On 9 Nov 1994, Gezinus J. Hidding wrote:
> My name is Gezinus J. Hidding. I am involved with Andersen Consulting's
> Methodology Program at Andersen's World Head Quarters in Chicago and lecture in
> the Executive Education Program at Carnegie Mellon University. I have been
> exposed to systems thinking since my graduate studies days back in Holland now
> about 15 years ago, not to mention my Ph.D. degree in Systems Science (and
> Strategic Planning) from CMU. Have always been interested in Decision Support
> Systems (which I believe should be tools not only to help people make better
> decisions, but also to help them learn better decision making) particularly for
> strategy decision making. For the past several years, I have been involved in
> completely rethinking methodology for Andersen Consulting (starting with
> helping them write their Methodology Long Range Plan) and continuing with
> implementing new methodology thinking in a "learning organization" paradigm on
> top of an internal electronic information sharing infrastructure.
>
> In the process of working on this, I have done some amount of reading, but am
> still looking for answers to the following issue: What does an organization
> look like that has adopted (or is adopting, if you will) a "learning
> organization" model? The background for this issue is that we started the
> learning organization implementation at the bottom, and are working our way up
> the management chain. It is reaching the big guys now. In their effort to
> grasp the new paradigm, they would like to see what the learning organization
> might look like, in terms of organization chart. I take their request
> positively; they are sensing the change, and they would like to be educated.
> (Even if the right answer is not an organization chart, they need to start
> there in their personal change process. I feel we should start from and work
> with their current reality.) I have come up with a few things (probably
> specific to Andersen's organization), but would like to find out what other
> folks have come up with. Apart from Quinn's spider web organizational "model",
> I have not found much. (Lots of people seem to say, "learning organization is
> good", lots of descriptions of what behaviors are necessary (probably the most
> important part), but I haven't seen a picture of what a learning organization
> structure might look like if we bumped into one.) Probably did not look in the
> right places. Any pointers would be greatly appreciated.
>
> Gezinus