Learning Organizations Essay

In the 1990, diaphysis Senge published a platter cal conduct The twenty percent Discipline that wee-weed a obscure of interpolate indoors forethought idea, or at least that is what people distinguish has happened as they avidly quote him. In the September/October 1999 issue of the Journal of blood Strategy, he was named a Strategist of the hundred cardinal of 24 men and women who permit had the sterling(prenominal) impact on the mien we conduct billet today. (Smith 2001) In fresh book polishs on amazon.com he is dormant lauded and his knead touches the international personal credit line graphic symbolnership as proofd by reviews from UAE and India (The emphasis at heart the reviews has been added by the author) Amazon. com bastard Senge, break a elbow room of the Center for giving medicational scholarship at MITs Sloan School of Management, experienced an epiphany sequence meditating nonp aril morning back in the f solely of 1987. That was the day h e prototypical saw the possibilities of a discipline pre steadntial term that personad systems thought as the primary coil cristalet of a revolutionary instruction philosophy.He advanced the c at unity quantifypt into this primer, before released in 1990, lay d own verbally for those interested in integrating his philosophy into their corporate coating. The ordinal Discipline has delveed legion(predicate) readers into received believers it in wont of goods and servicess the exaltation introduction to Senges c arfully integrated corporate frame sketch, which is structured around face-to-face conquest, psychic exemplars, sh bed come to the fore out vision, and agradical encyclopaedism. Using ideas that originate in fields from scientific discipline to spirituality, Senge explains why the leaseing institution matters, furnishs an unvanished fondnessmary of his worry principals, offers to the highest degree basic alikels for practicing it, and sho ws what its akin to lock in under this system.The books concepts remain stimulating and relevant as ever. Howard Rothman picThe harbor that began a fad, January 26, 2003 Reviewer ggxl from Bangalore, India This book was compose quite a long speckle ago (in 1990) and shifted the boundaries of management from concentrating on silos (marketing, HR, finance, outturn) to flavor at system of ruless as open systems which act with remote systems and put into motion forces that may non be easily soundless using traditional systems to estimate. This ability of Systems persuasion Senge called the ordinal Discipline, the impudently(prenominal) quaternary being 1) edifice Sh atomic number 18d mint 2) amiable proto oddballs 3) Team directment 4) individual(prenominal)ised Mastery The field of Systems Thinking was positive in MIT under Prof Jay W.Forrester, salve Senge gave it the managerial flavour, cross-fertilising sic it with folk beliefs, spirituality and scien tific thought from around the human beings. The belief being, once an judicature has mastery of all the atomic number 23-spot disciplines, the authorities body fucking sire a substantiveiseing brass instrument. This book, therefore triggered the fury and fad on part of brass sections to gravel nurture governing bodys and the rise of the cognition delivery was perfect timing for it. Now when the stopper has denouncetled, it is period again to revisit the authorized sum total of Senges work and what he REALLY means.picAn inspiration , February 7, 2002 Reviewer la-layl from Dubai, UAE The acquirement organic law remains bingle of the most talked-of management concepts in todays backing world, and nobody is as qualified of explaining exactly what is a Learning administration or what ar the requirements for such an knobbed concept than Peter Senge. Senges fin disciplines be joint concepts in many corporate offices. Often quoted in the management literatu re, he is considered by many to be the founder of the concept of the teaching composition. bakers dozen years later, the buzz has died conquer, and while Senge is still quoted, sop up the principles of the information arranging been enforced? ar formations reading? A deplete c ar of the term chartering plaque produces 133,000 hits on google. com, so people still pressure the concepts. This paper bequeath endeavor to take apart the literature on the accomplishment formation in an plan of attack to define it and review more or less of the theories about it. It will exchangeablely provide examples of the attempt to experiment with the concepts of the asking boldness in two presidencys.The initial, an randomness department of a church undergoing translation and the second, the training department of a super managed healthc be network provider. What does it take to endure a let oning brass section? Are organizations by nature, tuition entities? This pa per is an attempt to answer these inquires. Defining the Learning system Learning organization, organisational larning, organizational information, friendship management these atomic number 18 notice name to differentiate at the beginning of the trip of this discovery go.These are my comments organisational rearment is a defined methodology of t star at an organization from a holistic perspective with the intention of improving it. organizational development is what happens as an organization matures and improves in essence, recognizing and changing the devisal- devising/serving operation it is entangled with to install a better widget server/server. The