Although there are a variety of diagnostic models available (e.g., Weisbord- Six Box, McKinsey 7-S, etc.), these typically focus on specific elements of the organization such as leadership or communication, rather than the process of renewal. The Reflective Learning Diagnostic (RLD) Model is an effort to redirect attention from fixed phenomena or even focal processes to the overriding process of individual/team/organization learning and what prevents that learning from occurring.

A purely solution focused approach, while building on successes, may not improve learning as rapidly as locating barriers and removing them, while focusing on constructive learning at the same time. As Lewin pointed out decades ago, to increase forces for change usually results in a corresponding increase in forces against change. By locating the restraining forces and removing them (or the reasons for their functioning in a system), the promoters of change can proceed uninhibited.

The RLD model emphasizes the four stages of the Reflective Learning Cycle: doing, reflecting, interpreting, and planning. When a person, team or organization progresses through all four stages of the cycle, it is possible to improve performance by identifying what does/does not work and revise the practices. If any of the stages or completion of all stages are truncated, learning does not occur or is suboptimized. Using the RLD model we ask the following questions:

• Reflection
• do you take sufficient time to reflect on what you have been doing?
• do you know what to observe?
• do you have an adequate/specialized vocabulary to make distinctions in what you observe and communicate it to others?
• is the environment supportive of open expression of what is observed?
• Interpretation
• is there a model or other cenceptual structure for interpreting the reflections?
• are time and effort legitimized for staff to engage in interpretation
• is there consensus on intrepretation?
• are there channels for communicating the conclusions reached?
• Planning
• do the interpretations lend themselves to changing the practices?
• is there concensus regarding what should be changed and how?
• is there organizational support for the change?
• are the proposed changes feasible?

The Reflective Learning Cycle is not sufficient in itself to ensure adequate coverage of the learning process. Even with it, the assumptions, values, and beliefs can lead to biased or negligent learning. For example, particular bias may prevent people from even noticing certain events on which to reflect, thereby eliminating them from being changed. This means that periodically that one's paradigm or the constellation of beliefs, assumptions and values that operates on the reflective learning cycle should also be examined. The following questions may be asked:

• Meta-cycle
• have we only been searching for confirmatory information?
• do we have a mechanism for searching for disconfirmatory information?
• how do we (and how often) check and challenge our basic assumptions, values and beliefs?
• if we found disconfirmatory information, would we really allow this to influence how we examine change?

In summary, this approach simply asks the questions, how well are each of the stages of reflective learning operating, and what may be preventing them from being fully used? The answers to these questions has implications for what much be considered in the intervention.

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