.
This book avoids the breathless prose of the instant-enrichment
genre, but the intention to change is still a necessary ingredient of
the process. It is easy to go through the motions of planning
something when we have no real intention of carrying it out. We
may do such things out of vanity, or we may be fooling ourselves.
We may like the concept of learning or growing, but today may not
be a good time to start.
We might, for example, buy a language tape but leave it on a
shelf, unused. The publishing industry reports that this is a common
phenomenon. Alternatively, we might even play the language tape
and still not learn from it, because without a genuine intention to
learn, information flows over our heads. Grim repetition fails.
We need to want to learn so much that we enjoy the process
itself. We can therefore increase our rate of learning dramatically if
we periodically revisit our original inspiration to learn, perhaps by
visualizing not only the benefits we anticipate but also the pleasure
of learning something new.
Rather than feeling inhibited by the language tape and
considering the course a chore, say, we might do better simply to
play it one day and see if it is interesting. We can do so without
attaching any heavy agenda and, consequently, with no possibility
of failure.
Needing to know is also no guarantee. When we travel by
plane, how many of us pay attention to the flight attendant’s
instructions on the right ways to buckle up and where to find oxygen
masks and flotation devices? The routine bores us. Learning about
the equipment holds no inherent pleasure, so the mind wanders.
However, if the plane developed serious engine trouble in mid
flight, everyone would suddenly pay very close attention indeed.
179 Discontinuous Learning

Although such motivation could hardly be higher, in survival terms,

some people would still miss many of the instructions because of the
situation’s stresses.
We relate to information only when it matches what we need.
Abraham Maslow suggested that human needs change and grow.
We begin with basic survival needs, and only when they are
satisfied do we progress to stimulation needs (activity and
exploration), then safety and security, followed by love and
belonging, self-esteem and, finally, self-actualization.

Self-actualization

Self-esteem

Love, belonging

Safety, security

Stimulation

Survival

As a direct function of our interest in the subject, our ability to

learn generally parallels these levels. During moments of
transformation, however, we can leapfrog entire levels in a moment.
We can quickly revert to lower levels, too, as in an emergency or
illness. We might trade our homes and all our wealth for a life raft
or a cure for a life-threatening sickness.
This conscious living-at-the-edge is vital for deep,
discontinuous learning. Unless we are aware of our inborn resistance
to change, let alone the boxes we build to preserve our sense of
continuity, we cannot stretch enough to follow our inspiration fully.
Like a strong rubber band, our homeostatic pressure to maintain the
status quo pulls us back to our current ways of thinking.
180 The Edges

Every time you teach a child something you keep him from
reinventing it.
—Jean Piaget

Food for Thought:

What homeostatic pulls do I feel most strongly when I

learn something new?
How do I respond when someone else lives at the edge,
momentarily free of inertia?
How can I move beyond my resistance to learning?
181 Discontinuous Learning

Values give us structure. Structure gives us freedom.

Freedom gives us our values.

We all have opinions on thousands of topics, many of which we

do not think about consciously from one year to the next. How do
we remember all our views?
The answer is that we have at our disposal a deeper level of
understanding: values and beliefs. In a sense, we are what our values
and beliefs are. If someone asks our opinion and no answer comes to
mind immediately, we simply look to our values to find one.
One changed value, one altered belief, and a huge array of
changes sometimes follows automatically. In this way, we construct
our own vision of reality. As Antonio Machado wrote in Juan de
Mairena, “Under all that we think lives all we believe, like the
ultimate veil of our spirits.”

Thoughts
Bel i efs

Spirit

Our values give structure to our lives and help us form a sense
of purpose. This gives us the freedom to not remember every
opinion in detail. We are free to think about other things, referring
to our master table of beliefs and values when necessary.
182 The Edges

Values

Freedom Structure

This freedom is a significant step up from, say, the logical and

factual world of the typical computer. It offers us a chance to shape
our personality and foster the very values we wish to adopt. This
circularity is both a strength and a weakness, however. Unless we
reassess our conscious and subconscious beliefs from time to time,
we go around forever in predictable circles. Like reverting to our
biological homeostasis, we content ourselves rather than stretching
toward a newly inspired vision.
One of the most uplifting and empowering concepts available
to us is that we can systematically change our beliefs and values
whenever we want to. This has enormous transformational potential.
It means we have authority, if we choose, over our own lives. We
can opt to author our valuing, perceiving, thinking, and acting. We
may have to unlearn some of what others have authored, and it may
be worthwhile to do that.
In that direction, another reason to assess our values and beliefs
periodically has to do with success. If we achieve what society calls
greatness, the prize might not mean much to us unless it is closely
aligned with our inner fundamental principles.
This strikes at the heart of many psychological difficulties,
because many people work hard to fulfill family, business, or social
expectations, often at great personal sacrifice, only to realize too late
that it relates little to their core values. It is easy to forget these
values when other people’s agendas distract us. Even as society
applauds and rewards us, our peace of mind, health, and potential
for learning and growth break down.
Part of discontinuous learning, then, entails recognizing and
then unlearning or deconstructing the patterns and automatic pilots
183 Discontinuous Learning

we once devised to make our lives more efficient. Clearing the

decks of these again frees us to identify our values, envision our
path anew, and stretch toward a purpose more aligned with our
essential self’s core principles.

We are so constituted that we believe the most incredible

things; and, once they are engraved upon the memory, woe to
him who would endeavor to erase them.
— Johann Wolfgang von Goethe

Food for Thought:

What beliefs and values do I take for granted?

