Learning Organization

Ajay Agarwal

Introduction to Learning Organization

David Garvin in the August 1993 Harvard Business Review defines a leaning
organization as "an organization skilled at creating, acquiring, and transferring knowledge, and at
modifying its behavior to reflect new knowledge and insights."
It can further be referred to as “a company that facilitates the learning of all of its
members and that continuously transforms itself”.
The important component of the definitions above is the requirement that change occur in
the way work gets done. Learning in an organization means the continuous testing of experience,
and the transformation of that experience into knowledge- accessible to the whole organization,
and relevant to its core purpose.
In a way those who work in a learning organization are “fully awakened” people. They
are engaged in their work, striving to reach their potential, by sharing the vision of a worthy goal
with team colleagues. They have mental models to guide them in the pursuit of personal mastery,
and their personal goals are in alignment with the mission of the organization. Working in a
learning organization is far from being a slave to a job that is unsatisfying; rather, it is seeing
one’s work as part of a whole, a system where there are interrelationships and processes that
depend on each other. Consequently, awakened workers take risks in order to learn, and they
understand how to seek enduring solutions to problems instead of quick fixes. Lifelong
commitment to high quality work can result when teams work together to capitalize on the
synergy of the continuous group learning for optimal performance. Those in learning
organizations are not slaves to living beings, but they can serve others in effective ways because
they are well-prepared for change and working with others.
As highlighted in literature and in practices, a Learning Organization is seen as a
response to an increasingly unpredictable and dynamic business environment. Learning
Organizations are seen as adaptive to their external environment and continually enhancing their
capabilities to change and to adapt. This could be done by developing collective as well as
individual learning and by using the results of learning in order to achieve better results.
Therefore “Learning Organizations are those that have in place systems, mechanisms and
processes, that are used to continually enhance their capabilities and those who work with it or for
it, to achieve sustainable objectives – for themselves and the communities in which they
participate”.

Activities of a Learning Organization

1. Systematic problem solving:

o Thinking with systems theory
o Insisting on data rather than assumptions
o Using statistical tools
2. Experimentation with new approaches:
o Ensure steady flow of new ideas
o Incentives for risk taking
o Demonstration projects
3. Learning from their own experiences and past history:
o Recognition of the value of productive failure instead of unproductive success

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 4. Learning from the experiences and best practices of others:
o Enthusiastic borrowing
5. Transferring knowledge quickly and efficiently throughout the organization:
o Reports
o Tours
o Personnel rotation programs
o Training programs

Reasons to Build a Learning Organisation

1. Because we want superior performance.

2. To improve quality.
3. For customers.
4. For competitive advantage.
5. For an energized, committed workforce.
6. To manage change.
7. For the truth.
8. Because the times demand it.
9. Because we recognize our interdependence.
10. Because we want it.

Attributes of a Learning Organization

1. The first is learning how to disperse power on an orderly, non-chaotic basis. Right now
the word "empowerment" is a very powerful buzzword. It's also very dangerous. Just
granting power, with out some method of discipline and order that comes out of a
command-and-control bureaucracy, produces chaos. We have to learn to disperse power
so that self-discipline can largely replace imposed discipline. That immerses us in the
area of culture; replacing the bureaucracy with aspirations, values, and visions.
2. The second attribute of winning companies will be systemic understanding. ...We are
good at the type of problem, which lends itself to a scientific solution and reductionist
thinking. We are absolutely illiterate in subjects that require us to understand systems and
interrelationships.
3. The third attribute that twenty-first companies will need is conversation. This is the
single greatest tool in your organization -- more important than computers or
sophisticated research. We are good at small talk....but when we face contentious issues --
when there are feelings about rights, or when two worthwhile principles come into
conflict with one another -- we have so many defense mechanisms that impede
communications that we are absolutely terrible.
4. Finally, under our old system of governance, one could lead by mandate. If you had the
ability to climb the ladder, gain power, and then control that power, you could enforce
these changes in attributes. But the forthcoming kind of company is going to require
voluntary follower ship. Most of our leaders don't think in terms of getting voluntary
followers; they think in terms of control.

