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Multi-team systems (MTSs) are expected to respond effectively to complex challenges while remaining responsive and adaptable and preserving inter-team linking mechanisms. The leadership team of an MTS is expected to configure and reconfigure component teams to meet the unique needs of each situation and perform. How do they learn to do this? This paper, using a recent MTS learning theory as a basis, aims to begin to understand how MTSs learn and stimulate ideas for future research.

The authors use two case studies to address research questions. The first case was a snapshot in time, while the second case occurred over several months. Interviews, documents and participant observation were the data sources.

As suggested by theory, findings support the idea that learning triggers, the timing of the triggers and readiness to learn (RtL) affect the type of learning process that emerges. The cases showed examples of adaptive and generative team learning. Strong and clear triggers, occurring during performance episodes, led to adaptive learning. When RtL was high and triggers occurred during hiatus periods, the associated learning process was generative.

Using an available theoretical model and case studies, the research describes how MTS readiness to learn and triggers for learning affect MTS learning processes and how learning outcomes became codified in the knowledge base or structure of the MTS. This provides a framework for subsequent qualitative and quantitative research.

Extending a model of how teams learn, this paper aims to present a model of multiteam system (MTS) learning, comparing similarities and differences between how MTSs learn and how component teams learn. The paper describes the value of adaptive, generative and transformative learning for increasing MTS development over time.

The model proposes that environmental demands trigger adaptive, generative and transformative MTS learning, which is further increased by the MTS’s readiness to learn. Learning can happen during performance episodes and during hiatus periods between performance episodes.

Learning triggers coupled with readiness to learn and the cycle and phase of MTS process influence the learning process (adaptive, generative or transformative), which in turn influences the learning outcomes.

The study offers a number of research propositions with the idea that the model and propositions will stimulate research in this area.

This model allows MTS and component team leaders and facilitators to recognize that MTS learning is a process that is needed to help component teams work together and help the MTS as a whole perform in current and future situations, thereby improving MTS effectiveness.

Little attention has been given to the notion that MTSs learn and develop. This manuscript is the first to emphasize that MTSs learn and identify processes that can improve learning. Adaptive, generative and transformative processes describe how MTSs learn and produce changes in MTS structure and actions.

The purpose of our research was to use Day, Harrison, and Halpin’s, (2009) theory of leadership development as a premise to investigate how students’ constructive development is related to their leader identity development and understanding of leadership. Baxter Magolda’s Model of Epistemological Reflection (MER, 1988, 2001) was used to understand constructive development, Komives, Owen, Longerbeam, Mainella, & Osteen’s Leadership Identity Development (2005) to determine leader identity, and Drath’s principles of leadership (2001) to determine understanding of leadership. Fifty junior and senior college student leaders filled out the MER and participated in an interview about their leadership experiences. Interviews were coded according to the above constructs of leader identity development and leadership understanding. Although there was a relationship between leader identity development and understanding of leadership, no relationship was found between these two constructs and constructive development. Findings suggest that most of the student leaders still depend on others to help them construct reality. Furthermore, many believe that because they are in a leadership role, they are leaders while others are not.

The purpose of this study was to evaluate final projects in a freshman leadership course (combining grounding in leadership theories with a service-learning component) to determine what students learned about leadership, themselves as developing leaders, and leading in the civic community, and how deeply they learned these concepts. Students found situational leadership theories, team leadership theories, and leadership principles (Drath, 2001) most relevant to their experiences. Personally, students learned about themselves as individuals, leaders, team members, and community members. Civically, students learned how to apply leadership theories, work in teams, and about the community as a system. In terms of depth of learning, based on Bloom’s (1956) taxonomy, students were able to identify, describe, and apply concepts and to some extent analyze and synthesize them. These findings suggest that using service learning to help students learn about both the theory and practice of leadership is a viable alternative.

This descriptive study used an interview protocol developed by the Center for Creative Leadership with 50 college student leaders to determine what key developmental events young college leaders experience and the leadership lessons learned from these events. Students discussed 180 events and 734 lessons learned from them. Most events defined by students were challenging assignments, although events dealing with other people, coursework, and formal leadership programs were also mentioned. Top lessons included communication, self-identity, leadership identity, and developing leadership task and management skills. While many lessons could be learned in a variety of different ways, a number of challenging assignments stood out as important for learning certain lessons. Findings suggest that faculty and administrators involved with student leaders can help the students take a proactive approach to developing themselves as leaders by targeting important events and important lessons to learn.

