Learning organisation - Essay Example

?Learning organization: Introduction: Learning organization can be defined as, “A Learning Company is an organization that facilitates the learning of all its members and continuously transforms itself” (Pedler, Burgoyne, and Boydell cited in Cook, Staniforth, and Stewart, 1997, p. 10). Development of an organization into a learning organization is not an organic process. Instead, such a development is facilitated by certain factors. With the growth of organization and structuring of the company, individuals tend to assume more strength and power and their rigidity subdues the organization’s capacity to learn as it grows. In such circumstances, solutions applied to counter problems are often ineffective. Organizations tend to downsize in an attempt to enlarge profits and remain competitive. With fewer staff members, load on individuals grows manifolds. In order to gain competitive advantage and to promote a culture that is customer responsive, it is imperative that companies learn faster than their parallels in the market. This requires maintenance of knowledge regarding new processes and products and an understanding of the outside environment. That is why learning organization has been defined as, “a company that can respond to new information by altering the very “programming” by which information is processed and evaluated” (Malhotra, 1996). In order to accomplish this, employees assume a greater responsibility of both managing their own works and cooperating with one another to play part in the organization’s strategic processes meant for competitive advantage. This paper aims at discussing some of the key features of a learning organization. Key features of a learning organization: There are five many features of a learning organization namely, systems thinking, shared vision, personal mastery, team learning and mental models. Systems thinking: The whole concept of learning organization fundamentally surfaced from the systems thinking. Systems thinking is such a framework that enables organizational personnel to conceive businesses as linked objects. It is employed as a technique of thinking in the learning organizations. Organizations analyze themselves with this thinking method. It has such information systems which scale the performance of the parent organization as well as that of its individual components. According to the systems thinking, in order for an organization to gain the qualities a learning organization, all traits should be simultaneously apparent in it. In case an organization lacks any of the five characteristics, it will not be able to achieve its goal. However, some people are of the view that these traits can be acquired or developed one by one with time. For example, O’ Keeffe (2002) is of the view that these features can not all be acquired at once, and are instead, developed gradually to convert an organization into a learning organization. Shared vision: One of the key factors that provide an organization with an opportunity to gain competitive advantage is shared vision. Shared vision among the organizational personnel builds their common identity. This in turn, provides the workers with tremendous energy and inculcates motivation in them to gain learning. In this way, shared vision plays a cardinal role in promoting learning among the members of the staff. Individuals’ vision plays a big role in the development and promotion of shared vision. Thus, if the vision in a company is enforced by particular people who assume greater power over others, this may hinder the development of a shared organizational vision. This is the fundamental reason why most of the learning organizations prefer to adopt decentralized and flat organization structures. Personal mastery: Personal mastery is the name of an individual’s commitment to the organizational learning process (Senge, 1990). An organization whose personnel are quick learners acquires an edge over the competitors whose employees are not. There are various organization specific events and happenings that promote learning among individuals. Particularly, on job training programs and research and development are employed in an organization with a view to promoting learning among the workers. However, managers can only take such steps that would provide the workers with opportunity to learn. Still, learning capacity varies from individual to individual, and managers have little to no control over that. An individual who maintains an uninviting and disapproving attitude can not be made to learn, until the urge to learn arises from within the individual. A lot of research has been conducted in the past to study the learning process in the context of an organization, and there is considerable evidence to show that most of the organizational learning is incidental and happens outside the training sessions that are directed at promoting learning among workers. “…recognition that learning is experiential and organizationally embedded potentially connects the concept of the learning organization with the process of reflective practice” (Gould and Baldwin, 2004, p. 4). The best way to promote learning is to develop such a culture within the organization that is conducive for individuals’ learning and hence, personal mastery so that it becomes a matter of individuals’ daily life at work. Although learning organization is fundamentally an organization in which individuals learn, yet they should be provided with mechanisms to convey their individualistic learning to their coworkers to promote organizational learning. This not