Learning Organizations and Strategic conversations

Organizations learn. Just like individual people, organizations sense circumstances within
their environment and they respond. They observe the results of their responses and remember
the results, along with information gathered from other sources, for reference in designing future

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responses. This process of sensing, responding, and observing/remembering goes largely
unnoticed by the individuals working within the organization due to the complexity of the
"anatomy" of organizations. But consciously or not, effectively or not, all organizations are doing
these activities over and over. In studying the concept of learning organizations we seek the tools
and methodologies that will help an organization learn consciously and proactively in pursuit of
its goals. In a learning organization, our purpose for dialogue is to let the meaning of our words
permeate through the group, or, to develop fully shared, even synergistic understanding of
important information, experiences, goals, etc. among all the people involved.

Why is this so? Because it is the people that breathe the life into the organization, they do
the sensing, responding, observing and remembering. An organization is nothing more than the
actions, interactions, and resultant artifacts, of the people that participate. When an organization
learns, it is the people who do the learning. Learning organization experts believe that if the
organization is going to move decisively toward its vision it needs to develop a unique
"consciousness" designed for the purpose. But this consciousness can only exist in the collective
consciousness of the people, therefore dialogue is necessary to develop an organizational
"consciousness" that is proactive and effective. Without shared understanding of information we
will sense the environment differently, causing confusion. Without shared understanding of
experiences we will advocate different responses, causing conflict. Without shared understanding
of observations we will remember different outcomes, exacerbating the confusion and conflict.
Dialogue is people coming together to share and analyze the information, ideas, and paradigms of
their organization for the purpose of improving the organization's ability to sense, respond,
observe/remember; for the purpose of improving the organization's capability to learn.

Our Strategic Conversations indeed are Maricopa people coming together to share and
analyze information, ideas and paradigms that are of strategic importance to our organization.
These sorts of discussions generally lead to mutual understanding, and when we do a good job,
truly common understanding.
Organizational learning actually happens in the innumerable interactions of the people
and manifests itself in their equally innumerable workplace activities. If 50 people at a Strategic
Conversation all learn one thing, how often will that unit of learning actually affect their actions?
How big an effect will it probably have even then? Small, to be sure. But dialogue's nature, small
increments of learning happening in many places, creating effects in even more places, is
generally not in the realm of short-term tangible change. It is in the realm of systemic and
evolutionary change. Does this mean we shouldn't have bothered to learn from/with each other?
No, it means that we need to incorporate dialogue into our daily work and understand that any
one dialogue usually will not make an immediately discernible difference.
Another concern commonly arises about dialogue. Sometimes in Strategic Conversations
it may feel like we are just "sharing our ignorance." After all, we are discussing complicated
subjects and may or may not have any "real experts" in the room to guide us. But this too is
natural. While dialogue, in the learning organization context, may have been happening here and
there around Maricopa for years, creating it "on demand" is a new skill we are learning. We want
to be a consciously and proactively learning organization.

Diversity and Learning Organization

The heart of learning organizations is the concept of "communities of commitment." The

current U.S. culture promotes fragmentation of thoughts and detachment of individuals from the
community. To the contrary, the building of a learning organization is not an individual task, but
a systems approach that brings the parts (people) together to create alternative ways of working

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and living together. Capturing the strengths of diverse people is natural for a learning
organization. The management of diversity must become a strategic issue.

The two goals of valuing diversity by believing that no one is more important than another, each
is important in a unique way, and of developing a quality approach to its services are powerful
momentums. A learning organization is the framework on which both these forces can be
energized and strengthened.

The learning organization of the future will incorporate diversity into its internal processes by
encouraging the expression of different point of views. Diversity of experience, education,
gender, ethnicity, sexual orientation, expertise, and opinion can aid any organization in
attempting to understand students, customers, competitors, and suppliers, anticipate future trends,
and provide a challenging workplace for the employees. If the requisite level of diversity does not
exist or is not effectively managed, the organization will be unable to adapt to a rapidly changing,
external environment.

The quality concept of exceeding the needs of your customers comes into consideration
when discussing diversity. A learning organization enables contributions from the people by:

• Discovering multiple ways to contribute

• Utilizing diversity of background and perspective
• Recognizing unique roles
• Providing support for the whole person

Diversity means many different relationships, many different approaches to the same
problem. A diverse community is a resilient community, capable of adapting easily to changing
situations. Accordingly, ecomanagement includes the conscious effort to include representatives
from different interest groups, contradictory tendencies, different cultural backgrounds, etc., in
the process of reflection and decision-making. ...All living systems develop, and all development
is learning. Therefore a sustainable community is always a learning community; a community
that continually changes, develops, and learns.