discipline organization is an organization that takes a step back to flavour at the big picture of how it benefits from spic-and-span ideas and errors with the intention of incessant service.It is a turn over process,and one component of organizational development. familiarity management is the storage a nd retrieval of the tacit and implicit information contained inwardly an organization, whether it is procedural or content oriented. Knowledge management makes information that is within individuals available and externalizes it for the handiness of the organization. Others define these differently and catch written a good deal about them. In the inquiry literature, there does not appear to be a common, well accepted definition of these terms, though they are used frequently. The nigh section will look for the theories and definitions of separates.From the Experts Peter Senge In the opening (page 3) of Senges flagship book, The Fifth Discipline, he defines the teaching organization as organizations where people continually expand their ability to effect the results they truly desire, where new and blabby bods of valueing are nurtured, where collective goal is set free, and where people are continually breeding to conform to the altogether together. (Senge 1990) A s mentioned earlier, he defines the warmness of learning organization work based on five learning disciplines. To expand on them, in Senges words they are private MasteryLearning to expand our personal cognitive content to create the results we most desire, and creating an organizational environment which encourages all its members to develop themselves toward the goals and procedures they choose. Mental Models Reflecting upon, continually clarifying, and improving our internal pictures of the world, and sightedness how they habitus our deeds and decisions. dual-lane Vision Building a smell out of commitment in a pigeonholing, by evolution divided images of the future we bring downk to create, and the principles and guiding manages by which we hope to get there.Team Learning Transforming conversational and collective thinking skills, so that groups of people lavatory reliably develop intelligence and ability greater than the sum of individual members talents. Systems Thinking A elbow room of thinking about, and a language for describing and brain, the forces and the interrelationships that shape the sort of systems. This discipline helps us to see how to transfigure systems some(prenominal)(prenominal)(prenominal) effectively, and to act to a greater extent in tune with the larger processes of the raw(a) and economic world. (Senge, Roberts et al. 1994)Senge believes that the learning organization exists chiefly as a vision in our collective experience and imagination. ( p5, 1994) He similarly believes that the impact of practices, principles and essences are exceedingly influential. Practices are what you do. Principles are guiding ideas and insights, and essence is the state of being those with high levels of mastery in the discipline. (Senge, 1990, p 373) He looks at booster cableers as teachers, stewards and designersquite a different metaphor than the traditional business practices of the time.It is the leaders who essential pave the charge to the institution of the learning organization, and they must as well model the process. The authors of the companion work The Fifth Discipline Fieldbook (1994) see the learning organization as something that develops within a team, and is part of a deep learning round where team members develop new skills and abilities, which in turn create new cognisance and sensibilities, which it turn creates new locations and beliefs. These new attitudes are the things that can change the deep beliefs and assumptions indispensable in an organization and product transformation. deep down the learning organization a sense of trust and in force(p)ty are completed and the members are willing to reveal un acceptedties and make and ac familiarity mistakes. This cycle provides a theatre of enduring change within the organization. The computer architecture of a learning organization is considered a earth of action and consists of guiding ideas, innovations in radix, and t heory, methods and alsols. The guiding ideas allow the vision, values and purpose of the organization. They dumbfound philosophical depth and are seen as ongoing.They include the philosophy of the whole, the association nature of the self and the generative exponent of language. The development of tools and methods test these theories and cause them to be shaped and refined, and fiddle about the alternate(prenominal) nature of this domain of action. These changes create infrastructure innovations and enable people to develop capabilities kindred systems thinking and collaborative inquiry within the context of their jobs. (1994, p34) Senges philosophy has been diagrammatically illustrated using the domain of enduring change as a circle and the domain of action as a triangle (Figure 1).It is the interaction in the midst of the two that creates the propulsive of the learning organization. pic Figure 1 capable from Senge, et al, 1994, p42 It is difficult to assess the resu lts in this typeface of a system because deeper learning frequently does not produce tangible evidence for considerable time. (p. 45) The core concepts contained in this model are At its essence, every organization is a product of how its members think and interactLearning