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Learning Organization Converting Learning by the People Within Your Organization into Learning by the Organization Itself |
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By: Vadim Kotelnikov
Founder, Ten3 Business e-Coach Inspiration and Innovation Unlimited!
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"The ability to learn faster than your competitors may be the only sustainable competitive advantage." Arie de Geus |
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How We Learn
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People learn by the interaction of
"It is when sparks jump between two poles - the general and the actual - that learning occurs. So you need both." John Adair
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Three Learning Domains
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Learning Organization Defined The learning organization is "an organization which facilitates the learning of all its members and continuously transforms itself."8 Leveraging the Power of Knowledge Learning is the key competency required by any organization that wants to survive and thrive in the new knowledge economy. Market champions keep asking learning questions, keep learning how to do things better, and keep spreading that knowledge throughout their organization. Learning provides the catalyst and the intellectual resource to create a sustainable competitive advantage. Knowledge organizations obtain competitive advantage from continuous learning, both individual and collective. In organizations with a well established knowledge management system, learning by the people within an organization becomes learning by the organization itself. The changes in people's attitudes are reflected in changes in the formal and informal rules that govern the organization's behavior. Knowledge communities organized around the principles of entrepreneurship have the best chance at success. Case in Point Microsoft Sharing Knowledge Bill Gates is clear that high individual knowledge is not enough in today's dynamic markets. A company also needs a high corporate IQ intelligence, knowledge, and expertise of the company - which hinges on the facility to share information widely and enable staff members "to build on each other's ideas". This is partly a matter of storing the past, partly of exchanging current knowledge. "We read, ask questions, explore, go to lectures, compare notes and findings... consult experts, daydream, brainstorm, formulate and test hypotheses, build models and simulations, communicate what we're learning, and practice new skills," says Gates... More Case in Point GE "Keep learning. Don't be arrogant by assuming that you know it all, that you have a monopoly on the truth," says Jack Welch to senior managers. "Always a0ssume that you can learn something from someone else. Or from another GE business. Or even from a competitor. Especially from a competitor." At General Electric (GE) the sum is greater than its parts as both business and people diversity is utilized in a most effective way. A major American enterprise with a diverse group of huge businesses, GE is steeped in a learning culture and it is this fact that makes GE a unique company. As Jack Welch puts it: "What sets GE apart is a culture that uses diversity as a limitless source of learning opportunities, a storehouse of ideas whose breadth and richness is unmatched in world business. At the heart of this culture is an understanding that an organization's ability to learn, and translate that learning into action rapidly, is the ultimate competitive business advantage."
Developing Human Resources Competency in the New Knowledge-driven Economy
Excellent companies recognize that human resources
are their #1 asset.
With the Internet increasingly relied on as a source of knowledge and with rapid changes in science and technology, the amount of knowledge is doubling every 7 to 10 years.10 This also hastens the obsolescence of skills and knowledge. The shelf life of academic degrees has been estimated to be only one year for computer science, two years for electrical engineering, and four years for business studies. Training and skills development must therefore be a continuous process. On average, the training budget of an organization is about 1% of payroll. Excellent companies, on the other hand, spend about 4-5% and devote an average of 40-50 training hours per employee per year. Creating Your Future Knowledge is most productive when it is shared by all. A learning organization is "an organization that is continually expanding its capacity to create its future".1 It is continuously learning new ways of doing things and also (necessarily) involved in a continuous process of forgetting old ways of doing things. Learning Environment A constructivist learning environment is a place where people can draw upon resources to make sense out of things and construct meaningful solutions to problems. It emphasizes the importance of meaningful, authentic activities that help the learner to construct understandings and develop skills relevant to solving problems. The Toyota Way: 14 Principles
JIT-Style Learning and Training The best kind of quality oriented learning (and training) is just-in-time-style learning, that is, learning that happens on the job, knowledge which is applied immediately as needed, and learning by doing. The sooner you can apply the material you learned, the better you will understand it and the longer it will be retained. Innovative e-learning services create new opportunities for such on the job JIT-style learning and training. In particular, the first-ever Ten3 Business e-Coach provides most effective JIT-style e-learning opportunity which is available free anytime to anybody.
Organization as a Set of Interconnected Subsystems... Enhancing Organizational Learning Capacity through Coaching... NLP Technology of Achievement: Learning Principles... Three Important Features of All Organizations... Key Characteristics of High-performance Organizations... Continuous Corporate Renewal... Real-Time Business Development... Learning Bottom-Up... Systems Thinking... There is No Failure, only Feedback... Links Between Individual Learning and Collective Learning...
Organizing Knowledge Communities... Managing Tacit Knowledge... Managing Knowledge Workers... Five Learning Disciplines... Team Members Learn When They... Creativity Management... Letting the Best Idea Win... Case in Point Dell Inc... Case in Point British Petroleum the Power of Corporate Learning... Case in Point Intel Personal Accountability for Learning... Case in Point Toyota...
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