A tuba player in an orchestra volunteered that he needed help with "articulation in the higher ranges." Knowing nothing about music, I asked him a question: "How do you know?" He replied: "My tongue feels thick and dry." He played a passage that sounded perfect to my unpracticed ear, but sure enough, he said, his tongue felt thick and dry. I had him play the passage again without trying to do anything different. He was simply to notice any changes in the degree of moisture on his tongue. His second effort sounded identical to me, but the orchestra gave him a standing ovation.

The tuba player said his tongue stayed moist. His colleagues said he had never played so well.

So now you know what you might say if you had to help a tuba player. But you'd probably rather know how to apply the tuba player's lesson to business.

The basic question is this: Lots of companies talk about wanting to be "learning organizations," but do they know how to do this? Most senior executives try to teach employees. Instead, the tuba player's experience shows, executives should primarily coach employees on how to learn. The distinction may seem subtle, but it's crucial.

The tuba player had certainly received plenty of instruction from expert musicians, but when he approached a tough passage he probably experienced an "uh-oh moment." He told himself he was going to fail. Then he tensed up and, sure enough, he played badly--at least to a seasoned ear. The next time around the problem was worse because he had confirmed his fears. And so on, time after time.

It's not as if the tuba player didn't learn from his teachers. Teaching works when there is a discrete body of information, such as tuba technique, that has to be transferred. But traditional teaching techniques do not address uh-oh moments.

Instead, my coaching had the tuba player focus on his tongue, distracting him from his fears about right and wrong. He was instead paying attention to a key variable, which gave him important feedback on something that could make all the difference. He was in a learning environment and he learned immediately.

Real power comes from creating an environment in which people learn from their day-to-day experience, because they're in a sort of "classroom" eight to 12 hours a day. Helping employees to learn from experience is the key to making a company a true learning organization. But creating the right environment means removing barriers to learning. And that requires coaching.

Let's look at organizational barriers to learning:

First is the assumption, "I already know." Professionals often feel that they must project the appearance of perfect competence. When I ask an audience of executives whether they'd like to learn to coach or learn to learn, 80% to 90% say they would rather learn to coach. I then point out the obvious--if you learn how to learn, you can learn anything, including coaching. The reverse is not true. So why not learn to learn?

The unspoken answer is generally that coaching is something you do to improve others' performance, whereas learning happens to me; it means there is something I don't know. So managers' most common response to the growing demand for corporations to become learning organizations is to scramble to become the teachers instead of the taught.

The second barrier is the assumption that learning means remediation--that learning is only appropriate when there is something wrong with you or your performance. To help bring this problem to the surface, I often give group presentations where I draw a triangle that reflects what I believe to be the three aspects of work: Employee performance is at the top of the triangle, while on-the-job learning and enjoyment of work are the two corners at the bottom. I place a pen in the middle of the triangle and start drawing a line up toward performance, asking the group how much more priority is given to performance over learning and enjoyment. As the pen nears the top of the triangle, a voice in the crowd usually pipes up, "Stop there." In response, the majority respond with, "Keep going," until the line has reached several inches outside the peak of the triangle.

There is a general chuckle and a sense of common understanding of corporate priorities. But the valuation of performance at all costs leaves no space for learning. Learning is tolerated only when it affects immediate performance. This attitude, of course, ultimately undercuts performance since even optimal performance can't be maintained unless people keep learning.

The final barrier to learning is doubt. Young children do not feel embarrassed when they do not know something. However, as we age we are taught to feel incompetent if we lack knowledge or are unable to perform up to expectations. We are especially vulnerable to this feeling when we face the challenge of unlearning a bad habit or inefficient way of working. The prospect of acknowledging that we have invested time and effort in a perspective or technique that is no longer relevant is especially threatening.

These three major issues can lead to all sorts of uh-oh moments that limit learning. While coaching people past the barriers requires considerable subtlety and tact, I can offer a couple of starting points:

First, work with employees to help them identify their learning goals or directions--focusing on certain desired attributes, skills, knowledge, etc. To be most effective, these objectives should support performance goals. But employees must avoid the trap of expressing goals in terms of performance; for example, "I want to learn to reach higher sales quotas." The general rule for distinguishing between learning and performance goals is that learning takes place within an individual, while performance takes place on the outside.

Second, managers need to commit to their own learning. In weekly sales meetings, for example, rather than solely focusing on numbers, managers might also ask other questions. What did you find out from customers that you didn't know before--about their resistances, their needs, their perceptions of our products, and how we compare with our competitors? Did you gain any insights into your own selling skills and techniques? And so on.

Both approaches will do much to reduce the fears that surround learning, while helping people focus on key variables.

Despite the performance orientation of so many businesses, it's not enough for people just to be doers. Everyone has to be a learner as well, and the best way to do that is to enroll in the classroom of daily experience.

Mr. Gallwey wrote the best-selling Inner Game books, including "The Inner Game of Tennis". He is currently writing "The Inner Game of Work". He can be reached at innertim@aol.com.