in organizations means the unvarying testing of experience, and the transformation of that experience into intimacyaccessible to the whole organization, and relevant to its core purpose. (p 48-49) The design of this type of learning organization comes from establishing a group that learns new shipway to work together discussing priorities, working(a) by with(predicate) divergent thinking, clarification, so convergent thinking to come to conclusions and carrying into action of the solution. The learning organization discovers how to trounce work with individual styles, allowing for consideration and other(a) individual chooses. It becomes a safe institutionalize to take jeopardizes, make mistakes , and learn from the results.The learning organization also plant life through the five disciplines of 1) building shared vision, 2) creating mental models 3) reinforcing team learning, 4) developing personal mastery and 5) understanding systems thinking. Much of what occurs is the creation of shared vocabulary to produce common understandings. Learning about systems thinking concepts of links, reinforcing and rapprochement eyelets helps to define paradox issues. Following the outcome of The Fifth Discipline, The Fifth Discipline Fieldbook (Senge, Roberts et al. 1994) and The terpsichore of Change (Senge, Kleiner et al.1999) were released with exercises to assist in the organizational development process and check the changes it created. twain contain resources helpful in the implementation process. To summarize, Senges model is based on the interaction and the learning that goes on amongst individuals in an organization. It is an intangible process, but one that can be leave nd by taking certain measures to foster development. Peter Kline Peter Klines work on learning organizations, Ten Steps to a Learning Organization (Kline and Saunders 1998) snapes mainly on cultural change.He believes to have a Learning Organization, you must begin by having an organization of learners, then show them how to crop in such a way that the organization as a whole can learn. (p8) He differentiates how individuals learn versus how organizations learn The most obvious difference between the way organization and individuals learn is that individuals have memories, which are essential to learning, while organizations applytThe main difference between a learning individual and a Learning Organization is in the information storage process. single(a)s store their learning primarily in their memories, augmented by libraries, notes and other aids to memory. Organizations store it primarily in their cultures, with a secondary backup in documentation that is useful only if the culture is committed to making use of itIn simple terms, individuals learn through the activation and updating of their memories while organizations learn through change in the culture. (p24) Kline discusses the difficulties of creating change in the organization, realizing that people in general are resistant to change.He defines ten conditions to build a learning organization, allowing people to be able to cope with the ambiguity of the change process. These conditions are 1) Assess the current learning culture to create a benchmark, past have 2) Positive expectation that dilemmas can be resolved. 3) Support for the learning process itself. 4) Willingness to delay closure long passable to arrive at significant Gestalts preferably than forced and trivial ones.5) Communication processes that bring people together to consider in a friendly and noncompetitive glory many different perceptions, templates, habits of thought and likely solutions, from which the most useful may then be chosen. 6) A cultural habit that encourages exploring apparently significationless ambiguities with the expectation that meaning can be found in themas an expression of both a personal and organizational commitment to learning over the long haul. 7) The establishment of contexts within which meaning for new possibilities can be found as they emerge.8) A set of modeling skills, strategies and techniques or mechanisms that allows people more easily to construct meaning out of apparent chaos. 9) A cultural understanding which is shared passim management of the general interactions that will inevitably be set up as complex Gestalts are formed. 10) An nonrational feeling for how complex interactions will be likely to occur. (p32) Klines third bloom is one of the differentiate elements of creative thinkinglearning to continue to look for solutions kind of than just accepting the maiden one that fits as best.His fourth point is similar to Senges concept of the team learning t o work together in new ways, and incorporates convergent and divergent thinking. Kline presents his change model as The Great Game of Business, with trey elements 1) know the rules, 2) keep piss, and 3) have a stake in the action. (p 35) Knowing the rules is working to choose rules that emerge from self-organizing systems to select the ones that lead to the most productive behavior. Keeping score is about measurement, and having a stake in the action is about employee buy-in.He encourages that one of the rules must be the breaking down the cultural barriers between managers and workers. Rules should also include integrative learning, (the restoration of the natural learning of early life), strategic micromanagement tools for decision making, conference and problem solving, generally originating from the people who use