How aligned are my core values with my personal script?
How aligned are my core values with my professional
script?
How does the alignment differ?
How do I help others change a belief systematically?
184 The Edges

Why we do something determines

its effectiveness.
Why do we do what we do? Engaging with this question
clarifies our purpose and its relevance to the current marketplace. It
can help identify ineffective work, allowing us to engage in efforts
that yield results and satisfaction. From our clarity of purpose, we
create our future. Just as the oak sleeps in an acorn, our future rests
in capacities that we have yet to identify, recognize, or manifest.
Reflecting on and finding a higher purpose often leaves us
unwilling to put up with any conditioned responses that no longer
fit. In the context of a larger purpose, we can discern what works
and what doesn’t. Rather than making this be about right and wrong,
we simply bring our essential self or spirit to observe how things are
happening.
Creating our futures consciously brings no guarantees. We still
need to explore possibilities at some length before gauging whether
it pays off. Exploring has no substitute, as we cannot judge the
potential of a new opportunity by using an old mindset. Such
assessments fail miserably, which makes capacity building and
discontinuous learning relatively difficult. Why risk changing
something that works?
Creating a culture that embraces many possibilities and
opportunities is no guarantee, either. It merely means that we fail in
some of them. The significant tradeoff, however, is that we succeed
beyond expectations in others. In almost any of life’s endeavors, it
only takes one success to beat 99 failures.
Five principles matter for creating a culture that fosters
discontinuous learning, builds capacity, and unleashes creativity.
We need to appreciate what works, explore what is missing,
acknowledge what is true, and remain open to what happens.
Finally, we need to synergize and integrate capacity from a systemic
and holistic perspective. We cannot analyze or synthesize it from the
past.
185 Discontinuous Learning

The successful person has the habit of doing the things

failures don’t like to do. They don’t like doing them either
necessarily. But their disliking is subordinated to the strength of
their purpose.
—E. M. Gray

Food for Thought:

Why do I do what I do at work?

Why do I do what I do at home?
What would it take for me to break out of this?
When and how do I pay attention to my insights?
186 The Edges

We visualize the future and then live it into being

Setting goals usually starts from the present and extends into
the future. We end up extrapolating what we want now, wishing for
a better or faster version of what we already have. This process
often depresses us because it reminds us that whatever we have now
is not good enough. Another way is to start by clarifying our
purpose. This takes a discontinuous leap: launching into some future
time—twenty or thirty years, say—and visualizing where we’d like
to be then and what we’d like to be doing. At work, this may mean
envisioning a future version of our careers or organizations. At
home, this may mean a new picture of our future selves or
relationships.
Setting goals then becomes more meaningful. Once we identify
and articulate our destination, we can describe our path clearly.
Seeing where we want to go helps us set the priorities and interim
goals that support us in getting there. These specifics also make it
easier to map the connections between our desired future and current
reality.
Once we are clear about our desires for the future, we can
explore ways to manifest it. Another way to think of this is that,
once we know our unique aspirations and ambitions, they somehow
pull us toward materializing them.

Whatever you can do, or dream you can do, begin it.
Boldness has genius, power and magic in it.

—Johann Wolfgang von Goethe

Food for Thought:

Does my purpose inspire me, especially when I feel down?
Does my purpose challenge me when I feel smug?
Does my purpose give me direction when I am lost?
187 Discontinuous Learning
188 The Edges

14. Love and Commitment

The Xerox Corporation once had a program called Miles and

Miles of Smiles. In learning about it for delivering a keynote speech
at a conference, I was deeply touched. This extraordinary program
was demonstrating an unusual form of love and commitment not
only to Xerox employees but also to their customers, suppliers, and
truck drivers.
Corporate leaders had figured out that they could use non-
Xerox people to deliver many of the mid-sized and office-sized
copying machines, which were quite large at the time. They had also
recognized that they did not always need to send along technical
people because installing some of these machines was fairly simple.
So they turned to their outsourced truck drivers.
These drivers were willing to get the training and do the work
because their contracts with Xerox included incentives linked to the
kind of commitment, love, and caring that drivers showed and
buyers reported in their five-point customer-satisfaction evaluations.
The Miles and Miles of Smiles motto reflected the idea that happy,
smiling drivers generated not only superior customer satisfaction but
also safety on the street. The less stressed the driver, the better for
everyone.
With the kind of feedback system Xerox had created, they also
gave drivers the freedom to go above and beyond the call of duty.
For instance, drivers were encouraged to throw in extension cords, if
customers ended up needing one to plug in the machine. Drivers
would haul away old copiers, if that was needed. They really got
into the spirit of the program, and many delighted customers sent in
glowing letters about how helpful these drivers had been.
The drivers could clearly see that when Xerox said, “We are
committed to you,” they demonstrated a practical kind of caring,
love, and affection that benefited and inspired them as well as the
people they served so well. Xerox then organized a conference to
share stories among drivers, suppliers, and customers about how
they felt nurtured and inspired. It was a true win–win–win situation.
To stretch fully into our own authority and toward our visions
requires a foundation of love and commitment, as the preceding
story shows. This foundation arises out of the dynamic dance
between nurturing and inspiring.
189 Discontinuous Learning

Until we are nurtured adequately, we cannot hope to move into

the world under our own power. Stretching without nurturing does
not work. In terms of learning, this means needing enough care and
attention to open and orient ourselves in a new area of study. Once
we find our bearings, we can navigate our own way, if we choose to.
Choosing to pursue something relies on feeling inspired to do
so. Idle curiosity takes us only so far. Over time, if we do not
continue feeling enough inspiration or appreciation on a daily basis,
our enthusiasm fades. Nurturing the spirit is vital because, once the
waters turn rough or rocky, we need love and commitment if we are
to continue sailing.
Inspiration can fuel our love of a subject, and when we engage
with what we appreciate, we develop a certain attachment. When we
attach to something we value, respect, and draw inspiration and
nurturance from, love emerges. This bond is far more personal than
those characterized solely by care and empathy.
However, love is as reliable as the wind that fills our sails.
Steam, internal combustion, and nuclear engines came into being
because committed travel or transportation needs more than wind to
power ships. In terms of learning, commitment is the counterpart.
To commit means that we keep our word while we also remain
190 The Edges

empathic and nurturing with our own needs and point of view. We
commit, first, to ourselves.
We also commit for life unless it is a conditional commitment,
meaning that our promise holds under specific conditions in a
particular context. Conditional commitment stands until the
agreement ends or we renegotiate. It involves appreciating
something but does not necessarily evolve into loving it.

Like love, however, commitment is inadequate on its own.

