What is the link between individual learning and organisational learning - Essay Example

?What is the link between individual learning and organisational learning? Organisational learning can be defined as “detection and correction of errors. The individuals' learning activities, in turn, are facilitated or inhibited by an ecological system of factors that may be called an organizational learning system” (Argyris, 1977, p. 117 cited in Malhotra, 1996). According to this definition of organisational learning, identification of loopholes in the organisational system and measures to change the system for the better are some of the most fundamental characteristic features of organisational learning in any organisation. This primarily requires the commitment and dedication of the top management because top management primarily assumes the decision making power. The process of organisational learning includes introduction and implementation of change. Change introduction and implementation is one of the biggest challenges in front of a manager because the change causes redesigning of the organisational policies which is against the rights of several stakeholders, most of which are within the organisational workforce. Likewise, individual learning is directed at reflecting upon personal experiences in order to identify the mistakes as well as strategies that may be adopted in the future in order to avoid them. As individual learning involves correcting personal behavior for the better, it is the main component of self development. Change is the basic element of both organisation learning and individual learning. The agency undergoing the change makes one different from the other, though both influence and are influenced by each other. The relationship between individual learning and the organisation learning is very strong and yet very weak. The two may not always be paired up with each other. It may be possible for an organisation to take informed decisions with the majority of its personnel being unlearned and vice versa. This paper discusses the relationship between organisation learning and individual learning. Individual learning, as the name indicates, reflects the level or degree to which individuals of an organisation are learned. Individual’s learning is of great significance to the organisation because organisation achieves its objectives with the efforts of individuals that make part of it. Although individuals’ learning is an important element of organisational success as a whole, yet it is not the sole determinant of the success as the decisions and actions resulting from individuals’ learning need the support and approval of certain agencies and authorities which are beyond the control of the individuals. In an organisational setup, people are organized in a hierarchical structure which is generally known as the organisation structure. Different individuals are assigned different roles and responsibilities within the organisation structure and everybody is held accountable for his part of the game. Accordingly, there is a distribution of decision making power among the organisational personnel. In a conventional setup, subordinates usually are not involved in the decision making and the top management assumes complete decision making power, though it is one of the characteristic features of learned organisations that they do involve and gain the consent of subordinates in the decision making while resting the ultimate power with the top management. In the conventional setup, a subordinate may be very learned, experienced and technically strong, but these qualities of the subordinate are of little importance because their display is restricted by the minimal role of the subordinate in the achievement of the organisational objectives. The individuals do not assume enough rights to exercise and thus have to surrender in front of the organisational culture. Learned organisations are characterized by the involvement of complete organisation structure in the decision making process. Although subordinates are not competent enough to understand the complexities and requirements of the managerial work, yet they are expected to come up with smart ideas in their capacity of human beings. Subordinates are consulted for their opinion through surveys or meetings. This generates a sense of responsibility as well as association in the subordinates because they feel respected and honored. This is extremely important for organisational success because subordinates that include first line managers and supervisors are the prime controllers of the work executed by an organisation. Thus, by involving them in the decision making, learned organisations enable the workers to optimize on their skills. Organisations learn by giving value to their workforce. Thus, in order to learn more and gain competitive advantage over others in the market, it is imperative that top management in an organisation understands the issues of workforce and addresses them in a timely manner before the bad state of workforce tarnishes their relationship with the top management. If managers actually mean it when they say, 'people are our greatest asset', and 'in the future it's our knowledge that we will be selling' then there should be many around who are seriously concerned about the poor return and utilization level that they are achieving from this knowledge asset lying invisible and under-utilized in peoples heads. Maximizing the return on an organization's know-how investment will be the most significant source of competitive edge in the future. (Hastings, 1996, p. 127). As organisations learn, they become learning organisations which provide the workforce with the opportunities to increase their tendency to generate the intended results and optimize on their creative skills (Serrat, 2009). People that make part of learned organisations find an opportunity to work in an organized system that not only maintains a balance between internal and external environment and culture, but also among the individual members that make part of the workforce. This promotes individual’s learning and the workforce actually becomes an asset for the organisation. According to Society for Organisational Learning (n.d.), organizational learning is characterized by five disciplines, namely personal mastery, shared vision, mental models, team learning, and systems thinking. The same five disciplines have also been identified in the report generated by Pegasus Communications (2005). These disciplines encapsulate almost all aspects of the organisational