Leadership, Chaos, Individual Roles

The learning organization profoundly effects the individuals employed in it and several
questions arise. What is the responsibility of the individual and the organization to the time and
commitment toward learning activities? What individual competencies are need for the future?
How do you get those competencies? What are the trainability and adaptability of employees?
What are the consequences of discomfort, fear, and chaos? What is the role of employee groups?
Are job descriptions and classifications still valid? What will be the rewards, recognitions and
incentives for individuals? How do we get people to work well together? How do we honor and
benefit from diversity? How do we get teams to work together quickly and efficiently? How do
we resolve conflicts?

Theories and discussions from quantum physics, the new science, chaos, etc. create new
ways of thinking about organizational design. They can help us evaluate current management
practices, guide us through the fads, and direct us to deeper understandings.

Important roles for people within a learning organization include:

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 1. Top leaders and managers serve as learning roles models by sharing their own learning
goals and by encouraging others to learn. They also recognize the need for individual
learning for all levels of employees.
2. Individual employees accept responsibility for their own careers and their own personal
learning. They do not wait to be taught nor expect the organization to provide career
paths.
3. Learning and personal growth are actively encouraged and rewarded. There are
incentives for individuals to stretch their abilities.
4. The "not invented here" syndrome is not practiced by individuals. There is a constant
scanning of the internal and external environment for new ideas and trends that will lead
to improvement.
5. Employees are held accountable for their performance and excellence is rewarded.
6. Procedures and policies are in place to ensure ongoing and timely reevaluation of
changing job skill sets and requirements. Job descriptions and job requirements are
examined regularly to accurately reflect the work being performed or skill sets required.

Skill Sets Needed by Individuals in an Learning Organization

1. Ability to understand the culture of the organization

2. Ability to let go of old myths
3. Ability to notice new patterns- language as an indicator
o Multitasking
o Miniaturization
o Short-term memory overload
o Low level depression and increasingly angry culture
o Changes of speed
4. Ability to develop a clear perspective/ open perspective
o Ability to relax
o Sense of humor - ability to laugh
o Knowing your history
o Insulate hot buttons and fears
o Ability to scan for information
o Pretend you are an anthropologist and examine what leaders reward, evaluate,
and control; what they are paying attention to; and what are they measuring
5. Ability to generate energy with coaching and building self-esteem; ability to bring energy
into a room
6. Ability to learn forever
7. Ability to own your own career
8. Ability to create "safe" environment for others
9. Ability to see what's coming and what's leaving so you can make choices faster; faster
response time

Collective Learning and Learning Organization

Right at the center of the concept of the learning organization is the idea of collective learning
itself. If we are to believe the literature, collective learning is likely to constitute the key source of
competitive advantage within a rapidly changing global market. What Senge and other similar
writers point towards is the need to develop a culture of continuous development. To do so, they
argue, practitioners must place human relationships at the center of their analyses and strategic
interventions. A key theme in ‘making the learning organization happen’ is that of the need to

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remove the barriers to collective learning: removing, for example, people’s personal
defensiveness, their animosity towards one another, the hostility between different groups within
the organization, and so on. The question then arises as to how do we make this happen? Is it,
indeed, possible to negotiate a way through a potential minefield of office politics, of personal
agendas and insecurities, of deeply ingrained conflicts that might stand in the way of creating an
organization that learns? It is in this connection that emotional intelligence links most closely to
the ideas relating to the learning organization, and, accordingly, has a great deal to offer the
practitioner.

Emotional Intelligence
Emotional intelligence can be understood both as a diagnostic tool and a set of guiding principles,
which the practitioner can employ to address the central concern of overcoming the barriers to
collective learning. From an emotional intelligence perspective, it is the ‘emotional climate’ of an
organization that is likely to be the most important factor in determining its success in becoming a
learning organization, and, ultimately, to be the key to its long-term survival. The emotional
climate deeply affects organizational dynamics such as idea-generation and creativity, readiness
and adaptability to change, and facilitation of learning processes. Hence it influences
performance, both individual and organizational. There are strong signs that suggest the future of
all corporate life: a tomorrow where the basic skills of emotional intelligence will be ever more
important, in teamwork, in co-operation, in helping people to learn together how to work more
effectively. As knowledge based services and intellectual capital become more central to
corporations, improving the way people work together will be a major way to leverage
intellectual capital, making a critical competitive difference. To thrive, if not survive,
corporations would do well to boost their collective emotional intelligence
Both the concept of the learning organization and the ideas relating to emotional
intelligence can, therefore, be understood to be related to a kind of neo-human relations
movement in the academic and practitioner literature: an increasingly pervasive trend which
stresses the importance of human relationships—and the knowledge and innovations embedded
within these—as sources of competitive advantage.