Once we lose our love of a topic or process or field, no amount of
commitment engenders deep or discontinuous learning. Sometimes
we persist anyway, hoping that our love of it will return. At other
times, our self-criticism or self-reproach takes over and undermines
our self-worth.
Sometimes we persist simply because we feel trapped within
the box we’ve built and announced to people whose opinions matter
to us. This is a far cry from learning because we love and keep our
commitment to ourselves.
191 Discontinuous Learning

Many persons have the wrong idea of what constitutes true

happiness. It is not attained through self-gratification, but
through fidelity to a worthy purpose.
—Helen Keller

Food for Thought:

How do I form my personal and professional

commitments?
When I want people to love and commit to something,
how do I support them?
What do I do when my learning hits a sandbar?
192 The Edges

Expectation is reality

Once we gain strength and orient ourselves in response to

nurturing, we can find inspiration that leads us to pursue a goal with
love and commitment. This inspiration and nurturing is important
because, as other sections show, our expectations are self-fulfilling.
The more we fear, for instance, the less we learn. With either
positive or negative outlooks, we can always say to ourselves:
“There, I told you so.” This is why techniques to improve learning
are perhaps not as important as our attitudes and beliefs toward
embracing new information and experiences.
As children, we often compete furiously among ourselves,
almost as if to prove who we are. Most of us enjoy this as long as
the competition conforms to our newly formed world view. We
refuse to compete on issues that threaten our precious sense of
reality.
On a larger scale, this system of developing a world model is
also much the way communities and even entire cultures develop.
Once developed, these expectations about how the world “should”
work appear eternal and rather sacred to those who hold them. Every
culture believes itself to be at the heart of the universe. Every city
that displays a map of itself shows a “You are here” graphic, with an
arrow pointing to the center.
The U.S. government sees itself as the undisputed leader of the
world. Similarly, India believes that it is far beyond the West in
spiritual matters. France perhaps believes it is one of the globe’s
most civilized countries, and so on. All cultures believe that they are
right and expect everybody else to recognize this, sooner or later.
Even countries torn apart by war remember their original culture and
fight for many decades to protect it.
What does this say about individual identity? After all, it is not
a nation that fights for its culture, but its people. Once we establish
an identity and sense of belonging, most of us carry that with us
throughout life, no matter how much we later learn or travel. Many
of us have a passionate view of our heritage even if we have no
contact with the countries of our ancestors. Many immigrants
fantasize about retiring to their homelands even after decades
abroad.
193 Discontinuous Learning

Human history is littered with wars over local or national

boundaries, which persist today. Is it possible to evolve a mental
model that everyone can respect, if not adopt? What kind of script
would let us coexist in peace?
Infants may live entirely in the present and see the world as an
extension of themselves, rather than having separate causes and
effects, yet children and adults do not. With various levels of
comprehension, we make models of how some cause creates an
effect, which in turn influences the next cause. At earlier stages in
life, we tend to think that we can cause or prevent most things
according to how well-behaved we are. As we nurture and develop
our comprehension, we consider multiple factors that contribute
to—and are affected by—any change.

Cause Effect

This perspective, in itself, can inspire us to commit to

something or someone we love, align our choices with those
purposes, and learn quickly from any surprises that develop as we
proceed.

Innocence dwells with Wisdom,

but never with Ignorance.
—William Blake
194 The Edges

Food for Thought:

In various contexts, how do I react to new experiences or

information?
How do others I work with/live with react to new
experiences or information?
What circumstances contribute to my reacting
differently?
What process do I use to come to terms with another
person’s beliefs, expectations, and realities?
195 Discontinuous Learning

If all the world’s prisons, the most difficult to escape

is the one at which we are the jailer

Love and commitment grow out of nurturing and inspiring. Part

of nurturing is knowing how to esteem ourselves, even when we are
feeling uncertain or making mistakes. Unless someone in childhood
taught us how to approach new food for thought, the anxiety of not
knowing can turn learning into an ordeal.
Self-esteem and self-confidence are very much part of the
boxes in which we imprison ourselves. This contributes to the
difficulty—not impossibility—of breaking out. Even with self-
esteem and self-confidence, only we hold the key.

At one of my workshops in India, a woman told me that she had

attempted to learn to drive twice and then gave up. Why? The car
stalled three or four times while she was changing gears manually.
She had not mastered the interplay between the clutch, accelerator,
and brake pedals. Not having enough tolerance for these “mistakes,”
she decided that she was not good enough to learn how to drive a
car.
196 The Edges

I also remember meeting a brilliant young doctor who was

absolutely petrified of writing down answering machine messages
for other people. Whenever she attempted it, her mind froze and she
either wrote down incomplete messages or simply did not listen,
despite knowing that some messages might be urgent.
She believed adamantly that she could never master this, and
she remained totally unwilling to be coached or helped.
The solution to such blocks is usually not more practicing. No
amount of repetition automatically improves low self-confidence.
Our expectations get in the way of learning. Only when our attitudes
change do we achieve a breakthrough.
When my son Pravin was learning to swim, he used air-wings
to support his weight. One day, I was cleaning the pool, and we both
were getting ready to swim. When I turned my back, he jumped in
without remembering to wear his wings. He swam for about a
minute before noticing the extra effort he was exerting to stay afloat.
Then fear took over and he shouted frantically. He also stopped
swimming. Luckily, I rescued him right away. I also tried to get him
back in the water so that fear would not create a box around his
mind.
Self-confidence has many faces. Sometimes, for instance, we
meet people who seem driven. When they say they are going to do
something, we know it will happen because they are so sure.
Something larger than desire or motivation seems to be at work in
these people. The strength of their conviction gives it its force. They
have learned to make something happen by believing it will. This is
another facet of love and commitment.
This positive determination applies to learning as much as
anything. I once heard the story of a young boy in a small village
who spent years in the same grade. The villagers had given him up
as mute and retarded. Then a new teacher joined the school and,
taking note of the child, spent a long time studying him.
Committed to helping him, this teacher attempted to engage the
child. One day, the teacher drew a figure on the blackboard. It was
the boy’s dog.
Visibly moved by the image, the boy asked whether the teacher
was drawing the boy’s dog. Encouraged by this response, the
teacher spent the next few minutes finding out more about the dog.
Then he wrote “Rama,” the dog’s name, below the drawing.
197 Discontinuous Learning

The student puzzled at this and asked what it was. “It’s the
dog’s name,” the teacher told him. “Please write it down.”
The boy burst into tears and confessed that he did not know
how to read or write. It was clear that he was deeply ashamed of his
lack of progress at school, and that he had given up long ago. To
commit to change, he needed to unlearn this opinion of his
capabilities.
The teacher gently guided the child in writing Rama. Once he
wrote it, the boy’s transformation was undeniable. He went on to
advance through the school effortlessly in the ensuing few years and
then became a scholar.