The aim of this study is to analyze a framework of team learning that includes three learning processes (adaptive, generative, and transformative), factors that stimulate these processes, and consequences of them. The variables provided a field study of the model.

In the field study, 69 project teams of 3 to 11 students and their instructors responded to surveys.

Positive learning stimuli were related to adaptive and generative learning processes, while negative stimuli were related to transformative learning processes. Learning processes were related to individual student learning outcomes. In addition, adaptive and generative learning processes were positively related to team and instructor ratings of outcome quality, while transformative learning was negatively related to team ratings of outcome quality.

The results were subject to the following limitations: cross‐sectional design, mostly self‐report measures, and the lack of control endemic to field research. As such, this study is viewed as an initial test of the team‐learning model in a field setting. Additional research, including longitudinal designs and experimental designs, are called for.

This study adds to the growing literature on group learning. Educators and managers need to be aware that there are different kinds of learning processes in which groups can engage and that these are stimulated to occur differently and have a different impact on outcomes.

Team learning is rarely assessed directly as a construct in its own right and there is a lack of empirical support delineating causes and consequences of team learning. This field study is a first step in this direction.

In exploring the impact of digital technology on leadership, we identify e‐leadership as a complex challenge that is characterized by five key paradoxes: swift and mindful; individual and community; top‐down and grass‐roots; details and big picture; and flexible and steady. For people to function effectively in this changing environment, a broader definition of leadership is needed – one where people in organizations make sense together of the challenges facing them and where they participate in leadership at every level. This requires a training environment where individual skills of perspective‐taking, network and coalition building, and story telling are developed along with team‐based skills of using dialogue, managing networks, and protecting voices from the fringe.

The purpose of this paper is to briefly describe a model of group learning, examine variables that stimulate a group to learn and determine the group's readiness to learn, and provide suggested interventions to enhance group readiness to learn.

This practical paper, based on a model of group learning and recent group, learning, and systems literature, examines what triggers groups to learn and what makes groups ready to learn, and then suggest interventions to enhance group readiness to learn. Learning requires that the group recognizes variables that trigger learning. These may be pressures or opportunities from outside the group or encouragement and direction from group members. In addition, the group needs to be ready to learn when the triggers occur. Readiness to learn is a function of the group's maturity, boundary permeability, and learning orientation.

Based on a review of the literature and the model, the paper suggests ways to diagnose learning triggers and readiness and propose interventions to increase general readiness to learn as well as the group's readiness to learn as the group is forming, when the group makes progress, and as the group concludes its work. Finally, the paper presents a case to demonstrate learning triggers and the importance of readiness to learn.

This paper fulfills an identified need by managers in organizations regarding understanding group learning, what triggers it, and how to enhance group readiness to learn and offers practical help to stimulating a group's readiness to learn.

Students of organizations are beginning to recognize the importance of continuous learning in organizations, but to date the concept is not well understood, particularly in terms of how the learning of individuals is related to the learning that takes place in groups, which is related to the learning that occurs in organizations (and all other combinations). To further our understanding, we offer the idea of continuous learning in organizations from a living system's perspective. We view individuals, groups, and organizations as living systems nested in a hierarchy. We propose that living systems can learn in three ways: they can adapt, they can generate, and they can transform. Learning triggers from the environment spark learning, and this relationship is moderated by the system's readiness to learn. Readiness to learn is a function of the permeability of the system's boundaries, the system's stage of development, and the system's meta-systems perspective. Additional research questions are presented to explore learning flow between levels and to determine how the match between one system's pressure for change and another system's readiness to learn affects the emergence of adaptive, generative, and transformative learning. In addition, research questions are offered as a means to test these ideas and build grounded theory. Finally, using this model, the chapter presents three case studies and suggests diagnostic questions to analyze and facilitate continuous learning from a multi-level perspective.

In this response to Day and Tate (this volume) and Markham, Groesbeck, and Swan (this volume), we clarify the concept of continuous learning from a living system's perspective and address the evolution of adaptive, generative, and transformative learning. Further, we assert that a system's drive for homeostasis is actually a fluid, continuous learning process that may vary in the rate and direction of change. Environmental triggers, readiness for learning, and feedback provide leverage points for change and learning within and across individual, group, and organizational systems. Future research is needed to identify and study the effects of these leverage points on systems’ adaptive, generative, and transformative learning.