Learning Organizations
Based on Peter Senge et.al. The Fifth Discipline Fieldbook, 1994, pp.9-59
Why Bother?
Why build a learning organization?
Why commit ourselves to a lifelong attempt to understand and shift the
ways we think and behave?
Because we To manage
want superior change
performance For the truth
To improve Because time
quality demands it
For Clients Because we
For competitive recognize our
advantage interdependence
For energized, Because we
committed work want it
force
Attributes of winning
organizations in the 21st century
Replacing bureaucracy with
aspirations, values and
visions
Systematic understanding
Conversations
Voluntary follower ship
Paradigm Shift In Learning
From individual to collective
From local to global
audience
From just-in-case to just-in-
time and just-enough learning
From scheduled restricted
time period modules to
anywhere/anytime training
modules
Thinking Strategically About Building A
Learning Organization
The essence of the learning
organization
The architecture of learning
organizations
The integrity of the
architecture
Putting it all together
The essence of the
learning organization
Attitudes
Attitudes
and
and
Beliefs
Beliefs
DOMAIN OF
ENDURING CHANGE
(deep learning cycle)
Awareness
Awareness Skills
Skills
and
and and
and
Sensibilities
Sensibilities Capabilities
Capabilities
The Deep Learning cycle is the essence
of a learning organization
Not just the development
of new capacities, but of
fundamental shifts of mind,
individually and
collectively.
The five basic learning
disciplines systems
thinking, personal mastery,
mental models, share
vision and team learning
activates this deep Sustained commitment to the
learning cycle. disciplines keep the cycle going.
When the cycle begins to operate, the
resulting changes are significant and
enduring.
New Skills and Capabilities
Aspirations: To orient Conceptualization: The
themselves towards what capacity to see larger
they really care about; and to systems and forces at play;
change because they want constructing coherent
to, not just because they descriptions of the whole
need to.
Reflection and
Conversation: The capacity
to reflect on deep
Wecan
We candodothings
things
assumptions and patterns of
wecouldnt
we couldntdodo
behaviour both individually
and collectively. before.!
before.!
New Awareness and Sensibilities
Ability to see underlying
structures driving behaviour.
Increasingly aware of the
ways in which we continually
construct our views of the
world.
Listening to the whole,
hearing not only what is said,
but the deeper meanings
New Attitudes and Beliefs
New awarenesses The set of beliefs
are gradually and assumptions
assimilated into that develops over
basic shifts in time in a learning
attitudes and organization is so
beliefs. different from the
It takes time. traditional
When it does, it hierarchical,
represents change authoritarian
at the deepest organizational
level in an world view.
organization
culture.
The architecture of
learning organizations
Guiding Ideas
DOMAIN OF ACTION
(organizational architecture)
Innovations in Theory, Methods,
infrastructure and Tools
Guiding Ideas
(Governing Ideas)
Good ideas drive out bad ideas.
Can be developed and articulately
deliberately long been a central
function of genuine leadership.
Starts with vision, values and
purpose what the organization
stands for and what its members
seek to create.
Distinguishing features of powerful
guiding ideas philosophical depth
and seeing the process as on-going
Three Key Guiding Ideas for
Learning Organizations
The primacy of the
whole: Relationships The generative
are in a general sense, power of language:
more fundamental than Shows the subtle
things, and that wholes interdependency
are primordial to parts. operating whenever
Dividing a cow in half we interact with
does not make two reality and implies
small cows. a radical shift in how
we see some of the
The community changes coming
nature of self: To see about. When we
the inter-relatedness measure the world
that exist in us. There we change it.
is no such thing as
human nature
independent of
culture.
Theory, Methods and Tools
Enhance the capabilities that
characterize the learning
organizations: aspirations, reflection,
conversation and conceptualization.
Basic connections between theory,
method and tools underlie each of
the five learning disciplines.
Innovations in infrastructure
Will enable people to
develop capabilities like
systems thinking and
collective inquiry within the
context of their jobs.
Infrastructure: resources - time,
management support, money,
information, ready contact with
colleagues, etc. to support people
in their work.
The integrity of the architecture
Leaders intent on developing
learning organizations must focus
on all three of the architectural
design elements. Without all three,
the triangle collapses. Without theory, methods and tools
Without guiding ideas, there is no people cannot develop the new
passion, no overarching sense of skills and capabilities required for
direction or purpose. deeper learning.
Without innovations in
infrastructure, inspiring ideas and
powerful tools lack credibility
because people have neither the
opportunity nor resources to pursue
their visions or apply the tools.