It is we that are blind, not fortune.

—Sir Thomas Browne

Food for Thought:

How do I feel about being a rookie while I learn

something new?
Which of my expectations interfere with my learning?
At home and work, how d I foster love and commitment
to learning? For myself? For others?
198 The Edges

Results come from committing our attention

to what we love
Attention is critical to all learning, skill development, clarity,
achievement and, ultimately, enjoyment. Committing ourselves to
pay attention is especially important in areas of our core
incompetence. As one executive said, “I know that I have to
improve my procrastination of every thing to the last minute. I am
aware that the stress is building up—not only in me but also in
others who support me, and of course my clients. The problem is
that I do not pay enough attention to this issue. So the problem
continues and every time I curse myself saying that I will pay
attention the next time. But the next time never seems to come.”
Paying attention means focusing on something in a relaxed way
and allowing that focus to shape our awareness. It means allowing
ourselves to compensate for our core incompetence, without
judgment. For example, close your eyes and pay attention to your
breath for a minute. Are you are breathing in using the right nostril,
the left nostril, or both?
The purpose of paying attention is to increase our awareness
and concentration. Awareness is like light that shines and brings
objects into our field of view. It is what we develop by reading this
passage, for example. Attention and focus then allow us to see
things with greater clarity and definition.
Paying attention is the master skill that gets us into state of flow
in whatever we are doing. Confusion lifts and clarity increases.
Playing in this zone of full attention is responsible for magical
performances and effortless excellence. In The Inner Game of Work,
Tim Gallwey says:

The simple fact is that we do our best when we

are focused, whether we are riding a bicycle, drawing
a plan for suspension bridge, conceiving a global
strategy for multinational company, negotiating a
contract, selling a product, cutting sushi, tasting a
glass of wine, appreciating a sunset, throwing a ball,
or writing a book. And when focus is lost, we simply
do not perform at our best.
199 Discontinuous Learning

Discovering the nature of full attention allows us to manage our

energy very well. It also helps us move toward our purpose
effortlessly. We perform better, learn faster and more fully, and
enjoy ourselves in the process.

Our acts of voluntary attending, as brief and fitful as they

are, are nevertheless momentous and critical, determining us, as
they do, to higher or lower destinies.
—William James

Food for Thought:

Where in my life do I focus and pay total attention?

Where am I easily distracted?
What do I keep putting off until the last minute?
200 The Learning / Unlearning Process
201 Discontinuous Learning

PART IV - THE LEARNING / UNLEARNING PROCESS

A colleague of mine, Dan, came with me to a meeting in Japan.

He had grown up in the United States but spoke Japanese perfectly.
He had learned Japanese from his parents, who were from Japan.
During our visit, he spent the weekend meeting his aunts, uncles,
and cousins. When he came back, he was very quiet. “What
happened?” I asked. “Couldn’t you communicate with them?”
“No. I found out that they wanted me to speak English, not
Japanese.”
“Why?”
“They told me my manner is so American that when I speak
perfect Japanese, it is jarring to them. ‘You look Japanese,’ they
said, “And you speak Japanese, but you behave so outside our
culture that we’re having difficulty. If we just speak in English, we
can relate to you much better.’”
They were getting double messages because of this perceived
lack of congruence, the lack of alignment. To him, it felt like
rejection, but it’s also an example of a sudden departure from the
current level of thinking.
Discontinuous learning comes when we are balanced but are
not enmeshed with any one of the pyramid’s intentions, domains, or
competencies (discussed in the previous three parts of this book).
This means developing competencies (edges) by dealing with the
tension that arises between any two intentions (cornerstones). It also
requires that we develop capacities by discriminating or identifying
the domain or field (the tetrahedron’s faces) that’s created among
any of the three tension points.
202 The Learning / Unlearning Process

The three-dimensional model of learning is a systemic concept.

Each part affects every other part, so finding an appropriate balance
among the system’s many components is essential. If we focus
solely on grounding ourselves through rules, for instance, we create
a military culture. Such cultures or organizations work well for
protection, safety, and security, but they do not promote
discontinuous learning.
To integrate the many elements, dynamics, and dimensions of
learning may seem daunting. Simply bearing them all in mind is
quite a feat. Again, relaxation is the key. Deep and discontinuous
learning occurs naturally, especially in infants. The point of this
model is to help remove barriers we’ve acquired through our
conditioning. Understanding that we wrote our own scripts and can
therefore revise them, we claim our own authority.
We are then free to invent or adopt new approaches for
ourselves, it is even possible to let go of our original vision about a
specific destination. Passionate about the path we are on, intensely
curious, and having invested so much time, money, and energy, we
may not want to walk away from our journey, even when it looks
discouraging. Perhaps we’re not getting anywhere, there’s too much
chaos, or it’s not leading us where we thought we wanted to go.
203 Discontinuous Learning