learning and thus make a holistic approach to the definition of organisational learning. Nevertheless, each of these five disciplines is also a fundamental essential of the individual’s learning, but it is much more difficult to do justice with each of the five disciplines in case of organisational learning as compared to individual’s learning. Organisational learning is a much more complicated procedure as compared to the individual’s learning because the former is controlled by external factors including the micro and macro culture whereas the latter is governed by an individual’s intrinsic skills, thinking and competence. “The technical view assumes that organizational learning is about the effective processing, interpretation of, and response to, information both inside and outside the organization” (Easterby-Smith and Araujo, 1999 cited in Smith, 2001). An organisation is exposed to a lot more challenges as compared to an individual, so the learning is more difficult in the former as compared to the latter. An organisation constitutes individuals having conflicting personalities, views and opinions. It is very difficult for the organisation to learn as a whole with so many mental models making part of the big mind of the organisation. There is a lot of difference between the factors that control the organisational learning and the individuals’ learning. Learning of an organization is controlled by several factors that include but are not limited to experience of the staff, length of association of the staff with the organisation, frequency of employee turnovers, introduction and implementation of change in the organisation, individualistic and collective compliance of the workers with the change policy, individuals’ conflicts with one another, human resource management, employees’ trust upon and confidence in the management, accountability of the management as well as the employees, and employees’ motivation and competence. On the other hand, an individual’s learning is controlled by his/her competence, skills, knowledge, interpersonal skills, management and leadership skills, group skills, audacity, verbosity, flexibility, compromise, comprehension and creativity. Each of these factors is a whole subject. Individuals display different levels of learning when they work as part of a group and when they work individually. In a group, several factors come into action that control an individual’s learning. In the group, people commonly do several things that they cannot even think about doing individually. Under the influence of group, people do what the majority says. Group work is characterized by group conformity. In a group, there is an ideology which everybody has to respect in order to make part of the group. This ideology is established by the majority of group members. When people have to work in a group setting, they can not learn until they adopt the group norms and values. Learning … essentially involves becoming an "insider." Learners do not receive or even construct abstract, "objective," individual knowledge; rather, they learn to function in a community--be it a community of nuclear physicists, cabinet makers, high school classmates, street-corner society, or, as in the case under study, service technicians. (Brown and Duguid, 1991). Social cognitive theory states that situations play a very important role in determining people’s reactions. To explain how individual learning takes place, Bandura (1986) identified the capability of people to symbolize, model, self-regulate, think pro-actively and self-reflect. Bandura (1991) said that people function as organisms that assume the tendency to control their attitude with anticipations. According to Bandura (2001), people not only react to the circumstances, but they also adopt a proactive approach which enables them to serve as self-evaluators for their actions. Organisational learning and individual learning are interrelated, and influence each other. Organisational learning exposes the individuals associated with it to a lot of challenges. Likewise, individuals’ learning affects the organisational learning. Organisational learning can not be enhanced without complete compliance of the workforce with the instructions of the top management. Identification and correction of organisational errors is not possible unless the top management gains full support and sincerity of the people working at the grass-root level. Likewise, identification and correction of personal errors is influenced by the organisational learning on a day-to-day basis. Individuals may reflect upon their experiences with a view to identifying their mistakes and learning from them, but with constantly changing micro and macro cultures, individuals keep experiencing newer things. Thus, with the passage of time, as individuals continue their practice of reflection, they increase their learning. The main difference between the organisational learning and the individual’s learning is the fact that in the former, group psychology dominates individual’s psychology whereas the opposite is true for the latter. Nevertheless, both individual learning and the organisational learning are enhanced as more experienced is gained. Hence, time can be considered as a primary determinant of both the individual’s learning and the organisational learning. References: Bandura, A 1986, Social foundations of thought and action: A social cognitive theory, Prentice-Hall, Englewood Cliffs. Bandura, A 1991, Self-regulation of motivation through anticipatory and self-regulatory mechanisms, in R. A. Dienstbier (Ed.), Nebraska Symposium on Motivation, Vol. 38, pp 69–164, University of Nebraska Press, Lincoln. Bandura, A 2001, Social cognitive theory: An agentic perspective, Annual Review of Psychology, Vol 52, pp 1-26. Brown, JS, and Duguid, P 1991, Organiational learning and communities-of-practice: Toward a unified view of working, learning, and innovation, The Institute of Management Sciences, viewed, 5 September, 2011, . Hastings, C 1996, The New Organization: Growing the culture of organizational networking, London: McGraw-Hill. Malhotra, Y 1996, Organizational Learning and Learning Organizations: An Overview, viewed, 5 September, 2011, . Pegasus Communications, 2005, What is organizational learning? viewed, 5 September, 2011, . Serrat, O 2009, A primer on organizational learning, viewed, 5 September, 2011, . Smith, MK 2001, Learning in organizations, viewed, 5 September, 2011, . Society for Organizational Learning n.d., Organizational Learning – Overview, viewed, 5 September, 2011, . Read More