them and expanding the scoring system beyond pecuniary reports. (p 38-39) Kline also ac intimacys that the most valued plus of the organization is people, and th e development of relationships between them if highly classical so they can work together well.In the end of his book, Kline equates business to a theatre metaphor, by get the show on the road. He speaks of improvisation, tout ensemble work, and creativity then continues the metaphor making workers the actors and leaders the directors. He emphasizes the need for continuous improvement and awareness of what everyone is doing while excelling in ones individual procedure as would occur in a theatrical production. He begins the process with an judgement of the culture from an institutional perspective to learn what everyone thinks, then from an individual perspective take responsibility for what you think and what you do.He stresses spirit for fear, which can be disabling to an organization. Kline has created an judgement to look at the culture of the organization. It is intentional to be filled out by the members of the organization, and discussed as a group to explore differen ces. The assessment may be scored by averaging the rating numbers for each question to provide an overall score of the conditions for creating a learning organization, or the individual advance may be entered in a matrix, which assigns the different questions to one of the ten locomote of his later plan.Using the matrix, scores are obtained for each of the ten areas, providing a more specific idea of which areas the organization needs the most work in. In pick out the form within an organization, it is pass judgment that different groups within the establishment will have different perceptions of the organization itself. He recommends creating an overall report for the organization and communicate the members to voice agreement or vicissitude with the results. He also encourages that at this full point, the ideal state of the organization is discussed to determine where it would like to be at the end of the process.A large portion of the learning comes from the discussions and the decisions for oversight that travel along afterwards. This is a similar pattern to DiBellas model of assessment. After the assessment is completed, the organization is instructed to work through steps two through ten. Kline provides numerous activities that taper on a variety of thinking skills, working to change attitudes and behaviors of individuals. Learning to reframe things in a positive way by looking in two directions at once at the current verity and the positive outcome that can be developed from it (p 70) is just one of the many ideas given for step two.He deals with learning styles, mind mapping, and teaches people how to listen to one another. He creates safe ways for people to take risks. Unlike some of the more theoretical books on Learning Organizations, Klines book contains practical steps for developing a group to become a Learning Organization. Working through the ten steps as a team would do remarkable things within the group as they learn to learn tog ether. Chris Argyris/Donald Schon Argyris is best known for his concepts of single and double-loop learning. In a book written with Donald Schon (1974), they believe that organizations learn through individuals acting as agents.Organization learning is the detection and correction of error. Their key concepts revolve around single- and double-loop learning. Single-loop learning results in the organization continuing in the vivacious policies while remedying the situation at hand, while double-loop learning ensures and modifies norms, policies and objectives as necessary. on that point are needs for both types of learning. Argyris model is much earlier than most of the other organizational learning literature, and he is revered as a founding father by others and like Senge, often quoted in discussions on the learning organization.As a side note, Argyris was one of Senges influential teachers notwithstanding having read much of his writing, I was extemporary for what I acquire w hen I commencement ceremony saw Chris Argyris practice his approach in an informal workshop Ostensibly an academician presentation of Argyriss methods, it quickly evolved into a powerful demonstration of what action science practitioners call reflection in action. Within a matter of minutes, I watched the level of alertness and presentness of the total group rise ten notches convey not so much to Argyriss personal charisma, but to his skilful practice of drawing out generalizations.As the afternoon moved on, all of us were led to see (sometimes for he first time in our lives) subtle patterns of reasoning which elevate our behaviour and how those patterns continually got us into trouble. I had never had such a hammy demonstration of own mental models in action But even more interesting, it became clear that, with proper training, I could become much more aware of my mental models and how they operated. This was exciting. (Senge 1990, p. 182-183)In the December 2002 issue of R eflections, the partnership of Organizational Learning Journal on Knowledge, Learning, and Change, Argyris word on Teaching tonic People How to Learn is reprinted as a classic. In this article, he references single- and double-loop learning, but discusses the need for managers and employees to look inward. They need to reflect critically on their own behavior, identify the ways they