The cause-and-effect relationship breaks down, and that’s why

learning becomes discontinuous. It is not a linear path, and we
cannot draw a one-to-one correspondence between what we did and
what we ended up with.
Among many of the people I interviewed, this phase was where
the wheat and the chaff separated. In such situations, good leaders
make a major difference because they are able to see clearly,
distinguish, and make appropriate decisions about which path leads
to something meaningful. Most recipes about how to improve
something do not work in this kind of situation, where people need
to go ahead as pioneers. To do so, they explore multiple options, and
without necessarily looking for an immediate answer, they are
exploring in a strategic way (“What will bring me the highest return
on my investment?”).
Then, in discontinuous learning, we fall into a state of
openness. Not looking for an immediate solution, we find ourselves
engaged in something because it seems to have some juice for us.
This is where transformations, breakthroughs, and discontinuous
learning come alive. How long we are in this openness, this gap is
often directly proportional to how much intentionality we brought at
the beginning.
We come away with new clarity, insights, and a creative spark,
and we follow it. Because we have deeply engaged with our own
genius, we instantly know how to implement our insight. We build
our capacity through action, developing competence by acting on it
instead of reading or theorizing about it. We turn into bulldogs, and
we just don’t let go. We pursue and implement and manifest our
ideas until they become a reality.
Then we step back and coach or mentor others. When we
engage with people to produce that kind of discontinuous learning,
we come up with even more insights, or unique theories of business,
or distinct ways of doing something. This happens with venture
capitalists, entrepreneurs, and many other leaders who discuss their
“Aw, shucks, it’s not a big deal” kind of approach. For the rest of
us, it’s an extraordinarily big deal.
To summarize, these are the five steps I found in the
discontinuous learning process:

Intending to learn or change (“shaking up the old box”)

204 The Learning / Unlearning Process

Unlearning
Leaping into the gap and transforming our thinking
Creating anew, or manifesting what we have just learned
Mentoring or coaching

Each stage has a part where we ground ourselves or get

grounded, a relationship in which we nurture ourselves or get
nurtured, and an anxiety we need to stretch beyond to find
inspiration. In other words, the learning pyramid shows up in each
stage of discontinuous learning.
Ensuing sections touch on each of these five stages so that,
along with feeling thoroughly familiar with the components of the
learning pyramid, we can also have a general sense of how they
dance together in the process of discontinuous learning.

The true sage brings all the contraries together and rests in
the natural balance of heaven.
—Chuang-tse

Food for Thought:

What aspect of learning draws my attention?

What barriers to learning do I wish to erase or decrease?
How can I manifest what I am learning here?
How can I support others to expand their barriers as they
desire?
205 Discontinuous Learning

The Learning and Unlearning Process

Openness,
Intention Unlearning
learning

Conditioning
(current Manifesting
thinking)

Nurturing
the individual

Instinctive Coaching
learning
206 The Learning / Unlearning Process

Shaking up the old box is our first

step toward learning.

Imagine life as a kaleidoscope. We study the first random

pattern so carefully that we do not want to change it. It might well
be attractive, but we have become so used to it that we assume it
should always look like that. We never think to turn it once in a
while to see what other patterns might exist. In this way, we develop
a frozen lifestyle, relationship, job, and attitude.
We may have focused so long on earning money, climbing the
corporate ladder, buying the right house in the right area, and so on,
that we forget exactly why we do all this. We were supposed to find
happiness once we accumulated the correct ingredients, right? When
we “arrive” without feeling happy, we may feel disillusioned and
trapped. Some of us panic.
Sometimes the pattern falls apart before we arrive. Perhaps we
lose our job, the stock market crashes, a relationship ends, or
someone close to us dies. Suddenly, we see our lives disintegrate.
The familiar shape in the kaleidoscope is gone. All we see in its
place are chaos and randomness. In our stress, we are unwilling to
wait for the pieces to fall into a new pattern which, although strange
at first, will have just as much beauty as before, perhaps more. To
the kaleidoscope, each pattern is equally valid.
Research shows that, in the 1970s and 1980s, most people did
not often change radio frequencies in their homes, yet did switch
stations while driving. The reason? Preset buttons were not yet
common on home radios, and people feared losing their preferred
stations. Now that most radios are digital, with many memorized
settings, people are more open to experimenting.
Perhaps we all could benefit from shaking up our kaleidoscopes
and seeing what emerges. To explore new options, we might stir
things up as soon as we recognize the first signs of curiosity,
boredom, discontent, or restlessness. We might watch as creative
tension develops between our desire to change and our resistance to
it, our conditioned fear of the unknown.
Turning the kaleidoscope gently or firmly—whatever fits our
particular situation—brings us back to life’s flow. Experimenting
creates options, while memory freezes us.
207 Discontinuous Learning

There is nothing more difficult for a truly creative painter

than to paint a rose, because before he can do so he must forget
all the roses that were ever painted.
—Henri Matisse

Food for Thought:

Which of my accomplishments have felt most fulfilling?

Which felt the hollowest?
For each one (most fulfilling and most hollow) - what was
the initial driver, the deeper purpose for pursuing them?
How does the initial driver differ from the feeling that
came with accomplishment?
How frozen are my work styles, relationships, and
attitudes?
How could I “shake up my kaleidoscope at work?
How could I support others to do the same?
208 The Learning / Unlearning Process

To create a new box, we must leave the old one

or expand it.

If being aware of discontent, discrepancies, or restlessness help

us take our first steps toward discontinuous learning, the next phase
is to detach from our autopilot habits and thought patterns. I once
heard about an expert on Buddhism. A scholar and professor, he
wrote several books. Then he had an opportunity to go to Tibet and
meet with an enlightened master. Our professor was so happy that
he presented the master with a set of his books and a list of
questions.
The master offered him tea, and the professor accepted. While
pouring, the master did not stop when the cup was full and was
overflowing but continued until the bewildered professor stopped
him and asked what he was doing. The master told him the cup
resembled his brain. Unless the professor was willing to empty it,
nothing more would fit inside.
Unlearning customary patterns is far from easy, but old ideas or
skills are sometimes barriers to new ones. At first, this concept
seems contrary to the idea that the brain is limitless in its capacity
for facts. However, as mentioned, our mental models cannot
accommodate ideas or outlooks that conflict with each other in some
fundamental respect. If we want to adopt the new idea, we must
discard our allegiance to the old one. As André Gide wrote in his
Journals in 1928, “Each wave owes the beauty of its line to the
withdrawal of the preceding one.”
One common obstacle to discontinuous learning is cause-and-
effect thinking. History books sometimes lead us to think a
particular result was inevitable in a particular situation. Yet most of
us know better than to say that somebody or something else
“caused” us to react the way we did.
Relationships break up and companies fail when we seek or
assign an external cause for every effect we notice. If we can
unlearn this model of how the world works, we open ourselves to
more effective ways of thinking, or creating a fun and profitable
future.
Tomorrow’s joy is possible only if today’s pleasure makes way
for it. Sometimes, through loyalty to the past, our minds refuse to
209 Discontinuous Learning

realize this. Instead of learning from our arrival and then unlearning
the route, we let success go to our heads. Clinging to our old maps,
we develop core incompetencies.
We often avoid change because we fear failing in it.
Alternatively, we sometimes assume (incorrectly) that if we
experiment with change, we’ll lose the option of returning to our
current way of thinking or doing. Once we unlearn an unrealistic
assumption or idea, on the other hand, we take the first step in our
adult manifestation of discontinuous learning.

