21-07-2014, 10:35 AM
DEVELOPING A LEARNING ORGANIZATION
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Introduction
It’s been the buzz phrase of the ‘90s: learning organization. Sounds good, feels
good, must be good. But, what exactly is it? And how do we become one?
We’ve found in our research and practice on the theme that there are many
sources of information about the learning organization. Much of it, however, is
wishful thinking. Some is simply a product of an academic’s or consultant’s
imagination. After all, what do we academics and consultants have to sell apart
from our knowledge? It’s not as if we actually make something tangible.
Learning is our product; it’s what we try to deliver everyday, whether by
research, writing or teaching. No wonder we’re obsessed with it. But, after a
while, we find ourselves in a marketing nightmare of product orientation.
Are we really able to recommend or create learning organizations? As
academics, we know our own institutions are the opposite of anything we’d
recommend to an external organization. We’re bureaucratic, slow to change,
hierarchical, removed from our customers’ (sorry, students) needs and buried in
our own narrow worlds of tightly-focused disciplines. In our world, the phrase
multi-disciplinary (read: cross-functional) is often an insult, a euphemism for
poorly-constructed, non-rigorous pop-speak. We are the last thing from a
learning organization. But we’ll tell you all about how to do it. At length.
Or, we can decide to write about it in 500 tips or less. We think about the
difficulty of reducing complex subjects to simple, practice-based sentences, but
we know we’re just stalling. We know perfectly well that if an idea, philosophy,
or practice can’t be summed up simply and succinctly, it probably hasn’t been
clarified in the author’s mind.
And so, we wrestled with some of the bigger, broader, hazier concepts and
checked out what is really happening. We looked back through learning theory
and compared it to practice, then whittled it down to practical tips. We applied
what we knew about the dynamics of systems and found workable advice. The
only thing we didn’t do was strive for consensus.
True to our idea of the learning organization incorporating emerging
learning, we welcomed the changes and shifts as our book took shape. We
accepted our different viewpoints. We didn’t compromise – by which we mean
we didn’t try to water down our different perspectives and experiences into a
meaningless, diluted, single mass. We even accepted our different writing styles.
We therefore hope we’ve brought to you a lively book, not a sedate text. We
hope you’ll be intrigued, surprised, inspired and excited by the prospect of
developing a learning organization.
Who is this book for?
This book is for those wanting an intelligent, practical guide to creating a
learning organization. It will appeal equally to the professional manager
wanting insight and a hands-on tool, as it will to the academic grateful for a
no-nonsense summary of the learning organization theory and practice. A
distinctive quality is the transatlantic focus – drawing on the authors’ research
and experience in North America and Europe. It’s for:
What does this book cover?
This book is structured from the most general to the most specific. We start
with a dream, a vision for learning, wherein we challenge some assumptions
about what a learning organization is, and come up with a few of our own.
The pattern leads from a dream about an organization, to questions and ideas
about how we will fit learning into our purpose and practice. Finally, slightly
tongue in cheek, we carefully describe how to grab learning by the throat and
squeeze its breath out of your organization.
Continuing the theme of learning, we look at different aspects of learning
theory in practice, mainly focusing on the adaptable nature of flexible
learning. How we look at learning depends on our vantage point in the
organization. Accordingly, the second chapter takes a slice of the subject from
different angles – the learners’, trainers’, human resource professional and the
organization as a whole.
One aspect of learning we find is often neglected in the literature on
organizational learning is the individual. One person at a time learns, and
each person learns and finds value in learning differently. The tips in Chapter 3
3 focus on how each person can respond to the challenge of learning, and even
the everyday challenges of life.
The fourth chapter explores the notion of learning together. Why is it
difficult for people to help each other? How do we break down barriers and
become closer? It probably results from getting to know each other, and
understanding how our individual and shared goals merge. That doesn’t mean
it’s easy. That’s why we examine the delicate area of gender, and talk about
how to establish common groundrules.
In the next chapter we move to the theme of creating systems – for what is
a system but captured learning, the best we know at the time? What we want
to do here is not only capture our learning, but learn from what we’ve
captured and change it accordingly. We consider the nature of systems
themselves, the management of knowledge, and one good way to embed skills
and knowledge in the organization – competencies. Action learning helps us
to keep all of this alive by involving everyone in questioning processes,
leading to applying learning to real-time issues. This chapter then takes a dive
into the quantifiable, measurable world of quality and schemes like ISO 9000
and Investors in People. And, so it should, for if learning is to really become
part of the organization, it must become part of its fabric, of the texture of its
hard and soft systems.
Our final chapter considers your future as a centre of learning. McDonald’s
has a university. Disney has a world-renowned school attracting managers
from organizations all over the world. Why not you? How do you dispense
with the notion that somebody else, somebody outside your organization, has
answers that will work better than those created by your own people? Start by
acting small, remembering what it was like to be close to the site of action, to
your customers. Create a syllabus that reflects your needs in your context.
Create learning advisors and professors from your own staff. Publish your
findings and research. And, lastly, make sure you’re celebrating and
rewarding your successes.
Planning with a pen
It’s only too easy to ponder and plan for ages without really making any
progress. Whatever you’re going to do, clear it from your head and get it on
paper (or on your computer screen). The following suggestions can help
people to keep their heads clear, and their pens busy!
1 Always have a pen and paper with you. Always have a pen and paper with you. Always have a pen and paper with you. You never know when inspiration Always have a pen and paper with you.
will strike. You probably already know how frustrating it is when you
can’t manage to recall that bright idea that occurred to you. Don’t clutter
your brain with things that you’re trying to store; get them down on
paper where you can go back to them when you choose to.
2 Don’t write sentenc Don’t write sentenc Don’t write sentences, write words. es, write words. es, write words. Ideas are about words rather than es, write words.
sentences. Sentences tend to constrain the ideas that might have been
expressed in key words or phrases. Words, mind-maps, arrows, links are
reflections of the higher levels of thinking.
3 Use colours. Use colours. Use colours. Try colour coding your words and ideas on paper. Sometimes Use colours.
you can use different colours at the instant of writing the words, but more
often the colour coding is a follow-up process to thinking of the words.
Coloured boxes round key words, or different colours of highlighting can
be an efficient way to introduce codes of priority and sequence into your
captured thoughts.
Make your senior managers into
professors
The job of a senior manager is to make sure that everything runs according to
plan – right? Well, yes and no. Today, a senior manager’s job has to
encompass that and more. He or she has to be directly responsible for
ensuring that there is a future generation of capable people to help to grow
and develop the business now and in the future. Senior managers have a
specific role to develop those around them. In a learning organization, they
are your professors. Here are some tips to help your senior managers to be
professors in your organizational academy of excellence.