Ingenierías, Enero-Marzo 2005, Vol. VIII, No. 26 29 Learning organizations and quadruple loops of feedback Part I. Theoretical models Lorin Loverde lorinloverde@hotmail.com RESUMEN Una organización en aprendizaje va más allá del entrenamiento y el desarrollo a alto nivel de todos los aspectos corporativos. Se describen 4 tipos de retroalimentación para enfatizar la necesidad de aprendizaje multinivel. Se enfatiza sobre los nuevos roles requeridos, incluyendo líderes éticos, líderes transformacionales, liderazgo distribuido, profesores, y equipos auto administrados. PALABRAS CLAVE Organización en aprendizaje, administración, liderazgo, retroalimentación, equipos autoadministrados. ABSTRACT The learning organization should not be limited to training and development; it should include the higher levels of re-organizing of all aspects of corporations by changing to more distributive leadership and more teamwork, which increases participation to knowledge development by all the people in the organization. Four types of feedback loops are described to emphasize the need for multi-leveled learning. New roles are emphasized, including ethical leaders, transformational leaders, distributed leadership, practitioner faculty, and Self-Managed Teams. KEYWORDS Learning organization, management, leadership, feedback, self managed teams. What should we learn to achieve organizational excellence? New management theories with their advice keep popping up as people discover more laws of nature. We can consider some of the conceptual models that have developed over the past few decades. When stimulus-response psychology discovered reinforcement, management theory created the transactional model of leadership where trades and rewards are given for performance. When humanistic psychology discovered cooperative tendencies, management theory created sensitivity training where appreciation of people increased performance. When quantum theory discovered observer effects, management theory created participation in relationships where interaction among members contributes to the field effect. When complexity theory