"In a fast-paced, continually shifting environment resilience to change is often the single most important factor that distinguishes those who succeed from those who fail."- - Tom Peters
The crux of this idea is that for a Learning Organisation to be achieved many changes must be implemented. There can be no doubt that an organisation that enters such changes without a full commitment to them will not succeed. Hence it is constantly re-framing ; looking at problems from different angles or developing and exercising skills. In short, it is never static. To comply with this, the people in the organisation must continually adapt to changing circumstances.
It is vital that the changing process be driven from the very top levels of the
organisation: the managers must lead the changes with a
positive attitude and have a clear vision of what is to be achieved. It is
crucial that the management all agree to the strategy and
believe in it so that they exude a sense of security and self-assurance.
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"If learning comes through experience, it follows that the more one participates in guided experiences, the more one learns. Therefore venturing into uncharted waters - and experiencing the failures that may occur - is an important part of organisational learning."- Gould, DiBella, Nevis (TheSystems Thinker, Vol. 4 No. 6)
Every change requires a certain degree of experimentation. To allow this experimentation is the central concept behind a Learning Organisation. Giving employees opportunities and responsibilities is a risk and can be costly in terms of resources. However for a company to learn it is a necessary risk, and approached in a positive manner, will bring many benefits. Innovation, after all, is what sets a company apart.
A Learning Organisation needs to experiment by having both formal and informal ways of asking questions, seeking out theories, testing them, and reflecting upon them. It should try to predict events and plan to avoid mistakes -- be active rather than passive. One way to do this is to review their competitors' work and progress and try to learn from their experiences. A Japanese strategy is to send their senior executives on study visits to other countries, raising questions and gathering ideas. They then review the visits and try to learn from them.
Just like the changing process, the learning process has to start from the top of the organisation and finds its way throughout.
However there is a danger in delegating the questions and theories to
lower groups, as the senior executives could feel no ownership of the process
and are unlikely to take risks with the conclusions. When John Harvey-Jones
became chairman of ICI, he gave a lot of time and attention to creating space
for the top executives to question, think and learn.
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"Incorporate others' good points into oneself so that one improves; self-reflect upon others' bad points so that one does not commit the same mistake."
-Confucius
"For learning to be more than a local affair, knowledge must be spread quickly and efficiently throughout the organisation"- David Gavin (Building a Learning Organisation)
It is important for a company to learn from its mistakes and also to appreciate its successes. Discussion and contribution in a team framework is vital, followed by assessment and planning. Each member should be encourage to self-assess their own performance.This requires continuous feedback and assessment which is easy to implement as a Learning Cycle :
The learning should not just stop at the team, however. Lateral spread of knowledge throughout the company can be implemented by a number of mechanisms. Oral, written and visual presentations; site visit and tours; personnel rotation programmes; education and training programmes will all encourage the spread of knowledge and experiences along with reduction of hierarchy and red tape present in many stagnant companies.
To learn from ones mistakes , one must be able to accept failure, analyse the reasons for the failure and take action. Disappointment and mistakes are part of the changing process and essential to learning. A true Learning Organisation will treat mistakes as case studies for discussion, thus learning, and ensuring the same mistake does not happen again.
For this to be done without blame, and with implied forgiveness, the learning
has to be guided by a neutral mentor or coach. This
figure may be from inside or outside the organisation, and need not necessarily
possess much authority. It is often beneficial to an organisation to form a
list of mentors, whose services they can rely on. If this is the case, then it
is a pointer to the fact that the organisation has accepted the theory behind
possessing negative capability.
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"Enthusiastic borrowing replaces the `not invented here' syndrome; Milliken calls the process SIS, for `Steal Ideas Shamelessly'."-- David Gavin (Building a Learning Organisation)
In order to keep a leading edge over its counterparts, the learning organisation has to keep abreast with the happenings in its internal and external environment. Technical and political issues which may exert pressure on the organisation's current and future operations are identified and monitored.
Joint-ventures provide precious opportunities of actively observing how others' systems are run. In such cases, learning objectives should be clearly stated in the contractual agreements between the allies to avoid any future misunderstandings. Accusations of corporate spying are serious matter hence everything should be brought out in the open right from the start and nothing should be done on the sly.
Customers represent the best research and development source as they know
exactly what they and the market in general want. Moreover, this invaluable
resource is free! Hence, it is worthwhile to try to involve the customers in
product/ service design.
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"Some of the most effective consultants your organisation could ever hire are already working for you."- Jim Clemmer (Firing on all Cylinders)
"Employees themselves, more often than not, know what needs to be done to improve operations."- Kanter, Moss (The Change Masters)
The above quotes are very true, however it could also be said that in the past a company's employees were there most under-rated and under-used consultants. The importance of this point cannot be overemphasised. The financial implications of learning from within are an obvious long term bonus. It is estimated that only 20% of an employees skills are utilised. This inefficiency can easily be overcome by training and multi-skilling.
"A learning culture rewards breakthroughs and initiative."
-- Al Flood (The Learning Organisation)
The performance appraisal is meant to reflect the organisation's commitment to create a learning culture, that is, to promote acquisition of new skills, teamwork as well as individual effort, openness and objectivity and continuous personal development. The fragile human ego yearns for acknowledgement from superiors and fellow colleagues for one's work, in some form of reward or, simply, feedback. Everyone wants to feel that he or she is doing a `real' job and actively contributing to the proper functioning of the organisation.
Caution should be taken when defining benchmarks for performance appraisal. No self-conscious member in the organisation should be left feeling neglected. When individuals lose confidence or give up hope, the learning organisation has failed. Therefore, the efforts put in and learning gained throughout the process should be recognised as well as the end-result. In addition, considerations taken in the performance appraisal should be incorporated into criteria for hiring new employees and promoting current staff.
Annual performance reviews for pay-raise and promotion serve well for long term
feedback and reward. However, it is also very important to have feedback and
reward on a short term basis such as having one's mistake pointed out
on-the-spot, and receiving appreciation and recognition there and then.
Sometimes, being able to witness the overall accomplishment of one's work is
self rewarding.
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Rather it should be asking:
The answers for most organisations must start with the customer or client --
who are they? What do they really want and need ? . This is really the essence of the
phrase "a proper selfishness" -- it is right that the organisation think of
itself in the ways outlined above, but it must remember why it is there. It is
there for the sole purpose of serving customers and clients (otherwise how
could it exist?). If an organisation neglects this fact, it is exhibiting
"improper selfishness" , and is ultimately set for failure.
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These points can all be summed up into one phrase -- care for the individual.
People do not take risks with those that they do not trust or genuinely care
for. It then follows that organisations which possess a friendly and
trustworthy working environment are more likely to succeed in today's climate
of change, when calculated risk taking is part of getting ahead of the field.
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