Change is the law of life. And those who look only to the
past or the present are certain to miss the future.
—John F. Kennedy

Food for Thought:

Do I seek out or avoid new ideas?

What is my response to “being a rookie” in a new topic
or field?
How are past triumphs contributing to my opposition to
change (including expansion)?
What new beliefs might improve or replace my current
thinking patterns?
210 The Learning / Unlearning Process

Every mental model has gaps.

Many of us have experienced noticing some difference between
our mental models and what actually happens. The more we
examine this gap, the less the model makes sense. The gap widens,
and we feel compelled to stare into it.
On one side of the gap lie our perceptions and interpretations—
the basis for our mindsets or models of the world. Our models are
only as strong as the weakest parts of our thinking, so it is fortunate
that we can abandon them.
Stephen Covey tells a story of a father and his unusually noisy
children. Everyone within earshot felt irritated until they found out
these kids had just lost their mother. “Those brats are awful” gave
way to compassionate understanding that the noise was part of not
knowing how to deal with such a loss.
This demonstrates one way to recognize our own world views:
by considering what new information or circumstances might shift
our outlook. In this way, we eventually realize that our perspectives
are not sacrosanct. Unlearning them in favor of something better
suddenly seems more appealing.
Creating that “something better” lies across the gap from our
current sense of reality. After any leap to a new mental model, much
new learning transpires rapidly. Likewise, a paradigm shift in any
field or discipline creates a wave of reassessments and updates.
These are like a series of aftershocks or afterthoughts.
Direct experience is our only access to the gap left by such a
shift. What we call learning might simply be transcending the gap.
When we are open, we are free from the ego for a precious moment.
That’s all the time it takes, but changing a mindset also entails a
difficult path, as George Bernard Shaw describes in “Maxims for
Revolutionists”:

The reasonable man adapts himself to the world;

the unreasonable one persists in trying to adapt the
world to himself. Therefore, all progress depends upon
the unreasonable man.

Our consciousness expands while we are in the gap. We have a

sudden new awareness, as though we were waking up from a dream
211 Discontinuous Learning

or emerging after a good movie. In the gap, we know that what

seemed quite real only moments earlier is not. Only after the event
does it all seem so obvious.

Progress is a nice word. But change is its motivator. And

change has its enemies.
—Robert F. Kennedy

Food for Thought:

What breakthroughs have I already experienced in my

perspectives, dogmas, or paradigms?
What new skills or ways of thinking did I develop as a
result?
What aftershocks came later?
212 The Learning / Unlearning Process

With discontinuous learning, we design

our fullest future
Our experiences denote where we have already been, yet they
need not bind us to the past and prevent us from going farther. The
purpose of learning is to inspire ourselves toward something larger
than what we have done from within the limits of our current mental
boxes. This requires that we identify and clarify:

The boundaries created by our conditioning

Our intentionality*
What we need to unlearn
Ways to nurture ourselves and to be nurtured
Ways to stretch

* An intention is some specific aim that I experience, and intentionality

is the state in which I hold it. When I have intentionality, I am open to
moving in a general direction; it is in “soft focus.” When my
destination becomes specific, I have an intention.

If we clarify these before we leap into the gap, we discover we

know how to manifest the rest of our vision.
The spirit of discontinuity does not suggest that we should take
up risky activities on a whim. Tragically, much smaller feats and
fears are the ones that usually inhibit and disable us. It is a sad life
that dribbles away in frustration and a fear of “barriers” that seem
insignificant to us. It is not the wildly dangerous and exotic
adventures that we regret missing, so much as the years wasted in
mundane existence.
On later analysis, we realize we could have lived much more
fully by taking small but timely leaps of faith. It is not dramatic
circumstances that prevent us from growth, but more subtle killers,
such as a slight lack of self-esteem.
As my friend Anne Stadler once said about discontinuous
learning: “It is like white-water rafting. You are not in complete
control. This certainly does not mean that you can leave everything
to chance; you have to paddle, and hard. But whenever you realize
you are moving in the direction you want, you sit back, watch it
213 Discontinuous Learning

happen and go with the flow. Sometimes a minor movement of one

oar is enough to keep on track, but at other times you need to paddle
furiously. Either way, the river is really in charge of your exact
position at any time, yet you are the person responsible for the trip’s
ultimate success.”
We thus have a choice over our destiny. We may not be able to
choose our exact position at all times, but we can decide which river
to take and, indeed, whether to travel at all. Even when we act on
reflex and intuition, choice makes its mark. We each are a product
of our past decisions, which shape our current beliefs and attitudes.
These govern how we react to the events taking place.
The strongest principle of growth lies in human choice, as
George Eliot wrote in Daniel Deronda. Leaping into the dark is very
much our choice. We may know some of the likely possibilities, but
we do not know the outcome. Openness and learning are both about
not prejudging things.

Where there is an open mind, there will always be a

frontier.
—Charles F. Kettering

Food for Thought:

What part of my identity keeps me from learning

discontinuously?
How do I detach from that part? How can I expand other
more useful parts?
What can I do to clarify my intentionality about the
future I want to create?
214 The Learning / Unlearning Process

The spirit of who we are informs

what we do

Do you remember reading this paragraph towards the end of

Chapter 0?

Finally, there is the union point that we have not yet

addressed. The center of the tetrahedron, invisible to us
because it is inside and not on the surface of the tetrahedron,
represents the essence or DNA of who we are and informs all
our intentions and actions. This is the central point that
remains unchanged and unmoving while all the changes take
place around it. All intentions are generated from this point
and pull away from it. All domains remain equidistant from this
point and polarities and interactions take place around it but
never affect the union point. This point represents the shared
truth, the seed of our consciousness or essence and holds the
key to building our capacity.

