Learning Disabilities are Fatal in Organizations - Assignment Example

Learning Disabilities are Fatal in Organizations Part A and B Part C In the past, management consultants have been helping organizations manage change; but with the ever increasing changes happening in almost every aspect of society – from politics, economics and even culture –the greatest skill organizations can develop is the capability to manage surprise. To manage surprise, an organization must be capable of foreseeing changes and realize the repercussion (both positive and negative) of such event and create appropriate solutions to address possible negative effects. In order for an organization to develop this adaptive capacity, it must learn how to learn. In this sense, the issue is no longer about simple organizational learning, but rather, but rather, the need to create the right conditions to develop a learning organization. The Learning Disabilities In his book, The Fifth Discipline, Peter Senge talks about seven learning disabilities. (1) “I am my position” refers trend wherein people in organizations focus mainly on their jobs and they fail to look at how they are contributing to the entire system. Because of this view, people fail to realize how their own performance can affect the performance of another member in the team and non-performance can spell disaster for the entire organization. When people do not see the greater enterprise of which they are part, they tend to have low accountability for their results and they will often blame another for their poor performance (Senge 1990:18). (2) “The enemy is out there” happens to most people who are unable to accept their own mistakes. Often, individuals put the blame on someone else, even when it is them who has registered poor performance. With this learning disability, Senge says that it is “almost impossible to detect the leverage which [one] can use ‘in here’ on problems that straddle the boundary between [the organization] and ‘out there’” (Senge 1990: 18) (3) “The illusion of taking charge” refers to the reactive response that most people do when faced with a crisis. According to Senge, most organizations view “taking charge” of the situation as the organization’s capacity to address the effects of a certain issue. However, because responses are reactionary, the choices that an organization can use are also limited. Because of this, some responses can lead to other negative impacts and various unintended consequences. For Senge, organizations have to become proactive so that they can prepare for changes and determine solutions to issues even before such issues come up. (4) “The fixation on events” refers to an organization’s focus on short term trends and failure to look at long term patterns. According to Senge, organizations are well versed at dealing with single events, hence preventing them from creating sustained growth in business or other endeavors. A learning organization is one that creates events – organizations create the right conditions so that they are able to reach their goals and to not rely on random factors. (5) “The parable of the boiled frog” refers to the organization’s inability to perceive slow changes and recognize how these changes are affecting the organization. Because organizations are unaware of the gradual changes, they are also unable to place adaptive policies that will help sustain their operations. This learning disability is addressed by an organization’s capacity to reflect and discover how the actions of employees or other similar organizations are affecting its own operation. (6) “The delusion of learning from experience” refers to the inability of an organization to foresee solutions to problems it has not experienced. For example, an organization cannot put security nets in place to prevent backruptcy until it has experienced its bankruptcy. Management is all about sustaining an endeavor, hence managers, or leaders, have to address issues they have never experienced before. (7) “The myth of the management team” refers to the belief that it is the responsibility of the top-ranking officials to maintain and sustain the group’s vitality. This belief is a result and an effect of the first learning disability. When decision making is centralized, creativity in the group is not fostered. Moreover, accountability tends to be low, hence leading to the over-stress among managers and non-commitment among those in the ranks. It leads to the loss of dynamism and can cause the breakdown of the organization. Organizational Learning vs. The Learning Organization In order to address learning deficiencies, organizations have to learn new capacities and implement them widely. The beginning of this process is referred to as organizational learning. Organizational learning is defined as “a system of actions, actors, symbols and processes that enables an organization to transform information into valued knowledge which in turn increases its long-run adaptive capacity” (Schwandt 1993:8). From this definition alone, one can already see that for D.R. Schwandt, organizations have cultures, too and that this culture can affect how an organization adapts to change. Hence, Schwandt talks about the capacity of the organization to learn as a system. In this view, changes in culture and behavior cannot be measured by performance alone, but rather it is reflected by relationships and the dynamics of the various subsystems in the organization. In a sense, organizations are also social systems and each one has their own symbols, values and meanings. It is this organizational culture which defines how an organization addresses problems, how performances are managed and improved, how mistakes are viewed, and how relationships are fostered. Every strategy aiming to promote organizational learning must deal with the organization’s philosophical underpinnings. By regarding organizations as social systems in themselves, organizational learning may be likened to social change. In order to promote change in the organization, one has to deal with four learning subsystems as depicted in figure 1 below. Figure 1: Schwandt’s learning subsystems (Gorelick 2005:3) The environmental interface refers to the point where information is taken in and released by the organization. It requires a system for the organization to determine which information are credible and which has to be expelled. The action-reflection subsystem refers to the means by which an organization attains its goals. Its reflection stage enables the organization to determine how the information can potentially affect the organization, as well as develop initial plans to address these effects. It is also where new knowledge and values are generated. The dissemination-diffusion subsystem refers to the mechanisms for information transfer within the organization. It covers formal means through meetings and email and non-informal methods such as rumors. The meaning and memory subsystem refers to the beliefs, values and assumptions