Knowledge Management- Building a Learning Organization - Essay Example

?Introduction Organizations often have to do things which make them different from the competition and can allow them to become more competitive. However, increasing complexity of external business environment as well as of the business itself, it becomes necessary that the organizations must respond to new challenges in more innovative manner. Firms can achieve the same only if they adapt to learning and become knowledge organizations to continuously learn and develop new ways of doing business. This article presents a very vivid illustration of how organizations can actually become a learning organization by focusing on five important areas. These five areas are considered as necessary in order to build a successful learning organization. This paper will therefore review this article and summarize it and present the point out the specific ideas presented in the paper. Confusion about the concept of learning organizations Even though organizations as well as the academics are aware of the significance of the concept of learning organization however, it is still considered as a source of confusion for many. The initial paragraph therefore sets the tone as to how the organizations in a fast changing environment and industries such as semi-conductor industry can adapt to the increasing complexity of doing business through learning and acquiring knowledge. Till now the efforts to define a learning organization have been based upon stating it in a relatively philosophical position with little or no actionable implementation of the subject. The author therefore has suggested that there is a need to develop a more actionable and practical definition of learning organizations. Author also highlights the practical implication of the same for the management of the organizations as it is suggested that the management must have an operational definition which can be put into action. Further, the current definition of the learning organizations also lack the measurability viz a viz measuring the rate at which an organization can actually increase its learning over the period of time. Learning Organizations Though the author has outlined different views of other authors regarding defining the concept however, Garvin has outlined following definition of learning organizations “A learning organization is an organization skilled at creating, acquiring, and transferring knowledge, and at modifying its behavior to reflect new knowledge and insights.” (Garvin) According to the author, above definition has taken into consideration the practical aspects of actually implementing the knowledge within an organization. The above definition is therefore considered as something which is actionable and limits the number of organizations which can actually be considered as the knowledge or learning organizations. Building Blocks According to author, there are five different building blocks which are essential for organizations to become truly learning organizations in nature. The first building block discussed is the excellence at achieving the capability of systematic problem solving. Learning organizations must adapt the new and more objective ways of analyzing the information for the purpose of problem solving. The more emphasis should be placed upon dealing with the problems through logic and data rather than relying extensively on guesswork and other methods. Experimentation is another building block for the learning organizations as it is suggested that the learning organizations must continue to search for and new ideas and knowledge in order to become more competitive. It has been stressed that the experimentation should be done in two different phases wherein the on-going continuation program should be in place to allow small programs of experimentation to run through the time. The one-off programs for experimentation purposes have also been discussed to suggest that the organizations must develop capabilities to successfully execute such programs. It has also been discussed that on-going programs ensure that the successful ideas keep on flowing within the organization however; they also need to be backed up by successful reward mechanism. Another important dimension discussed is based upon learning from the past experiences as according to the author, organizations must develop the ability to learn from their past failures and successes. Author has cited different studies suggesting that those products have become more successful which were rolled out after taking into consideration the old failures. Another building block discussed is based upon learning from others as author is of the view that the source of knowledge and learning cannot be limited to the internal sources only. The concept of benchmarking has been discussed to indicate that the organizations must benchmark their behavior according to those who have achieved excellence in the past. Author has further outlined that learning in such situation can only become possible if organization is receptive and managers are willing to listen to both the bad as well as the good news. Transferring knowledge has been also described as one of the key building blocks as it is argued that the disseminating knowledge across the organization will help organization to become more competitive in nature. As such the sharing of ideas will benefit the organization as their widespread dissemination can create significant impact for the organizations. Author has also suggested different ways and means through which knowledge can actually be disseminated across the organization. It has also been suggested that the regular contacts with the experts within the organization can also allow employees to learn and help the organization to become more responsive to new challenges. Measuring Learning Author has outlined the earlier methodologies to measure the impact of learning on the organization and suggested that these tools and methodologies may not be adequate or sufficient for modern organizations. Author has described a relatively new methodology called half curve to measure the learning within an organization. The half curve methodology takes into consideration the time it takes to complete 50% of the improvement in any given area. Author however, has also mentioned the traditional weaknesses of this technique and further outlined as to how and in what stages, the organizational learning takes place. Conclusion This article has defined the traditional weaknesses of the approach taken by the academics as well as firms towards organizational learning. Author has suggested that the current approach need to be improved and highlighted different aspects of learning organizations. By suggesting five building blocks, author has been able to outline as to what learning organizations are and how they can become more successful by adapting knowledge acquiring within their folds. Bibliography Garvin, David A. "Building a learning Organization." Harvard Business Review (1993): 1-15. Read More