It is at this point that igniting the genius within takes place. It is

also at that union point that true alignment within us (words,
feelings and actions) and without us (self, work, family and
community). How we do that and how we tap into the spirit of who
we are is the subject of this section. Be warned, there are no recipes
that I can give to practice or ignite your genius. You have to find a
way to answer the questions that book raises yourself or ask others
who also read the book. You are welcome to go ahead and create a
book reading group and explore your questions, insights and
reflections and discover your own answers and next steps.
You might not know this, but it took coming to the end of the
book for me to discover many things about the book. I realized that I
am a major contributor to the book and many others co-created it
with me. Rain has been the “mother” who grounded herself in my
research work, my writings, a 10-year old manuscript and recent
articles that she brought to life. Once the book was birthed, she
excitedly handed it back to me expecting me to nurture it, engage
with it and participate in the development of it. For whatever reason,
I could not and left Rain to work with it single-handedly only
215 Discontinuous Learning

occasionally giving input, making clarifications etc. Because Rain

had created clear ground rules, when I did not follow them, she let
me and the book go and she moved on.
I knew that my strengths are inspiring and stretching and many
times I can even set and follow clear ground rules. My core
incompetence is in the nurturing part. It applies to nurturing ideas
one at a time to unfold them completely, nurturing people on an
ongoing basis and to work with a project during its ups and downs
to completion. When Rain moved on with her life leaving the book
project for me to complete, it became clear that unless I nurture stuff
to completion, there will be no satisfaction. It is not just with this
book, I began to pay attention to nurturing cornerstone in all aspects
of my life. I started practicing what I mentioned in the book: Pay
attention to love and commitment in each relationship, practice care
and empathy in each interaction, and bring playfulness to others and
myself (The three edges that connect nurture cornerstone to other
three cornerstones).
I began by asking myself the following questions to get a
baseline measure.

• Where am I in terms of bringing love and commitment in my

relationship with others?
• Where am I with respect to providing care and empathy in each
of my interactions?
• Where am I with respect to bringing playfulness to others and
myself?

I used a 0-10 scale, 10 being the highest and 0 being the lowest
rating and gave myself ratings in the family and work scenarios.
In family, I gave myself 6 out of 10 because there was a lot of
improvement I can make in terms of my availability to family
because of my travel schedule, my paying attention to family when I
am with them, managing my temper and intensity that could spark
defiance, fear or resistance in others etc. When I rated myself in the
work scenario, I gave myself 9 because I enjoy my work so much
that I am more committed to my clients and coaches. I also am
passionate about what I do and it automatically brings commitment.
When I rated myself on care and empathy, I gave myself 5 in
family again and 8 in work situations. When I am stressed, I realized
216 The Learning / Unlearning Process

that I am not that empathetic in family and in work situations, I am

much better in the majority of the situations.
In terms of play, I gave myself 7 in family and 8.5 in work
situation. There is more freedom for me in playfulness and I am able
to bring more of myself in alignment both at work and home.
Based on that, I realized that I have considerable work to do on
the home front in order to bring discontinuous learning at home with
my family. My lowest rating was 5 and the highest rating was 7 at
home with family while at work, the lowest was 8 and highest was
9. I felt more constrained and was not able to nurture my family as
well as I could nurture my clients and coachees. Once I had numbers
I picked my lowest rating and want to work on it for next 90 days
and see what I could shift during that time.
I decided to improve my score from 5 out of 10 to 7 out of 10 in
the area of care and empathy. I created a list of all the things that my
family mentioned about demonstrating care and empathy in my
behavior with them. Then I identified key behaviors that would help
multiple situations and started paying attention. Each week, I
practiced one of the behaviors at least 7 times out of every 10
opportunities. Then I chose to either continue it for the next week or
take on the next behavior. Over time, I began to develop more
awareness out of paying attention to this area. I specifically watched
responses and feedback of my family whenever I felt comfortable
asking them. Then I made appropriate course corrections and got to
work again.
After several such 90 day experiments, I am beginning to feel
more comfortable about my nurturing cornerstone. I am currently
working on my ground rules to strengthen my ability to follow them
myself and honor them when I am with others.
How about you? Where are you strong and where are you still
developing? Do you have clarity on what you have to work on?
Where are you fully integrated (in terms of words and actions) and
where do you not walk the talk? As you went through the book and
reflected on the questions at the end of each chapter, you might have
developed that clarity already. If not, here is the summary of the
process that I described above.
Rate yourself from 0-10 on all the six edges. You can rate
yourself separately in the work, family, community dimensions or
just rate yourself as a whole person. Then find your lowest number
and see whether you are committed to working on that edge. See
217 Discontinuous Learning

whether you have one cornerstone that has uniformly high numbers
for the edges that connect to it. If so, maybe that is where you are
naturally strong. Similarly find your strengths and weaknesses with
respect to cornerstones and begin working on them.
On reflection, I have discovered my own authentic connection
to the book only after reading it many times. My energy shifted
radically thanks to the wonderful dialogues I had with others and my
own discontinuous learning shifted to high gear. I realized that the
ideas might be mine in the book only when practice them to
transform myself that this book becomes useful. Otherwise, it is
another framework or the model that is not worth the paper on
which it is printed. I also realized that when others read, reflected,
dialogued with me, they were seeing facets that I did not see myself.
It is very clear to me that discontinuous learning is not an individual
process but it is co-creative process. Only when I explore it and
reflect on it with others, I begin to internalize and change myself
while helping others to do the same.
My journey into the discontinuous learning is just beginning
because I am interested in using my own medicine to help me move
forward. The spirit of who I am is continuing to inform what I do,
what I feel and what I think.
I will add to this book as I have more to share and I encourage
you to share what you have learned along the way too. We are
creating a website where you can share your own aphorisms, stories
connected with any of the aphorisms, comments, questions, quotes
and suggestions and change the book to suit your passion and
interests.
Finally, the bell calls me. I grew up longing to ring the huge
bell in Kadiri temple in India and I am yearning to ring the bell
again as I continue the process of self discovery.
Thank you for the opportunity to share this journey and look
forward to what you have to say and do with the book. As I said
earlier, this book is incomplete and you, the reader can make it
complete by integrating it with your journey and modifying this
book to reflect the spirit of who you are to inform what you do. That
is when you ignite your genius within and align your life, work,
family and spirit.

