How do you recognize a learning organization?
How is it different from organizations that deliver relatively structured learning programs?
Organizations that have the capacity and capability to transform themselves into intelligent, proficient engines of change…such that the learning inside the organization is equal to or greater than the change occurring outside…are learning organizations.
These organizations possess greater knowledge, flexibility, power, speed and learning ability to better manage the shifting needs of a new environment, more demanding customers, and smarter knowledge workers. The conclusion is that organizations that learn faster will adapt faster and therefore achieve significant strategic advantages in the global world of business.
Learning organizations are able to harness the collective genius of their people as individuals, as groups and as an organization. Needless to say, this capability combined with technology, knowledge management and people empowerment can become a truly sustainable competitive advantage for organizations seeking a significant presence in global markets.
Learning organizations are often mistaken to be organizations that have structured learning programs, on those which invest resources in training and offer development value propositions to their employees.
Learning organizations are all this and more. At the heart of a learning organizations is the need to change, adapt and enable knowledge to be deployed through organizational processes such that the organization like individual is able to remain at the cutting edge of knowledge that has organically evolved and processed within the organization, when used in conjunction with constantly emerging new knowledge this enables the organization to adapt, change and develop a sustainable competitive edge. The emergence of learning organizations.
Today organizations are increasingly wary of becoming extinct, the knowledge strategies, hardships and technology of yesterday will not had to success in tomorrow’s world.
In an environment of continual mergers, rapid technological advances, massive societal changes and competition, it is obvious that organizations must increase their corporate capacities to learn if they are to continue to succeed. They would have to learn better and faster from their successes and failures and continuously transform themselves into organizations where everyone would increase their productive and adaptive capabilities only by enhancing their capacity to learn.
From the early 1990s a number of organizations embarked on their journey of becoming learning organizations: Corning, Federal Express, Fords, General Electric, Motorola, and Singapore Airlines (in Asia) are some examples. These companies put organization-wide, systems-wide learning with the resulting service and product improvements as the best route to not just servicing but succeeding.
Learning organizations reflect, learn, change, adapt because they believe the process of constant transformation will give them their differentiated value proposition. They have some identifiable common features:
- Learning organizations have a clear picture of future knowledge requirement. Efforts are constantly made to predict skills and capabilities required in the future so that the organization invests resources in developing these capabilities for a competitive
Practically, this means having a structured learning needs identification process that leads to the development of a calendar of Learning Programs that are relevant and aligned to the business plan and strategy of the organization.
Learning organizations invest in extensive development dialogues to keep their employees at the cutting edge of knowledge, skills, and capabilities that can make the organization future ready, assessing the strategic relevance of having programs is key with strong learning mechanisms which ensures that “training” converts to learning. Calwich and Roy Pollock in their path breaking book called “6-Disciplines for Breakthrough Learning” describes the Define, Design, Deliver, Drive, Deploy, Document process for enabling Learning to convert to Business Results.
- Learning organizations invest in knowledge transfer and create platforms to manage knowledge so that critical knowledge does not remain tacit in the minds of people who may eventually The learning organization knows what it knows.
Investing in a powerful coaching and mentoring program is a meaningful way of ensuring knowledge transfer within organizations. A formal program developing mentors who can share their teachable points of view (TPOV* ) can speed up knowledge transfer within organization efforts succession planning and development can also enable critical knowledge to remain ensuring business continuity and prevention of loss of knowledge when people in key roles leave.
Investment in technology, platform for knowledge management and building communities of practice are also innovative ways of ensuring knowledge remains and grows within the organization.
- Learning organizations have mechanisms for working on issues and problems; they do not shoot the messenger and have the ability to reflect on feedback with a problem
– solution orientation.
Using survey feedback is a powerful mechanism to get information from unhappy customers, problems with new processes or technology that can be addressed and would on Learning organizations invest extensively on open communication platforms such as town halls, Open Houses, Focus Group Discussions, etc. to understand and manage discordant information so it can constantly act on feedback.
- Learning organizations reflect on past experiences, distill them into useful lessons and share knowledge internally.
They have a “Lessons Learnt” culture where leaders, teams, individuals reflect on mistakes, dialogue about them and document learning extensively so that the same mistakes are never repeated. Building a ‘Lessons Learnt’ practice within the organization where at the end of important milestones, there is a practice of reflecting on the lessons the team has collectively learnt is an important practice to enable the organization to avoid repeating the same mistakes. Action Planning workshops announcing survey feedback, performance and development reviews, business reviews, are all important opportunities to internalize ‘Lessons Learnt’.
- Learning organizations have the courage ‘to change behaviours and not just remain repositories of knowledge’. They have processes to seek feedback from customers, employees, other stake holders but few develop organizational renewal mechanisms to act on and implement actions related to feedback and display the humility to
This would acquire internal mechanisms that enable action, follow through on insights, gear the organization into action (performance contacts, action trackers) and most importantly would require an incubating environment that values action orientation and achievement, acting on knowledge and insights requires a leadership that has a gumption to correct the course and the humility to learn from the past. Learning organizations constantly strive in their need to keep the internal flux of change equal to or more than the change in the macro environment making their organizations differentiated with their constant fervor to improve and succeed.
This humility to accept what is not working, adapt and change is what finally accrues as a competitive advantage. In case your organization fulfills (say) two of the five dimensions mentioned above, it means it is on its’ way to becoming a learning organization: intentional efforts to address the other areas are probably required.
Fortunately, the same forces that created changes in the business environment also serve as a foundation for building learning organizations. Competition and technological forces mandated a flatter seamless organization, knowledge workers with greater mobility and choices force organizations to empower them. Customer expectations and options require companies to continually learn ways to delight the customer. Rapid and ongoing changes in skills required compel employees to become continuous learners. Undoubtedly the organization that is able to capture these multiple forces and synergize them will advance on the evolutionary ladder to become the learning organization.
Like Einstein once said, “No problem can be solved from the same consciousness that created it; we must learn to see the world anew”. Learning organizations constantly renew structures, mindsets and create knowledge that seeks to find answers for the future.