Attitudes
Attitudes
and
and
Beliefs
Beliefs
Guiding Ideas DOMAIN OF
ENDURING CHANGE
Awareness (deep learning cycle)
Awareness Skills
and Skills
and and
Sensibilities and
Sensibilities Capabilities
Capabilities
DOMAIN OF ACTION
(organizational architecture) Putting it all
together
Innovations in Theory, Methods,
infrastructure and Tools
The triangle or organizational
architecture represents the most
tangible form of efforts the key
focus for activity.
The circle represents the more
subtle underlying discipline-based
learning cycle the central
causality of change.
While we focused on the
triangle, we are mindful
of the circle.
Results
Ultimately, learning is judged by
results.
The problem is knowing how and
when to measure important results.
There are two interrelated
issues: patience and
quantification.
Patience
Deeper learning often does not produce
tangible evidence for a considerable time.
You dont pull up the radishes to see how
they are growing.
Time periods for measurement
must be congruent with the
gestation period of the learning.
Measurements that are
prematurely will lead to
erroneous conclusions.
Measure quantitatively that which should be
quantified; measure qualitatively that which should
not be quantified.
There will be some important
quantifiable results.
But, many of the most important
results of organizational learning
are not quantifiable: intelligence,
openness, innovativeness, high
moral quality, courage,
confidence, genuine caring.
Quantification
The Implicate Order:
where everything is folded into everything
The Western word measure and the
Sanskrit maya appear to derive from the
same origins.
Yet, in the West., the concept of
measure has come to mean
comparison to some fixed external
unit, while maya means illusion.
The immeasurable is the
primary reality!
Core Concepts About Learning
in Organizations
At its essence, every
organization is a
product of how its
members think and
act.
The primary leverage
for any organizational The emphasis is on thinking and
learning effort lies in interacting means shifting the
ourselves. orientation from outward to inward.
Means a continuous testing of
experience and transformation of that
experience into knowledge
accessible to the whole organization,
and relevant to its core purpose.
Checklist for the
learning process
Do you continuously test Is the learning relevant? Is
your experiences? Are the learning aimed at the
you willing to examine and organizations core purpose?
challenge your sacred Can people make use of it?
cows? Do you shoot the
messenger? Is the knowledge shared?
Are you producing Is it accessible to all of the
knowledge, i.e., capacity organizations members?
for effective action?
Does your organization
show capabilities it didnt
have before?
Learning
Chinese characters
to accumulate flying
knowledge
child in youth
a doorway
to study to practice constantly
TheEnglish
The Englishword
wordoriginated
originatedwith
withthe
theIndo-European
Indo-Europeanleis,
leis,meaning
meaningtrack
trackor
or
furrow.To
furrow. Tolearn
learnmeans
meansgaining
gainingexperience
experienceby
byfollowing
followingaatrack
trackpresumably
presumably
Foraalifetime.
For lifetime.
Defining Your
Learning Organization
STEP 1: If I had a Learning
Organization Imagine that
you are working in the learning
organization you would like to
build. Answer these questions:
1. What policies, events or aspects
of behaviour in this new
organization help it thrive and
succeed?
2. How do people behave inside the
organization? How do they
interact with the outside world?
Be specific. Express the
3. What are some of the differences
between this ideal organization examples, images,
and the organization for which possibilities and details
you work now?
that cross your mind.
Defining Your Learning
Organization (contd)
Step 2: Enhancing the Definition You might like
to know how others envision the learning
organization. Take any definitions from the
following list that fit your image.
a) People feel they are doing something that matters
b) Everyone is stretching, growing or enhancing their
capacity to create.
c) People are more intelligent together than they are
apart.
d) The organization become more aware of its
knowledge base.
e) Vision of the direction of the organization
emerges from all levels.
f) Staff are invited to learn what is going on at every
level of the organization. Between the list and your own,
you may end up with a long list.
g) People feel free to inquire about each others (and
Make sure that you have at least
their own) assumptions and biases.
five. Number each of them so you
h) People treat each other as colleagues. can refer to them easily in the next
i) People feel free to take risks. step.
Defining Your Learning
Organization (contd)
Step 3: What would it bring me ? One by one
consider each of the choices from Step 2. If my
organization had these new features, what will
happen as a result? What would it bring the
organization? What would it bring you personally?
