Developing a Learning Organisation
'A learning organisation is a company or other institution within which everybody continuously learns: from customers, from the competition and from colleagues. Just as importantly this learning is shared with colleagues and is embedded within the organisation.'
The term was first used to mean an organisation which learns on the move, adjusting to changing circumstances by Chris Argyris at Harvard Business School, though Peter Senge is most famously associated with the term. Organisations must be designed around knowledge and intellectual capital. Since the capital that many organisations need to be able to function resides in people's heads rather than in machinery on the factory floor, those organisations recognise that people need to be treated with more respect. Hence there is a movement away from hierarchical chains of command towards flattened hierarchies, self-managing teams, and a culture more like the university than the army. Individuals add to their own capital through continuous professional development and lifelong learning. The 'learning organisation' encourages individuals to do this and to embed their learning within the organisation.
This embedded learning ensures that the knowledge belongs to the organisation as well as the individuals
who bring it to the company. This knowledge doesn't go home at night and never resigns. It is often referred to
as 'structural intellectual capital' and is often evident in terms of corporate policies, procedures, systems and
databases. the challenge for
organisations is to capture this learning in the organisation's fabric as 'structural intellectual capital'.
The organisation's intranet is an ideal place to deposit and draw on structural intellectual capital.
"Learning is NOT compulsory, neither is Survival!" - W. Edwards Deming
"An organisation's ability to learn, and to transform that learning into action rapidly, is
the ultimate competitive business advantage." - Jack C Welch. Former CEO, General Electric Company.
"We're a bread company, but we're also a university" - Tom McMakin, Great Harvest Bread Company
See also Action Learning
The Investors in People (IIP) standard has twelve indicators or guidelines for organisations which invest in their people's learning and the organisation's systems.
Note: This web page is not intended to provide comprehensive coverage of the subject, merely a brief introduction to provoke thought and to lead to a more in depth understanding and application of the topic, either through further reading - or from me as your management consultant, executive trainer or personal coach in a consultancy project, training course, workshop or seminar.
References and Further Reading
Argyris, Chris. On Organisational Learning. Blackwell. 1993.
Senge, Peter. The Fifth Discipline: The Art and Science of the Learning Organization. Doubleday. 1990.