from Rol:
"in the areas of LO, sharing, functioning,
and interacting toward common goals, organizations come off far ahead of
the alternatives."
My experience leads me to agree with Rol. I would venture one step
further: of my clients, the for profit, private sector clients are more
aware and working at their practice of learning behaviours, than are my
government, or non profit (churches and schools), clients.
I attribute it to a few things: lack of resources, lack of competition
(external threats to organizational survival seem distant, unlikely), and
in the churches and some school systems, there is a 'certainty' that can
accompany their theological or pedagogical beliefs that bleeds over to
certainty about process and structure. This subtly (and overtly at times)
disallows inquiry and change.
While I agree with Rol about families overall,I have seen and experienced
family relationships that manifest learning principles more fully than
anything I have encountered in larger organizations. I expect these
successes have to do with the expectation of intimate hard work. There are
junctures in corporate relationships where I am left wondering how
intimate we are willing to be in order to further the work and common
goals we aspire to achieve.
Fran Alexander
--Learning-org -- An Internet Dialog on Learning Organizations For info: <rkarash@karash.com> -or- <http://world.std.com/~lo/>