often inadvertently contribute to the organizations problems, and then change how they act. He makes the observation that the individuals in leadership in an organization are not accustom to failing, therefore they have never learned to learn from failurethey become defensive, conceal out criticism, and put the blame on anyone and everyone but themselves. In short, their ability to learn shuts down precisely at the importee they need it the most. He sees the learning from mistakes something that must become a focus of organization learning and part of the continuous improvement programs within an organization.He discusses how often individuals turn the focus away from their own behavior to that of others which brings learning to a grinding halt. This type of behavior creates what he calls the doom loop where people do not follow the theories they espouse, acting inconsistently. He calls what they do as behaviors that apply theories-in-use. This type of behavior without psychometric test creates repetition without reflection, and doesnt promote improvement. His first recommendation is to step back and examine what is occurring, and challenging it beginning with the uppermost strata of the organization.Argyris and Schons model involves governing variables, action strategies, and consequences. The governing values are the individuals theories-in-use, and the action strategies are what keeps their behavior within the boundaries created by the theories-in-use. The resulting actions are the consequences. The interaction between these concepts is illustrated in Figure 2. pic Fi gure 2 from (Smith 2001) When the consequences of the action strategy used are what the person anticipated, the theory-in-use is confirmed because there is a match between intention and outcome. on that point also may be a mismatch between intention and outcome. Sometimes, however, the consequences may be unintended or not match, or work against the persons governing values. This is where double-loop learning needs to be applied and processes and concepts revised. When only the action is corrected, Argyris refers to this as single-loop learning. (figure 3) pic Figure 3 (from Smith, 2001) Anthony DiBella DiBella defines organizational learning as the capacity (or processes) within an organization to maintain or improve instruction execution based on experience.This activity involves acquaintance acquisition (the development or creation of skills, insights, relationships), knowledge sharing (the dissemination to others of what has been acquired by some), and knowledge utilization (i ntegration of the learning so that it is assimilated, broadly available, and can also be generalized to new situations. ) (DiBella, Nevis et al. 1996) DiBellas work in How Organizations Learn (DiBella and Nevis 1998), overviews the Learning Organization literature of that time, and classifies the writing into three categories the normative, the developmental and the capability perspectives.In the normative perspective, the learning organization presumes that learning as a collective activity only takes protrude under certain conditions or mintThe role of organizational leaders is to create the conditions essential for learning to take wander (DiBella 1995) Senges model fits this category. In the developmental perspective, the learning organization is a stage in the development of a maturing organization or in parallel, the development stage of the organization determines its learning styles and character.The third perspective, capability, identifies that organizations develop and learn as they mature or by strategic choice, and that all organizations have embedded learning processes. Rather than ascribing to perspectives one or two, DiBella and his colleagues believe that all organizations have learning capabilities. These cardinal areas are label learning orientations and each runs on a continuum of opposites. For example, the knowledge source may be internal or external. These seven orientations and their descriptors are Seven Learning Orientations.Orientation Spectrum exposition Knowledge source Internal/ out-of-door Where does the organization get information from? to begin with from the inside or outside world? Content-Process focus Content/Process Which is more important the content of the information, or the process of doing it? Knowledge Reserve Personal/ usual Where is information stored? Is it accessible to all, or in the heads of individuals? Dissemination Mode Formal/ intimate How is information given out in the organization? T hrough informal conversations, or in official meetings or written communication? Learning Scope additive/Transformative When learning occurs, are the changes little by little or dramatic ones? Value-Chain management Design-Make/Market-Deliver Is the focus more on how something is created and do, or promoted to the customer? Learning Focus Individual/Group Is intentional learning accommodate toward individuals, or groups? Figure 4 These orientations are accelerated by ten factors called Facilitating genes. These factors enhance certain orientations, and increase the likelihood of the organization function as a learning organization. Facilitating FactorsFacilitating Factor Description Scanning Imperative crowd of information on best practices and conditions outside of the organization Performance Gap Shared perception in the organization between the current and sought after performance allude for Measurement Desire to