Time for triple-loop thinking: Are we asking the right geo-strategic, economic and social questions?

A revealing picture in the White House’s archives shows US National Security Advisor Henry Kissinger and Chinese Premier Zhou Enlai shaking hands in Beijing on 9 July 1971, when Kissinger made his secret dash for a détente with China.

The press was told that Kissinger was unwell and resting in Pakistan. President Yahya Khan of Pakistan had arranged the meeting, which was followed by another between Richard Nixon and Mao Zedong on 21 February 1972 to formalize the détente that Trump has ended.

The Zhou-Kissinger picture captures the two countries’ approaches to diplomacy: an eager Kissinger reaching out for Zhou’s hand and a gracious Zhou reciprocating. Kissinger contrasted the two approaches. The Chinese approach, he said, was historically grounded, philosophically oriented and based on thinking in terms of a process over decades.

He contrasted that with US diplomacy, which tends to seek quick agreements and focus on immediate outcomes (Trump’s ‘art of the deal’). Since then, the difference has become a template: for Americans, urgency and immediacy matter; and for the Chinese, patience and civilizational time. As Kissinger said: “The Americans have a list of things… the Chinese have an objective.”

This is a historic example of ‘triple-loop thinking’ in diplomacy: not just what each side wants, but how each side understands time itself. From this springs ‘triple-loop learning,’ which refers to how individuals or organizations learn at progressively deeper levels. It extends ideas from organizational learning developed by thinkers such as Chris Argyris and Donald Schön. Think of the three ‘loops’ as layers of reflection.

Single-loop learning asks, ‘Are we doing things right?’ This is the most basic level. You notice a problem and correct it without questioning the underlying assumptions. It is about improving efficiency within existing rules. Example: If a project is delayed, you work faster or adjust the schedule.

Double-loop learning asks, ‘Are we doing the right things?’ Here, you step back and question the assumptions, policies, or goals behind your actions. You may need to change strategy, not just the execution. Example: Instead of speeding up the project, you ask whether its design, goals, or timelines are flawed.

Triple-loop learning asks ‘How do we decide what is right?’ This is the deepest level. You reflect on the frameworks, values and ways of thinking that shape decisions. You ask how you define success, learn and interpret reality. Example: You examine how your organization defines ‘success, how decisions are made, whose voices count and whether your approach to planning needs to change.

Former prime minister Manmohan Singh invited me to join India’s Planning Commission in 2009 with a special charge: to reform the way plans were being made and implemented. China had gone far ahead of India in terms of all three objectives of India’s five-year plans: faster, more inclusive and more sustainable growth.

Both were equally poor until the 1980s. Then their trajectories diverged. China’s GDP is about five times ours, its manufacturing sector eight times larger and its high-tech sector 50 times.

Development involves learning to do what a country could not and acquiring new capabilities. China’s policymakers have proven to be faster learners than India’s. China also made five-year plans. The difference lay in how their plans were made and their content.

Above all, China’s leaders stayed on their socialist course, insisting that the purpose of the state is to promote the welfare of people, not serve private interests, while India’s leaders jumped ship too soon; persuaded by the Washington Consensus, India joined the neo-liberal voyage of market orientation in 1991.

Triple-loop learning turns leadership from problem-solving into meaning-making. It is difficult because leaders must question their own mental models. It is a discipline of reflection: identifying your assumptions, examining how they were formed and rethinking them if need be.

Our leaders must rethink three assumptions.

First, in the strategic sphere, the assumption that getting closer to the US will secure India better against Pakistan and China, with which we have unsettled border disputes. Another assumption is that Israel, a colonial Jewish state amid Muslim-majority Asian countries, one that’s dependent on the US for its survival, can be a viable strategic partner.

Second, in the economic sphere, India should give up the thinking that has guided its policies since 1991—that expansion of international trade should come before building stronger domestic industries. A country with the largest population in the world must build more industries for its own needs. We need not just more pathways for sustainable employment, but also strategic independence from foreign technologies.

Third, the hallucinatory assumption that India can be a country good for only its Hindu majority. For India to become strong, secure and a democratic beacon for the world, all our citizens—whatever their religion, ethnicity or caste, rich or poor—must be treated as equals. And they must feel equal too.

The author is a former member of the Planning Commission.