which serve as criteria for the judgement and selection of which information (or unimportant) to the organization. Each of the subsystems are interdependent and they have various methods of exchange. For example, action and reflection uses the information derived by the organization from its interface with its environment as well as within its ranks. Morever, when information from the external environment is disseminated and diffused in the organization, it re-structures the organizational culture. The organization will then create actions that will address the repercussions of change. Through this learning journey, Schwandt says that the organization is able to adapt to various issues that comes its way. Meanwhile, the learning organization is described by Peter Senge is experience as being “part of a great ‘team’, a group of people who functioned together in an extraordinary way – who trusted one another, who complemented each other’s strengths and compensated for each other’s limitations, who had common goals that were larger than individuals and who produced extraordinary results. Hence, over the years, academicians have referred to organizational learning as the process and the learning organization as the end goal. But for Carol Gorelick (2005), Senge’s view provides the tools and methods which are useful in the process of organizational leaning. The five disciplines (personal mastery, building a shared vision, systems thinking, mental models and team learning) are not sufficient at promoting learning in the hope of affecting performance. In fact, Senge himself said, “While the disciplines are vital, they do not in themselves provide much guidance on how to begin the journey of a learning organization...The real work of building learning organizations is the work of the deep learning cycle. [It] takes place within a shell and architecture of guiding ideas, innovations in infrastructure and theory, methods and tools (Senge et al. 1994: 21-22). Gorelick believes that when Senge’s principles five disciplines refer to a continually learning organization. In this case, the learning organization is no longer an end goal but is instead a stage in the process. To reach this stage, Gorelick refers back to Schwandt’s subsystems and says “learning and organizational development practitioners [should focus] on the internal interchange media [referring to Schwandt’s subsystems]: structuring and sensemaking” (Gorelick 2005: 387). These two media of exchange refers to the creation of new patterns and values for the organizations. Through structuration, members of the organization impart it with meanings. In Senge’s words, this is metanoia, a shift of mind. If an organization wants to ensure that its own members are learning to learn, it must first discover the underlying values promoting the learning deficiency. Once these values are pinpointed, the organization can implement new programs to promote learning. For example, it can decide to publish its own newsletter to communicate with its members and reiterate the organization’s shared vision so that the members can imbibe the new value. The organization may also want to practice team decision making in order to foster accountability and harness collective intelligence. It may also decide to offer scholarships to ensure that its members are updated with the latest knowledge and technology related to their jobs. In order to organization-wide changes, the organization has to conduct surveys and discover the very institutions that espouse old culture and prevent the new. Is the compensation system preventing team members from availing of scholarships? Are team leaders utilizing the right management style to ensure interaction within groups? How are in-groups and out-groups formed? How do they affect job satisfaction and work performance? Aside from dealing with the organizational culture, one has to remember the section on personal mastery in Senge’s book. This is an important component of a learning organization because it talks about how empowered a worker is .Often, organizations send their employees to personal development programs but after the 2-week training high, the momentum ceases and the employee goes back to his routine and loses the enthusiasm to do well. In this case, it is the responsibility of the organization to make their working environment as fun and comfortable for their employees. Moreover, it is the responsibility of the worker to interact and to provide feedback on what kind of services they want offered. In an article by John Kotter, he gave seven steps to transforming an organization: (1) establishing a sense of urgency; (2) forming a powerful guiding coalition; (3) creating a vision; (4) communicating the vision; (5) empowering others to act on the vision; (6) planning for and creating short term wins; (7) consolidating improvements and producing still more change; (8) institutionalizing new approaches (Kotter 2007:99). One can already see how Senge’s five disciplines fit this approach. Personal mastery empowers a member of the organization to act on the vision, while team learning can be achieved when a powerful coalition is formed from the empowered members. Perhaps one thing not so apparent in Senge’s five disciplines is the need for institutionalizing the changes to organizational culture. When metanoia is achieved, the organization has to find the connection between the new behaviors and the values of the organization so that it can be developed to sustain the organization to the future. Institutionalization is related to Schwandt’s structuration, and can happen through the constant communication of the shared vision and the rewarding of individuals exhibiting the new and desired behavior. Of course, when talking about shared vision, one has to realize that this is not something imposed by the managers, instead, it is something that comes from dialogue with other members of the group. Conclusion From the previous discussions, it can be concluded that organizations are social systems. In order to address learning deficiencies, one has to have an understanding of its beliefs, values and assumptions of the organization. Only by changing the organizational culture and institutionalizing the new behavior can the organization be sustained and be assured of continual learning. WORD COUNT: 2,010 References Gorelick, C., 2005. Organizational learning vs the learning organization: a conversation with a practitioner. The Learning Organization, 12(4), pp.383-388. Kotter, J.P., 2007. Leading change: why transformation efforts fail. Harvard Business Review, pp.96-103. Schwandt, D.R., 1993. Organization learning: a dynamic integrative construct, Washington: The George Washington University: Executive Leadership in Human Resource Development Program. Senge, P., 1990. The Fifth Discipline, New York: Double Day. Available at: `. Senge, P. et al., 1994. The Fifth Discipline Fieldbook: strategies and tool for building a learning organization, New York: Double Day. Read More