LEARNING ORGANIZATION

LEARNING ORGANIZATION

A learning organization is one in which people at all levels, individually and collectively, are continually increasing their capacity to produce results they really care about.

Leaning Organization is important because of following factors:

The organizations that will truly excel in the future will be the organizations that discover how to tap people’s commitment and capacity to learn at all levels in an organization.

It provides competitive advantage.

All organizations exit in more complexes, dynamic and globally competitive environment.

Peter Senge – “The Fifth Discipline”

Learning organizations are where people continually expand their capacity to learn.
Five disciplines are key to achieving an effective learning organization.

Personal Mastery:-enhancing ability to be objective.
Mental Models:-continually scrutinizing our assumptions and picture of the world.
Shared Vision:-creating a new picture for the future.
Team Learning:-creating the capacity to “think together”.
Systems Thinking:-knowledge and tools that allow people to see inter-relationships.

Daniel Tobin’s Five Principles of the Learning Organization

Everyone is a learner.
People learn from each other.
Learning enables change.
Learning is continuous.
Learning is an investment, not an expense

A learning organization tries to do six things

Collect intelligence about the environment.
Learn from the best practices of other organizations.
Learn from its own experiences and past history.
Experiment with new approaches.
Encourage systematic problem solving.Transfer knowledge throughout the organization

Levels of Learning

Managers/leaders need to encourage learning at four levels:

Individual
Group
Organizational
Inter-organizational

The Basis of the Learning Organization Strategy need to be

Transfer Knowledge, not just information.
Knowledge leads to better, safer decisions.
Better-informed.
Knowledgeable and Wiser decisions.

Conclusion

Organizations must learn faster & adapt to the rapid changes in the environment otherwise they will be history. This is the knowledge era and entry is granted only to those who learn, innovate and implement