only promotes organizational learning process, but also strengthens the shared vision among personnel. Team learning: Team learning is the sum of individuals’ learning who work together within an organization. shared learning promotes team learning. Team learning enables the workers to grow professionally and increase the competence. The enhanced access to knowledge in team learning increases an organization’s capacity of problem solving. Such structures of learning organizations as openness and boundary crossing play a big role in enhancing the process of team learning (Argyris, 1999). Team learning encourages the workers to conduct meaningful discussions. Therefore, members of the organizational team frequently communicate and share opinions and ideas with one another. Learning organizations essentially have well developed structures of knowledge and information management that ease the process of creation, storage and implementation of information for the betterment of organization. Mental models: Mental models are the beliefs and assumptions of the organizational personnel (Senge, 1990). It is a key feature of a learning organization that it challenges the mental models. By challenging the mental models of its personnel, a learning organization becomes its own critique. Every organization has a certain set of memories that are inclusive of the organizational values, morale and preferred behaviors. Environment within an organization can not be made conducive for learning without replacing confrontational behaviors with a culture of open nature. Employees need to cooperate with the top management in all inquiries that they may deem important in order to remove obstacles. There should be mechanisms to help location and assessment of action theories within the organization. Like learning, there is a process of unlearning that eradicates unwanted concepts, trends and values from the organizational culture. Conclusion: A learning organization knows that its future lies in the hands of its personnel. Therefore, it provides its personnel with opportunities availing which, they may develop themselves professionally. A learning organization is aware of the fact that different employees have different ways of learning concepts. Therefore, it addresses their individualistic concerns so that each and every member of the workforce plays his/her part in the development of the organization through his/her learning and innovation (Lassey, 1998, p. 2). “Learning organizations theoretically maintain a significantly higher capacity for organizational renewal and competitive readiness than do traditional firms because the former emphasize the importance of human resources and achieving desired business results” (Gilley and Maycunich, 2000, p. 7). Senge (cited in Anol, 2005) is of the view that there exists a complete mind shift in the very heart of a learning organization that enables individuals to see them connected to a larger world in addition to their individualistic selves. The learning organization encourages people working in it to realize and correct their own mistakes instead of wasting their time and energies in unproductive blame games. Senge (cited in Anol, 2005) essentially visualizes the learning organization as an institute where individuals discover the way of creation of their individualistic reality, and the way they can alter it for the betterment of their own selves as well as of the organization as a whole. Learning organizations fundamentally base their ideology on innovation and creativity and hold a belief that solutions to all organizational problems can be retrieved from the very personnel working in the organization without any assistance from external sources (Mason, 2011). Because of such a unique and self fulfilling ideology, a learning organization can be thought of as self sufficient organization with a progressive approach. As explained in this paper, the key elements of a learning organization i.e. systems thinking, shared vision, personal mastery, team learning and mental models are all positive factors and promote mutual collaboration among the organizational personnel and reduce their interpersonal conflicts. These elements inculcate optimism in the intrinsic culture of a learning organization that is conducive for organizational growth and success. Thus, a learning organization has an edge over traditional organizations and gains competitive advantage over them in the complicated market scenario of the contemporary age. References: Anol 2005, (My) 7 guidelines for effective corporate e Learning, viewed, 18 February, 2011, . Argyris, C 1999, On Organizational Learning, 2nd Ed, Oxford: Blackwell Publishing. Cook, JA, Staniforth, D, and Stewart, J 1997, The learning organization in the public services, Gower Publishing, Ltd. Gilley, JW, and Maycunich, A 2000, Beyond the learning organization: Creating a culture of continuous growth and development through state-of-the-art human resource practices, Perseus Books Group. Gould, N, and Baldwin, M 2004, Social work, critical reflection, and the learning organization, USA: Ashgate Publishing Company. Lassey, P 1998, Developing a learning organization, London: Kogan Page Limited. Malhotra, Y 1996, Organizational Learning and Learning Organizations: An Overview, viewed, 18 February, 2011, . Mason, MK 2011, What is a Learning Organization? viewed, 18 February, 2011, . O’Keeffe, T 2002, Organizational Learning: a new perspective, Journal of European Industrial Training, vol. 26, no. 2, pp. 130-141. Senge, PM 1990, The Fifth Discipline, London: Century Business. Read More