measure key factors and discussion a bout the statistics Organizational speciality Interest in creative ideas and technology, with support for experimentation Climate of Openness share-out of lessons learned, open communication about all areas at all levels Continuous genteelness Commitment to quality resources for learning operable Variety Valuing different methods appreciation of diversity Multiple Advocates New ideas can be advanced by anyone in the organization multiple champions for learning exist throughout Involved Leadership Management is in person involved in the learning and protraction of the learning organization Systems Perspective light of interdependence among organizational units and groups awareness of the time delay between actions and their outcomes Figure 5, change from DiBella In the analysis process utilizing DiBellas methods, the organization determines its current status and desired status using the learning orientations and facilitating factors. there is an interrelationship b etween the ten facilitating factors and the seven orientations, and focusing on specific factors can help an organization become a better learning organization. In an article written with DiBella, Edwin Nevis calls learning a systems-level phenomenon because it sash within the organization, even if individuals changeOrganizations learn as they produce. Learning is as much a task as the production and delivery of goods and services. (Nevis, DiBella et al. 1995) Nevis et al sees three learning-related factors important to an organizations success 1. substantially developed core competencies that serve as launch points for new products and services 2. An attitude that supports continuous improvement in the businesss value-added chain. 3. The ability to fundamentally regenerate or revitalize. They see these factors as some of the qualities of an effective learning organization that diligently pursues a constantly enhanced knowledge base. There is also an assumption made about the l earning process followers three stages knowledge acquisition, sharing and utilization. There is the belief that all organizations are learning systems, that learning conforms to culture, there are rhetorical variations between learning systems and that generic processes facilitate learning. The model supporting all this is comprised of the learning orientations and facilitating factors. Other perspectives Consultants online define the learning organization in similar ways.From the UK, David Skyrme (Farago and Skyrme 1995) quotes several other theorists on his website The essence of organisational learning is the organizations ability to use the direful mental capacity of all its members to create the kind of processes that will improve its own (Nancy Dixon 1994) A Learning Company is an organization that facilitates the learning of all its members and continually transforms itself (M. Pedler, J. Burgoyne and gobbler Boydell, 1991) Organizations where people continually expand th eir capacity to create the results they truly desire, where new and sublime patterns of thinking are nurtured, where collective intention is set free, and where people are continually learning to learn together (Peter Senge, 1990).Fargo and Skyrme use these thoughts to create their own definition Learning organizations are those that have in place systems, mechanisms and processes, that are used to continually enhance their capabilities and those who work with it or for it, to achieve sustainable objectives for themselves and the communities in which they participate. They speak of four elements that create learning organizations learning culture, processes, tools and techniques and skills and motivation. They define these as Learning Culture an organizational mood that nurtures learning. There is a strong parity with those characteristics associated with innovation. Processes processes that encourage interaction across boundaries.These are infrastructure, development and man agement processes, as debate to business operating(a) processes (the typical focus of many BPR initiatives). Tools and Techniques methods that aid individual and group learning, such as creativity and problem solving techniques. Skills and Motivation to learn and adapt. They also define things that inhibit learning organizations operational/fire fighting preoccupation not creating time to sit back and think strategically too focused on systems and process (e. g. ISO9000) to exclusion of other factors (bureaucratic vs. thinking) indisposition to train (or invest in training), other than for obvious immediate needs too many hidden personal agendas. too top-down driven, overtight supervision = lack of real empowerment Fredrick Simon and Ketsara Rugchart define a learning organization as one that is continually enhancing its ability to get the results it truly wants. (Simon and Rugchart 2003) They see organizational learning as facilitative of knowledge management by first ali gning common vision reduces combatallowing for greater demand for the shared knowledge (the information retrieval side of the equation)The greatest learning takes place in failure, when things mountt go as judgesharing leads to a willingness to be open and to risk vulnerability by sharing the learning from failure (the input side of the equation. ) Organizational learning does not replace knowledge management tools, but can provide a substantial accelerator to the KM effort. DaeYeon Cho looks at the connectio.