Art, I left out one case. If you find the exceptional company, they
may not have an HR function.
> That's a fairly bold statement. Do others agree with this? It suggests
> that a conventional HR department, in itself, can prevent an organization
> from improving its performance.
I don't think my statement implies what you suggest. It might be
that an HR department can prevent something but, given that it's part
of an organisation and not the top of the authority structure, I
think it can only reflect what's at the top - or, more likely, what's
missing. The statement I made only implies the latter. What is
stated rather than implied is how I suggest finding the HR department
you were looking for. It wasn't a guarantee that you'd find it.
> >I have so far found none of these who refer to themselves as Learning
> >Organisation nor have I found any in my excursions into what
> >identifies itself as the Learning Organisation community. Why is
> >this?
>
> Michael, are you saying that the most interesting innovations are taking
> place OUTSIDE the Learning Org. community? I'm fully prepared to believe
> that case, given the evidence. I suspect that there's lots of innovations
> brewing lots of places, some informed by "learning organization"
> traditions, others by other intellectual traditions (Tavistock/sociotech,
> O.D., software engineering, "chaos management," etc.) Each of these have
> their more and less useful variants.
>
> Personally, I would hate to think that the self-described "learning
> organization community" felt its boundaries so tight that it locked out
> awareness of other innovations.
Again, I didn't say that it must be the case or that LO necessarily
excluded the possibility. I did mean to imply that there is a
strange case of insufficient matching between LO and extraordinary HR
(or even learning) and asked for why this might be. I think my
question is useful even if only marginally valid.
-- Michael McMaster Michael@kbddean.demon.co.uk