The Fifth Discipline, Peter Senge

In his book The Fifth Discipline, Peter Senge (1990) defined a learning organization as “… a
place where people continually expand their capacity to create results they truly desire, where
new and expansive patterns of thinking are nurtured, where collective aspiration is set free and
where people are continually learning how to learn”. Peter Senge, in particular, posits the
radically humanist idea that organizations should become places where people can begin to
realize their highest aspirations. He talks of developing worker commitment not compliance; of
building shared visions, not imposing a mission statement from above; of effectively reconciling
individual and organizational objectives. Senge (1992) described the core of a learning
organization’s work as based upon five learning disciplines, which represented lifelong programs
of both personal and organizational learning and practice. These include:

Personal Mastery — Personal mastery is what Peter Senge describes as one of the core
disciplines needed to build a learning organization. Personal mastery applies to individual
learning, and Senge says that organizations cannot learn until their members begin to learn.
Personal Mastery has two components. First, one must define what one is trying to achieve (a
goal). Second, one must have a true measure of how close one is to the goal.

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 Individuals who practice personal mastery experience other changes in their thinking.
They learn to use both reason and intuition to create. They become systems thinkers who see the
interconnectedness of everything around them and, as a result, they feel more connected to the
whole. It is exactly this type of individual that one needs at every level of an organization for the
organization to learn. (Senge, 1990) Traditional managers have always thought that they had to
have all the answers for their organization. The managers of the learning organization know that
their staff has the answers. The job of the manager in the learning organization is to be the teacher
or coach who helps unleash the creative energy in each individual. Organizations learn through
the synergy of the individual learners.
Mental Models — A mental model is one's way of looking at the world. It involves each
individual reflecting upon, continually clarifying, and improving his or her internal pictures of the
world, and seeing how they shape personal actions and decisions. It is a framework for the
cognitive processes of our mind. In other words, it determines how we think and act. A simple
example of a mental model comes from an exercise described in The Fifth Discipline Fieldbook.
Learning only comes from seeing the world the way it really is.

Shared Vision — What does it mean to have a shared vision? A shared vision begins with the
individual, and an individual vision is something that one person holds as a truth. It means
individuals building a sense of commitment within particular workgroups, developing shared
images of common and desirable futures, and the principles and guiding practices to support the
journey to such futures.

The shared vision of an organization must be built of the individual visions of its
members. What this means for the leader in the Learning Organization is that the organizational
vision must not be created by the leader, rather, the vision must be created through interaction
with the individuals in the organization. Only by compromising between the individual visions
and the development of these visions in a common direction can the shared vision be created. The
leader's role in creating a shared vision is to share a own vision with the employees. This should
not be done to force that vision on others, but rather to encourage others to share their vision too.
Based on these visions, the organization's vision should evolve.

It would be naive to expect that the organization can change overnight from having a
vision that is communicated from the top to an organization where the vision evolves from the
visions of all the people in the organization. The organization will have to go through major
change for this to happen, and this is where OD can play a role. In the development of a learning
organization, the OD-consultant would use the same tools as before, just on a much broader scale.

Team Learning — this involves relevant thinking skills that enable groups of people to develop
intelligence and an ability that is greater than the sum of individual members' talents. It is a
discipline that starts with "dialogue," the capacity of members of a team to suspend assumptions
and enter into a genuine "thinking together." Team learning is vital because teams, not
individuals, are the fundamental learning unit in modern organizations.

Systems Thinking — this involves a way of thinking about, and a language for describing and
understanding forces and interrelationships that shape the behavior of systems. It is a paradigm
premised upon the primacy of the whole --the antithesis of the traditional evolution of the concept
of learning in western cultures This discipline helps managers and employees alike to see how to
change systems more effectively, and to act more in tune with the larger processes of the natural
and economic world.

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 Once we embrace the idea that systems thinking can improve individual learning by
inducing people to focus on the whole system, and by providing individuals with skills and tools
to enable them to derive observable patterns of behavior from the systems they see at work, the
next step is to justify why systems thinking is even more important to organizations of people.
Here, the discipline of systems thinking is most clearly interrelated with the other disciplines,
especially with mental models, shared vision, and team learning.

