Malcolm Burson writes:
>So my question, dear friends, is this: what sorts of steps do we take to
>make it possible for traditionally disempowered, knowledge-poor (in the
>sense of things like basic understanding of the financial structures and
>external customer requirements that drive the business) staff to choose to
>broaden their own individual and common knowledge base, without
>reinforcing the paternalistic structures that allowed them to languish
>there in the first place?
To foster organizational learning, we need to discover what has
meaning to our colleagues, one at a time. Then we can craft situations
where learning is natural, pleasant, and rewarding. Every culture has
heroes whom others imitate; I suggest starting by asking the heroes in the
informal organization. As these leaders change, others will begin to
mobilize. It's crucial that learning be enough reward - separating goals
from rewards is required to begin breaking down the conditioning that
hierarchies instill in us. If the learning helps us develop skills and
knowledge about the world, we must be enhancing our potential
opportunities in and out of our current organization.
In my experience, top-down initiatives to promote learning have
been too narrowly focused on vocational knowledge, too linked with formal
rewards, and too costly for the apparent payback. Because people learn
differently, increasing knowledge in the workplace is not smooth or rapid,
and most management teams lack the patience to wait for gains while
investing personal support for learners.
So far, what I've seen work has been bottom-up and local: skill
development on projects chosen to advance the employee's career and
personal goals combined with mentoring by someone respected. The only
exceptions I can think of are wholesale conversions of a large group to a
beguiling idea, such as occur in wartime. I'd love to hear about other
experience.
Con Kenney
-- ckenney@worldweb.net (Con Kenney)