Prasad Kaipa
April 200
218 Appendix

APPENDIX

USING DISCONTINUOUS LEARNING

IN GROUPS
To get the most out of this book, as I said repeatedly, you have
to make this book your own by changing it, modifying it and
making it useful to you. The most effective way to do that is through
dialogue and exploration with other readers who are interested in
igniting their genius. At work, within the family, or within our circle
of friends, we can create our own learning community or
community of practice to explore discontinuous learning.
By reflecting on one chapter at a time and holding a weekly
group to discuss the questions that accompany each section, you
may find unique solutions, discover a lot about who you are, and
learn about others and their reflections. Who knows -- team
learning, deep friendships, or entrepreneurial ventures may come out
of it.
Begin with the questions and answer them by yourself first and
then reexamine the aphorisms, stories, quotes and questions. When
you reflect with others and discuss your answers as well as
suggestions for modifying that section (and why you want to do
that) you begin to make this book your own.

Here are some preliminary questions about creating a group

based on the framework presented in the book so far.

How can we ground the group in something that our members

are passionate about, something we share?

• What inspires us?

• What calling aligns with the group’s nature?
• What are we going to nurture?
• How does this stretch beyond our past glory, core
incompetencies, and previous paths or
accomplishments?
219 Discontinuous Learning

• What is the biggest project our group can undertake?

• How much time do we have, individually and as a
group?
• What resources, skills, and capabilities do we have
collectively?
• What will bring us into our full stretching?
• How can we manage these assets to keep from getting
overwhelmed or discharged?
• How will we do something that energizes us?
• What are the first steps?

Create your own pyramid:

Images of the pyramid model discussed in this book and images

for constructing your own pyramid can be found at:

http://www.kaipagroup.com/books/pyramid.html

I have done what I can to provoke you, and now you can
engage with other excellent people in your life and out in the world.
You can contact me at [email protected] if you are interested
in sharing your insights, modifications and questions.
220 References and Recommended Reading

SOME BOOKS AND PAPERS THAT HELPED

ME LEARN ABOUT DISCONTINUOUS
LEARNING…
Aristotle, Complete Works of Aristotle: Revised Oxford Translation, vols. 1
and 2, edited by Jonathan Barnes. Princeton, NJ: Princeton University
Press, 1984.
Bach, Richard. Illusions: The Adventures of a Reluctant Messiah. Boston: G.
K. Hall, 1977.
Barker, Joel Arthur. Discovering the Future: The Business of Paradigms.
HarperBusiness, 1993.
———. Future Edge: Discovering the New Paradigms of Success. Harper
Business, 1992.
Blake, William, in David V. Erdman (Ed.), The Complete Poetry and Prose of
W illiam Blake, revised edition. New York: Anchor/Doubleday, 1988.
Block, Peter. Stewardship: Choosing Service over Self Interest. San
Francisco: Berrett-Koehler, 1993.
Bohm, David. Remarks about the dialogue process, in Peter Senge, The Fifth
Discipline: The Art and Practice of the Learning Organization. New
York: Bantam Doubleday Dell Publishing, 1990.
Borysenko, Joan. Guilt Is the Teacher, Love Is the Lesson. New York: Warner
Books, 1990.
Botkin, Jim. No Limits to Learning. Hamburg, Germany: The Club of Rome,
n.d..
——— and Stanley Davis. The Monster Under the Bed: How Business Is
Mastering the Opportunity of Knowledge for Profit. New York: Simon
& Schuster, 1995.
Briggs, John P. and F. David Peat. Looking Glass Universe. New York:
Simon & Schuster, 1984.
Browne, Sir Thomas. Religio Medici, 1643.
Butler, Pamela E. Self-assertion for women. San Francisco:
HarperSanFrancisco, 1992.
Cabell, James Branch. The Silver Stallion, 1926.
Carlyle, Thomas. Count Cagliostro, 1833.
Churchman, C.W. The Design of Inquiring Systems. New York: Basic Books,
1971.
———. The systems approach. New York: Dell Publishing, 1979.
———. The systems approach and its enemies. New York: Basic Books, 1979.
Collins, Jim. Good to Great: Why Some Companies Make the Leap . . . and
Others Don’t. New York : HarperBusiness, 2001.
Colton, Charles Caleb. Lacon. 1825.
Cooperrider, David and Diana Whitney. Appreciative Inquiry. Williston, VT:
Berrett-Koehler Publishers, 2000.
Cooperrider, David and Jane Dutton. The Organizational Dimensions of
Global Change: No Limits to Cooperation. Thousand Oaks, CA: Sage
Publications, 1999.
221 Discontinuous Learning

Cooperrider, David and S. Srivastva. Organizational Wisdom and Executive

Courage. San Francisco: New Lexington Press, 1998.
Covey, Stephen R. Balancing Work and Family. New York: Franklin Covey,
2001.
———. Principle-Centered Leadership. New York: Fireside, 1992.
———. The Seven Habits of Highly Effective People. New York: Fireside,
1990.
Csikszentmihalyi, Mihaly. Flow: The Psychology of Optimal Experience.
New York: HarperCollins, 1991.
Da Vinci, Leonardo. Notebooks, ca.1500.
DeMello, Anthony. The Song of the Bird. New York: Random House, 1984.
Dunne, Finley Peter. Mr. Dooley Says. 1910.
Eliot, George. Daniel Deronda. 1876.
Eliot, T. S. The Elder Statesman. 1958.
———. Murder in the Cathedral. 1935.
Emerson, Ralph Waldo. Journals. 1840 (of 10 volumes, 1909–14).
Englander-Golden, Paula and Virginia Satir. Say It Straight: From
Compulsions to Choices. Palo Alto, CA: Science & Behavior Books,

1990.
Estrin, Elise. Guide to Developing Equitable Performance Assessments. San
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