In his prominent book, The Fifth Discipline, Senge identified some learning disabilities
associated with the failure to think systemically. He classified them under the following headings:

• "I am my position"
• "The enemy is out there"
• "The illusion of taking charge"
• "The fixation on events"
• "The parable of the boiled frog"
• "The delusion of learning from experience"

Table 1: Eight Characteristics of the Traditional Organisation

Versus the Learning Organization
Element Traditional Organization Learning Organization
Shared Values Efficiency Excellence
Effectiveness Organizational Renewal
Management Style Control Facilitator
Coach
Strategy/Action Plan Top down approach Everyone is consulted
Road map Learning map
Structure Hierarchy Flat structure
Dynamic networks
Staff Characteristics People who know (experts) People who learn
Knowledge is power Mistakes tolerated as part of
learning
Distinctive Staff Skills Adaptive learning Generative learning
Measurement System Financial measures Both financial and non-financial
measures
Teams Working groups Cross functional teams
Departmental boundaries
The concept of a learning organization is an idealized model of coping with organizational
change (Starkey 1996; Redding 1997). This approach “engages employees' hearts and minds in a
continuous, harmonious, productive change, designed to achieve results they genuinely care
about, and that the organizations stakeholders want” (Nayak, Garvin, Maira & Bragar 1995). The
process of building a learning organization unleashes individual creativity, and fosters collective
learning, which is crucial for encouraging, and developing innovation and rapid responsiveness to
global competition (Millett 1998). In short, a learning organization is continually getting
‘smarter’ because learning is planned, systematic and in alignment with the organization's
strategic goals.

In order to get smarter, the organization needs to capture its organizational knowledge.
Prahalad and Hamel (1990) have described the process of how organizations learn, and identify
the outcomes of the process as the development of core competencies, which are ‘… the

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collective learning in the organization’ (p. 82). This occurs at all levels and functions within the
organization. On the surface, developing core competencies has an intuitive appeal, but it is an
extremely difficult process to maintain and manage, particularly as the organization changes and
adapts to its environment.

Characteristics of a Learning Organization

Element Characteristics of a learning Organization
Organization Structure Flat hierarchy, decentralized, Dynamic networks
Availability of information Systems in place to make information freely available
Trust culture High level of trust, Self mastery practiced
Communication Decentralized communication processes
Innovation Innovation and risk taking encouraged
Managers style Facilitator, Coaching style
Learning systems Continual learning and double loop learning

• They provide continuous learning opportunities.

• They use learning to reach their goals.
• They link individual performance with organizational performance.
• They foster inquiry and dialogue, making it safe for people to share openly and take risks.
• They embrace creative tension as a source of energy and renewal.
• They are continuously aware of and interact with their environment.

Criteria
1) Adopt a learning approach to strategy, focuses on the learning process, which
implies listening to different opinions (from peers, customers, controllers, etc.)
and an overall attitude of openness. A key ingredient of this criterion is in how
banks process their managerial experiences. Learning Organizations/Managers
learn from their experiences rather than being bound by their past experiences.
2) In Generative Learning Organizations, the ability of an organization/manager is
not measured by what it knows (that is the product of learning), bur rather by
how it learns the process of learning. Management practices should therefore
encourage, recognize and reward: openness, systemic thinking, creativity, a sense
of efficacy and empathy. A learning climate is also necessary, as it requires
strategic processes in place to support the acquisition of information and its
transformation into knowledge.

2) Participative policy-making focuses on the actors/stakeholders who are involved in

organizational policy-making processes and on the nature of the relationships characterizing such
a process. The movement has to come from the bottom-up with understanding and shared
purpose.

3) Access and transparency of information, focuses on the mechanisms which generate

participation and support empowerment within an organization, allowing knowledge sharing and
the access to knowledge bases and to information. The criterion basically focuses on informing
and empowering. These can be done by making information as widely available as possible; by
using information systems to help employees to understand the content of the data, which must be
accurate, complete, representative, updated. In this case, new information systems may be needed
to make better data available and to disseminate it. The information systems are an information
infrastructure that enables information flows, including networked connections between internal