Step 4: Picking and refining the top five Based on
Step 3, choose the five characteristics that are most
compelling to you and your organization. Do not
worry about which seem plausible or easy to
achieve. Try to include at least one or two elements
that prompt you to think, It feels right, but we could
never do that here.
Step 5: What stands in our way? What would
you have to do to achieve each of these components
of your vision? What barriers and obstacles would
have to be overcome? This exercise performed
Step 6: Ill know were making progress if by members of a team
Now consider each of the five primary goals and can lead into the
each of the obstacles identified. Name one or more
indicators for each set. An indicator will signal you Designing the Learning
that some progress had been made. Organization exercise.
3. How do we handle good times and bad
times?
What Do We Want 4. In what ways is our organization a great
place to work in?
to Create? 5. What are our values? How do people treat
each other? How are people recognized?
6. How do we know that the future of our
Talk through the following sets of questions.
organization is secure? What have we
Spend time only with the questions which are
done to ensure its future for ourselves?
meaningful to your team.
What have we done to ensure its future for
STEP 1: The Vision of the Future It is 5 years our grandchildren?
from now and you have created the learning
7. What is our organizations role in the
organization you most wanted to create. As a
community?
team describe it as if you were able to see it,
realistically around you. Make sure that each
member of the team has an opportunity to
comment on each of the questions.
1. Who are the stakeholder? How do we work with
them? How do we produce value for them?
2. What are the most influential tends in our
industry?
3. What is our image? How do we compete?
4. What is our unique contribution? What is the
impact of our work?
5. How do we make money? After each of these questions, ask: How
6. What does our organization look like? would we measure our progress?
What Do We Want to Create?
(contd)
STEP 2: Current Reality Now
come back to the current year,
and look at your organization as it
is today.
12. What are the critical forces in our 14. What are the most influential trends
systems? in our industry today
13. Who are the current stakeholders 15. What aspects of our organization
inside and outside? What empower people? What aspects
changes do we perceive taking disempower people?
place among our stakeholders? 16. How is the strategic plan currently
used?
17. What major losses do we fear?
18. What do we know (that we need to
know)? What dont we know (that we
need to know)?
Designing a Learning Organization:
First Steps
STEP 1: Establishing the
groups For a group with two STEP 2: Divergent Thinking For
types of participants: (1) 45 minutes or more, each team
people who seem to believe in should deliberate on the following
improving the organization and set of questions and write the
(2) people, who because of answers on a flip chart.
their position, will invariably be Section A
involved first in any 1. What would we have, that we
organizational learning effort. dont have now, if we had a
Divide the group into two; learning organization?
equal in size. Section A will 2. What action might we take to
operate as people who present achieve those visions? What
an image of what a learning policies and practices would be
organization could be; Section worthwhile?
B will maintain a grasp of Section B
current reality.
1. What are the present barriers and
Divide Section A and Section
obstacles to becoming a learning
B into working teams, each
organization?
with 5 to 6 people,
representing different parts of 2. What would we want to change or
the organization.) eliminate?
3. What elements of the organization
already support learning?
Designing a Learning Organization:
First Steps (contd)
STEP 3: Clarity Still in the same STEP 4: Convergent Thinking Still in
teams, consolidate the ideas from working teams, winnow your list down to 3
Step 2 into 10 or 12 coherent items. Some can be eliminated immediately.
points. Number each point. Points Others will be defended her is why I think
might for e.g., resemble the the action step is particularly important. Give
following: everyone an opportunity to explain their
What we would have a learning reasoning and to challenge the reasoning by
organization (Section A) others.
1. A better system for disseminating STEP 5: Presentations and Priorities Each
financial and client-survey A team presents its top 3 suggestions for
information throughout the what to create. Each B team presents the 3
organization
most significant barriers or constraints. In
2. Allowing personal mastery larger groups (members more than 25),
programme for every interested
staff teams first present to their own sections
separately, and then to the common plenary.
Barriers to a learning organization
(Section B) In smaller groups (25 or less), the A and B
teams present to the common plenary. You
1. The time delays in
need not reach consensus, where everyone
communications between
departments agrees. Make sure that everyone feels they
have been heard and understood.
2. Bringing in a new guru without
showing how their messages fits Step 6: Implementation Assign task forces
with the message of the last guru. for each of the chosen projects. The task
forces will attempt an action, note the results,
learn and report back to the larger group.
Moving Towards a
Learning Organization
Staying on the Cutting Edge
Optimizing knowledge
management
Teams focus on collective
learning
Commitment to learning and
continuous improvement.
