Assignment:

Summarize Article “Toward a Learning Organization: The Strategic Building Blocks”

By: Swee C.Goh

Prepared by: Youchaa KHODR

Course: Global Environments & Management Trends

Instructor: Dr. Wolfs

January 2016

Swiss Business School, Zurich, Switzerland

 Table of Content

Table of Content ........................................................................................................................ 2

Introduction ............................................................................. Error! Bookmark not defined.

Learning Organizations ............................................................................................................ 3

How To Build Learning Organizations ..................................................................................... 6

Learning Organiztion Five Building Blocks ........................... Error! Bookmark not defined.

Supporting Foundations .......................................................... Error! Bookmark not defined.

Measurment and Intervention .................................................. Error! Bookmark not defined.

Conclusions .............................................................................. Error! Bookmark not defined.

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 Introduction

This paper by Dr. Swee C.Goh discusses the learning organizations concept, and analyzes how

much it’s essential for the organization development and sustainability. Identifying a bundle of

managerial practices and organizational process that differentiate these learning companies. This

paper also describes a set of managerial practices or strategic building blocks and the

supporting foundations required to apply on learning organization. In addition to the

supportive organization design needed, and the required competencies of employees as key

foundation building blocks of a learning organization.

What Is Learning Organizations?

There are different for the Learning organization, on this paper Professor Goh list some of the

definitions: Learning Organizations is the term given to a company that facilitates the learning of its

members and continuously transforms itself.

Learning Organizations is an orgaization skilled at creating ,acuring and transfering knoweldge and at

modifying it’s behavior to reflect new knoweldge and insights (Garvin,1993)

Organizational Learning is a long term activity that will build competative advantage over time and requires

susatain management attention, commitment and effort.

Studies have shown that long-term investment in these companies would have given an investor spectacular

returns. More to the point,these companies were built to last and have been managed effectively since their

founding ( Collins & Porras 1994).

Learning organizations develop as a result of the pressures facing modern organizations and enables

them to remain competitive in the business environment.

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 How to Build Learning Organizations

To answer the above question, Professor Goh went through 80 published papers and books on the

learning organizations, and he used his experience on involvement on nine companies on helping

them measure and build their learning capabilities. He adds also to his review process,

information’s from interviews, discussion with senior managers and focus group of employees.

There are additional insight about the human resource process and practices To identify a bundle of

managerial practices and organizational process that diffrentiate these learning companies .

The approach on this paper, that all organizations can learn , some learn better than others and

survive , while the more successful learners thrive. Those who fail to learn will eventually disaper (

Nevis, Dibella & Gold , 1995).

There are essential and strategic role of the leaders( Managers ) on the organization to develop the

learning organization process which will be discussed later on details.

The paper describes a set of managerial practices or strategic building blocks of a learning

organization. In addition, the paper will discuss the supportive organization design needed and

the required competencies of employees as key foundation building blocks of a learning

organization

Learning Organizations Five Building Blocks

The learning organizations required to apply the following five core strategic building blocks:

1- Clarity and Support for Mission and Vision - Clarity and employees Support of the

mission, strategy, and espoused values of the organization. It’s important to make

organization mission clear to the employees, if this is widely shared and understood by

employees, they will feel more capable to take initiative. Employee’s actions will be aligned

with the company goals. (GE & Motorola are good example, where CEO and senior

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 managers spend considerable time articulating a vision and creating employee commitment

to achieve it.

2- Shared Leadership and Involvement –Leadership that is perceived as empowering

employees, encouraging an experimenting culture, and showing strong commitment to the

organization .Leader responsiple on setting internal roles in the organization to become

learning organization. Introducing mechanism to facilate the transfer of knowledge between

work and developing a widely shared vision supported by employees can influence the

learning capability of an organization. Leader required to apply the following behavior

skills and practices :

a- Coaching behavior

b- Interacting

c- Sharing information’s about the

d- Support innovative ideas

e- Vacillating

f- Shared leadership style in a nonhierarchical organization.

3- A culture that Encourages Experimentation - A strong culture of experimentation that is

rewarded and supported at all levels in the organization. It’s essential to create new

knowledge to be used for new opportunities. Managers should be willing to encourage

Individuals and teams to continuously improve work process, and try new ideas. A system to

reward new ideas should be in place too. Hewlett Packard and 3M are good example for

organizations with an experiment culture. On 3M, not only encourage experimentation but also

allowing percentage of work time for employees to pursue unusual personnel project.

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 HP time activated is a strategy used to ensure continuous experimentation, product

improvement, and the development of new product

4- Ability to Transfer Knowledge across Organizational Boundaries - The ability of an

organization to transfer knowledge within and from outside the organization and to learn

from failures. Talking to other staff members about successful practices or experiences are

all part of the transfer of knowledge. Xerox and AT&T have programs that benchmark the

managerial practices of the best companies in an industry and their competitors. This

encourages the transfer of knowledge about what competitors and other companies are

doing. Such bench- marking activities guarantee that they are always learning to improve

their management processes, and their products or services.

5- Teamwork and Cooperation –An emphasis on teamwork and group problem-solving as the

mode of operation and for developing innovative ideas. By working in teams, employees

bring their collective skills and knowledge to bear on problems and to develop innovative

ideas for the organization. To be effective, teams should be formed with employees from a

variety of functional areas. A cross-functional team- work environment breaks down the

stovepipe syn-drome, especially if employees are frequently rotated among different teams

as part of a deliberate career development program and human resource management policy.

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Figure 1 . Illustrate the new organizational archetype and the strategic and foundation building

blocks of a learning organization :

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 Supporting Foundation

The five strategic building blocks require two major supporting foundations. First, there has

to be an effective organization design that is aligned with and supports these building blocks.

Second, appropriate employee skills and competencies are needed for the tasks and roles

described in the strategic building blocks.

Organizational Design : The organization structure of learning organizations has been

described in the literature as organic, flat, and decentralized, with a minimum of

formalized procedures in the work environment. (Research results clearly show a negative

relationship between formalization and learning capability (Goh & Richards, 1997)).

Employee Skills and Development: The literature on learning organizations frequently

asserts that these organizations strongly emphasize the training and skill development of

their employees. (training of employees more toward behavioral skills and less toward

technical skills that have a short shelf-life (Kiernan, 1993)). Skill competencies also need to

match some of the behavioral skill sets required in a learning organization, such as:

a- Shared Leadership

b- Coaching Behavior

c- Providing Feedback

d- Development of Common Experience

Measurement and Intervention

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Building a learning organization requires an organization to focus and implement these five majors’

building blocks and to ensure that the two supporting foundations are aligned to facilitate learning.

Managers should track and measure the organization’s performance improvement after the

interventions have taken place.

Organization have to De- liberate interventions in the organization design, and required to apply

appropriate training and skill development program to reinforce employee learning.

A Measurement process to diagnose the new organizational archetype on applying the five building

blocks and the two foundations, must take place. In addition to assessing and evaluating the current

organization design and skill development program to ensure that they are aligned and

provide support to the strategic building blocks.

Lastly the organization should be measured as well to determine whether overall learning

capability has also improved

Conclusion:

In summary, this paper suggest that these five strategic building blocks need to be present or to be

implemneted to have learning capability. Support by practising managers will be a plus too , and

will have an impact on organizational performance. The archetype describes the specific strategic

and foundation building blocks and measurement and intervention processes that are re-quired

to become a learning organization.

End.

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