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systems and access to external networks and databases. They are likely to be “early adopters” of
important learning enabling technologies, such as groupware, computer conferencing, video
conferencing, Internet exploration, and multimedia. They have systems integrating knowledge,
essential aspect of making efficient connections between information, and more importantly
knowledge. In conjunction with HR departments, the information systems play a key part in the
management of information and knowledge resources and they can represent one of the “access
doors”11 of a Learning Organization approach. Providing the systems and processes for the
management of knowledge and flow of information is a crucial and underrated aspect of the
Learning Organization.
4) Formative accounting focuses on the formative processes through which control procedures
take place and their results are then discussed between the controlling actor and the controlled
one, with the aim to generate improvement and learning. Formative approaches should be shared
on an organizational level and become part of the overall procedural schemes. The accounting,
budgeting and reporting systems have to be set up so they assist learning and give added value.
5) Internal exchange and dialogue, focuses on the horizontal processes taking place among
units. In other words, it focuses on the functions and responsibilities as they are articulated within
the organization and on the relevant communication flows.
6) Reward flexibility, focuses on a special kind of flexibility, which is strictly linked to the
capacity to successfully adapt to changes and to generate innovation. The assessment of
flexibility goes beyond the assessment of individual productivity in traditional terms and poses
interesting questions concerning what the company considers rewardable or to be rewarded. In
other words, it is relevant to see what is the organizational culture affecting the internal reward
system. It is important to see if reward and recognition systems are in place - processes and
systems that recognize acquisition of new skills, teamwork as well as individual effort, celebrate
successes and accomplishments, and encourages continuous personal development. The
employees expect reward for their training or developments - they have put effort in, become
more skilled - expect greater reward. This reward might be either extrinsic (promotion, increase
in pay) or intrinsic (greater fulfillment through a more demanding or higher-status job). In the
same time, it must be highlighted that there is a risk in linking reward systems with opportunities
for learning and personal development, which may eventually make employees behave in a
Pavlov-like way.
7) Inter-company learning, focuses on the fact that organizations start a praxis in creating
opportunities of dialogue with other organizations, Within this criterion, the following indicators
could be proposed: investigations of the company’s climate; use of “suggestion boxes”; set up of
an “Exchange forum”; use of tools and methodologies to “socialize” knowledge; sharing of self-
development plans with the “boss”; detection of employees’ perception of autonomy,
responsibility and empowerment
8) Self-development, focuses on the possibility to access learning opportunities and to start
personalized development processes. This criterion could be related to Senge’s discipline of
personal mastery and with Stewart’s requirement of individuals committed to self-development.
The problem here consists in who owns the learning, the employees or the employers, and the
uses to which the new learning will be put.

Learning Pyramid of Honey & Mumford

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This model shows clearly that individual learning and/or self-development must underpin the
learning organization. We should take into account the useful distinction made by Craig
Lundberg between Organizational Learning by which we typically mean learning by individual
and groups in the organization vs. the Learning Organization by which we mean learning by the
organization as a total system. Organizations are not merely collections of individuals, yet there
are no organizations without such collections. Similarly organizational learning is not merely
individual learning, yet organizations learn only through the experience and learning of
individuals. It is clear that a major challenge is that of transforming or transferring individual
learning into organizational learning. Learning should take account of the creation and diffusion
of knowledge at various levels: the team, departments, plants, and organizations. We should also
underline the fact that a learning organization is not about “more training”. While training helps
developing certain types of skill, a Learning Organization involves the development of higher
levels of knowledge and skills.

Obstacles to Learning Organization:

We would like to affirm that while the visionary concepts of the Learning Organization are
inspiring, the reality is that implementation of such systems requires a massive change of attitude
that is not always easy to achieve. Success rests in creating a highly-trust organization where
knowledge is readily exchanged. In practice there are many barriers. Knowledge is seen as power,
and jealously guarded. Its possession and use can further ambitions. A culture of openness may
be difficult to achieve, particularly in organizations where suspicion has been the norm.
Knowledge management thus has serious implications for communication structures, employee
involvement schemes, reward systems and industrial relations.
Some of the most common obstacles to becoming a learning organization should be avoided in
our case:
• operational/fire fighting preoccupation - not creating time to sit back and think strategically
• too focused on systems and process (e.g. ISO9000) to exclusion of other factors
(bureaucratic vs. thinking)
• reluctance to train (or invest in training), other than for obvious immediate needs
• too many hidden personal agendas
• too top-down driven, over tight supervision, leading to lack of real empowerment

Conceptual Limitations:

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 The most significant problem resides at a quite fundamental conceptual level. Through
conceiving of ‘the organization’ as in itself engaging in ‘learning’, as ‘having’ an intelligence of
its own, he gives it (the organization, that is) an existence in and of itself, an existence beyond the
level of the individuals who are the units of its constitution. This is something which is quite
different from proposing that the ‘whole is more than the sum of its parts’. To clarify, while it is
one thing to claim that one cannot properly understand a system if one does not conceive of it as a
whole, and that organizational change cannot be reduced to isolated individual actions, it is
another implicitly to claim that the organization has an existence beyond the level of human
beings. It is almost as if the organization had ‘a life of its own’. Such a formulation is highly
problematic.
The voluntarism (i.e. that we can create the conditions of our own actions; that we can
create reality) might lead the practitioner towards believing that a mere act of will is enough to
change fundamentally the ‘organization’, and, moreover might lead the practitioner to neglect
how factors external to the organization which are outside of the practitioner’s control,
nonetheless, profoundly influence the direction of organizational change. As has been extensively
documented within the social sciences, factors such as gender, social class and ethnicity can
greatly impede learning in the workplace. Organizations involve highly complex processes of
change. The direction of change within, say a business organization is influenced by much
broader processes at the national and global level, by changes in the market, by the complex
interplay of formal and informal relationships between people at all levels of its workforce, etc.
While it may be possible to steer the overall direction of change that an organization undergoes, it
is rather misleading to propose that one could, by act of will, ‘think an alternative organizational
reality into existence’.
At a more pragmatic level, a major problem with the ideal of the ‘learning organization’
is that it demands that senior management within organizations have an almost boundless faith in
the value of continuous development. Moreover, it gives the practitioner few tools with which to
assess the extent to which investment in development has improved organizational
competitiveness.

Implications for HRD Practice

In the past few years, society and the economic sector have been experiencing a rapid and
deep evolution, which has implied the introduction of significant structural and organizational
changes. Enterprises and public administrations have been changing their structures and
organizations in order to respond quickly and adequately to modifications in their environment -
an increasingly global and competitive market - by improving existing products and services or
by introducing innovation.
Human Resources’ new roles and competencies, emerging as a natural evolution of the
dynamic environment, appear to be crucial since they represent important assets for the
organizations in order to obtain a competitive advantage at a national and/or international level,
as well as to successfully perform in the market. Organizations also need to internally diffuse
common values and most of all a common culture to create an organizational environment
oriented to excellence.
In the framework of such an adaptation process to environmental stimuli, organizations
are constantly concerned with the development of their human resources’ competencies. As a
consequence, the Training and Development functions specifically aim at the complete growth of
the workforce, through the creation of tailored, continuous, and upgradeable training paths. The
incorporation of such approach to training and development fosters the improvement of
organizational activities for organizational learning.
There are many interrelated reasons for this surge of interest in learning:
1) Changes are bigger and are happening faster. Learning is the way to keep ahead
2) Jobs for life have gone. Learning is the way to develop and maintain employability

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3) Global competition is increasing. Learning is the way to sustain a competitive edge
4) Increasing emphasis is being placed on the need for individuals to take responsibility for
their life and work. Learning is the path to increased responsibilities.
5) Learning to learn is being increasingly acknowledged as the ultimate life
skill.
From the discussion presented above, one can conclude that advocates of the position are
not simply proposing that learning organizations are those which are simply ‘doing lots of
training’ or are ‘engaging in a lot of employee development’. It will very much depend upon the
character and content of that training and development: whether it leads to real, generative
learning, whether it helps both ‘organizations’ and ‘individuals’ simultaneously to move closer to
realizing their highest aspirations, etc. Indeed, advocates of the learning organization are keen to
shift emphasis away from ‘training’ and ‘development’ per se towards a more direct engagement
with learning itself.
The implications of this position, if taken to its logical conclusion, are that our whole
understanding of what HRD means and entails must change. It would follow that training and
development might take the form of ‘learningful conversations’, of ‘group dialogues’. The work
of the trainer or human resource manager might become more centrally concerned with aiming to
eradicate the boundaries to ‘group learning’ (in as far as this might be possible); to ‘marry up’
organizational and individual aspirations; to elucidate and to resolve ‘deeply’ held conflicts,
perhaps those residing in our ‘mental models’. In short, the work of the practitioner would be
continuously to manage, to organize and to balance the relationships between employees so as to
best facilitate generative learning. Furthermore, there is the need for practitioners to discover their
own organizational systems, and to make these actively clear to members of the organization in
such a way that people are able to see the consequences of their actions. He is thus pointing
towards the need for practitioners to expand ‘learning horizons’: perhaps even to make people
more accountable for their actions.

