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The Learning Organization

by

Dr. Robert Hurley


What You Will Learn
• The definition of learning organization
• The notion of learning how to learn
• Senge’ five disciplines for becoming a
learning organization
• Some examples of learning organizations
• Two sources of practical learning
organization exercises and gaming
activities
Learning Organization

The term “learning


organization” was first used
in the 1980s by Richard
Pascal. However, it was the
publication of Peter Senge’s
best seller, The Fifth
Discipline, in 1990 that
popularized the phrase.
Learning Organizations
• Are committed to a cycle of
continuous learning and
improvement
• Promote a culture that enables and
accelerates individual and group
learning
• Are continually testing their
assumptions and transforming new
knowledge into actions
What Is Learning

• Not everyone agrees on what constitutes


learning.
• Many workers consider learning simply
“the act of acquiring new information.”
• For some, learning means “picking up new
behaviors and skills.”
• Others look on learning as “gaining new
insights through personal experiences.”
Learning How To Learn

• By engaging in meta learning, looking at


learning from a variety of perspectives and
practicing ways of learning, employees can
increase their own learning capabilities.
• Individually, group-wise, and organization-
wise, learning how learn better and faster is
the essence of learning organizations.
Senge’s 5 Disciplines

• Systems Thinking
• Personal Mastery
• Team Learning
• Mental Models
• Shared Vision
Peter Senge

Senge’s “five disciplines,” include


systems thinking (comprehending the
big picture), personal mastery (doing
the job well), mental models
(critically questioning old
assumptions), shared vision (arriving
at a collective purpose), and team
learning (working together
collaboratively).
Personal Mastery

• Brief Definition:
– Learning to expand one's personal capacity to
create the future and results one most desires.
Personal Mastery

• It is the basic human need to learn, grow,


and achieve personal mastery that fuels and
provides substance to all learning
organizations.
• No organization can truly be a learning
organization without its individual members
being free to learn.
Personal Mastery

• Employees must be taught, encouraged, and


granted permission to become creative
architects of their own work lives.
• People must think of personal mastery as a
process of continuous growth and
development-not a human state to be
achieved.
Mental Models

• Brief Definition:
– Surfacing, clarifying, testing, and improving
one's internal representations of the world and
understanding how these representations, along
with their accompanying implicit assumptions,
shape one's decisions and actions.
Mental Models

• Mental models are images,


assumptions, and beliefs that
everyone carries around in their
heads.
• They include strongly held
beliefs about self, family
members, employing
organizations, and the world at
large which exist in the
subconscious.
Mental Models

• These mental maps help people


simplify, organize, and make
sense of their complex world.
• A distinguishing characteristic
of learning organizations is that
they operate from a strong
factual base.
Mental Models

• Learning organizations are willing to


continuously discard or revise obsolete and
sometimes treasured beliefs and embrace
new and unfamiliar mental models.
Shared Vision

• Brief Definition:
– Building a common sense of purpose and
commitment by developing shared images of
the future that we seek to create.
Shared Vision

• In a learning organization all workers,


regardless of their position, are invited and
provided with opportunities to create, test,
communicate, and promote the company’s
mission.
• Employees are asked to play a strategic part
in setting the goals and quality standards
that will turn their company’s shared vision
into reality.
Shared Vision
• Workers are also encouraged and given
assistance in setting and aligning their own
personal visions and goals with those of the
organization.
• In this way learning organizations have a
definite advantage over their competitors:
• They are able to benefit from the collective
intelligence, creative know-how, and
commitment of all employees.
Team Learning

• Brief Definition:
– Reflecting on action as a team and transforming
collective thinking skills so that the team can
develop intelligence and ability greater than the
sum of individual members' talents.
Team Learning

• People can learn and think of more things


collectively than they can individually.
• This is due to the fact that people learn from
one another.
• Furthermore, the ideas expressed by one
person can set in motion a sweeping
avalanche of ideas.
Team Learning

• In a matter of seconds a work group can


become a thinking machine, producing a set
of answers to heretofore unsolvable
company problems or coming up with
revolutionary new product ideas.
Systems Thinking

• Brief Definition:
– Understanding the interconnections and
interrelationships that shape the behavior of the
systems in which we exist.
Systems Thinking

• An engine has many parts and for any


engine to function at its full potential all
parts must be operational.
• The same principle holds for organizations.
• Organizations are made up of interrelated
elements that function as a whole (i.e., a
system).
Systems Thinking

• Changes in one element or part of the


system can cause changes in other elements.
• In fact, a change in one critical part (e.g.,
customer service) can set off a chain
reaction of continuous cause-and-effect
events that ripple and loop throughout an
entire company.
Systems Thinking

• Depending upon the effect of the change,


overall company performance can be either
greatly enhanced or diminished.
Additional Resources

The concepts of the


learning organization can
be somewhat abstract.
The Fieldbook explains
the concepts in more
detail and suggests
various learning
exercises.
Additional Resources

This resource contains


48 gaming activities
designed to make
concepts relating the
learning organization
more concrete,
understandable, and fun
for workers to learn.
What You Have Learned

• The definition of learning organization


• The notion of learning how to learn
• Senge’ five disciplines for becoming a
learning organization
• Some examples of learning organizations
• Two sources of practical learning
organization exercises and gaming activities

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