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Harvard identifies four biases. IRSA identifies a fifth: anti-learning as the structural default. Here's why effort alone can't fix organizational learning failure.
Francesca Gino and Bradley Staats identified four biases that prevent organizational learning:
Organizations study successes, not failures—missing the lessons that matter most
Preference for doing over reflecting means lessons never get absorbed
Fitting in trumps speaking up, so uncomfortable truths stay hidden
Over-reliance on experts prevents distributed learning across the organization
Learning is natural; biases are barriers to remove.
Anti-learning is the default; learning requires architecture.
| Dimension | Traditional | IRSA |
|---|---|---|
| Root cause | Individual biases and cultural resistance | Structural absence of learning architecture |
| Solution focus | Training, culture change, leadership | Design learning authority and protected pathways |
| Key mechanism | Overcoming psychological barriers | Building structural pathways from insight to change |
| Default state | Learning happens naturally if barriers removed | Anti-learning is the default; learning requires architecture |
| Time horizon | Project/initiative cycles | Institutional lifespan |
Traditional approaches treat organizational learning failure as a problem to overcome— remove the biases, change the culture, get leadership buy-in. IRSA treats it as a problem to solvethrough design.
Without Learning Architecture, more effort simply produces more learning activity— training programs, feedback systems, knowledge management tools—without more learning outcomes. The institution changes what it does, not what it is.
Organizations fail to learn not from laziness or resistance, but because learning isn't architectured into their structure. Without explicit pathways from 'new information arrives' to 'organization actually changes,' activity substitutes for update. Training happens, reports get written, but the institution itself doesn't change.
Traditional approaches identify barriers (biases, culture, resistance) that prevent learning. IRSA identifies anti-learning as the structural default—not a barrier to overcome but the natural state of institutions operating without learning architecture. The difference is between removing obstacles versus building infrastructure.
Organizations learn through Institutional Learning Architecture: creating Learning Authority (someone with mandate to ensure learning changes behavior), Protected Update Pathways (routes from insight to implementation), and structural separation between operational pressure and learning cycles. Culture alone isn't enough—structure must enable learning.
Learning Authority is a governance object with explicit power to mandate institutional change based on learning. Unlike training departments that recommend, Learning Authority can require change. It's the structural equivalent of financial authority or operational authority—first-class governance, not a support function.