Getting a Grip on the Learning Organization

Of course, there is not yet a consensus on the definition of a learning organization. Any type of
organization can be learning organization-businesses, educational institutions, nonprofits, and
community groups. Some authors agree that LOs start with the assumptions that learning is
valuable, continuous, and most effective when shared and that every experience is an opportunity
to learn.
Of course, in a sense "organizations" do not learn, the people in them do, and individual
learning may go on all the time. What is different about a learning organization is that it promotes
a culture of learning, a community of learners, and it ensures that individual learning enriches and
enhances the organization as a whole. There can be no organizational learning without individual
learning, but individual learning must be shared and used by the organization. The familiar litany
of challenges and changes-global competition, technological advances, quality improvement,
knowledge work, demographic diversity, changing social structures-is driving organizations to
adapt and change. "The ability to learn faster than your competitors may be the only sustainable
competitive advantage"

The Learning Organization: Is anybody out there?

In theory, the learning organization concept is appealing. However, everyone is talking

about it but few are living it. Nevertheless, examples can be found of LO principles in practice in
the workplace. Johnsonville Foods in Sheboygan, Wisconsin, appears to have been a Learning
Organization long before the label was coined. In the early 1980s, the sausage manufacturer

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implemented several programs based on the notion of using the business to build great people;
that way, the organization cannot help but succeed. These programs included

(1) Personnel development fund-each employee is given $100 per year for any learning activity;
(2) member interaction program-employees (members) spend time "shadowing" other workers to
learn how their jobs and those of others fit into the whole;
(3) resource center;
(4) Personal Responsibility in Developing Excellence (PRIDE) teams investigate quality of work
life issues; and
(5) Company performance share-profit sharing is based on evaluation of individual and team
performance as well as personal growth and development.
According to company officials, profits and productivity are up, absenteeism and turnover down,
and morale is high.
Several businesses are mentioned often in the literature as practicing Learning
Organization principles, such as Harley-Davidson, Motorola, Corning, AT&T, and Fed Ex. Ford's
Lincoln Continental division broke product development records, lowered quality defects, and
saved millions. At Chaparral Steel, 80% of the work force is in some form of educational
enhancement at any time. They now produce a ton of steel in 1.5 employee hours, compared to
the national average of 6.
The Learning Organization concept is not confined to established, permanent institution,
it can be applied to an ad hoc organization.

Bridging the Gap

What barriers prevent the learning organization from becoming a reality? "One of the
barriers to the successful creation of generative learning organizations is the lack of effective
leaders". The learning organization requires a fundamental rethinking of leadership. Leaders
become designers, teachers, and stewards of the collective vision. Managers must change the
belief that only they can make decisions, and employees must change the belief that they don't
have to think on the job. Leadership in a Learning Organization is the ability to coach and teach;
it is not exclusive, authoritative, or assumed, but learned and earned. "Effective leadership may
emerge anywhere true learning is taking place". Inquiry and dialogue can be threatening; people
are typically not rewarded for asking tough questions or identifying complex problems. Other
barriers include the inability to recognize and change existing mental models, learned
helplessness, tunnel vision, truncated learning (incomplete transfer of past learning),
individualism, and a culture of disrespect and fear. They assert that a learning organization cannot
be created in an atmosphere of layoffs, downsizing, "retirement on the job," and a part-time,
overtaxed, temporary work force.

Conclusion
It seems that the concept of the learning organization is clear enough to some to be
putting it into practice; to others, it is fuzzy and amorphous and needs critical attention. However,
useful insights can still be drawn from theory and practice. The learning organization is best
thought of as a journey, not a destination (P. West 1994), a philosophy, not a program (Solomon
1994). Few would argue that bureaucracy, Taylor’s, or passive learning are the best ways to work
and learn in the world today. The Learning Organization has a lot to offer to the reform and
restructuring of organizations, but building one is clearly an enormous task. However, one can
begin with the attitude that learning is "a sustainable resource, not a limited commodity" (May
1994, p. 53) and work on developing the mindset of a culture of learning. It must be recognized
that the visioning process is ongoing, not a one-time event (O'Neil 1995).

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