Rol says his organisation "is not an LO".
How can this be?
Is the organisation learning nothing? Is it incapable of producing
except through explicit intervention or individual (non-organisation)
action? Does it never change? Are the people in it either not
learning or not sharing what they learn? Is it so blocked that no
learning can occur?
Surely, Rol, your organisation is already a learning. Surely it is
also not learning up to its full potential.
This idea that an LO is an ideal that few if any organisations can
attain does not serve us well. I much prefer the idea that all
organisations are learning and that what we are pursuing is to
enable, enhance, increase that already existing ability, capacity and
practice.
Rol, what do you say?
== end quote ==
Ok, Michael, excellent question, and here's how I answer it. There is
essentially one thing I learned from W.E. Deming, and that was one of his
cardinal points, which he repeated with a roar, "DRIVE OUT SLOGANS". I agree
with him. LO is a slogan. It prevents or at least inhibits thinking. I would
never characterize any organization I cared about as a LO because it would be
too narrow, too sterile, too mechanistic, and too many people would say, "oh,
now I know about his organization." which, of course, they would not. By the
way, as a side comment, driving out slogans is a great way to prevent fadism.
On the other hand, there are some characteristics I am looking for in my
organization that I have not seen yet except in isolated instances. Until I see
those, I will feel that we are not learning effectively from each other, and
perhaps not developing an organizational learning.
For example, there is too much self-protection, which in most organizations is
appropriate. On the other hand, it inhibits learning. We need to find ways to
cut through it, and those ways may allow people to continue to be
self-protective, but still provide key information to the organization.
Intranets might provide such a service, for example.
Second, I believe we are still largely unaware of our mental models. Third, we
need more work on systems thinking. We have made the most headway on personal
mastery, but in a narrow scope, work focus.
On the other hand, we have made big strides in some other areas. Overall I am
reasonably pleased, and yet I will probably never be totally pleased. I liked
your comment that "I much prefer the idea that all organisations are learning
and that what we are pursuing is to enable, enhance, increase that already
existing ability, capacity and practice."
For me, declaring my organization or any organization to be a LO is irrelevant.
I will be happy to say they are learning, and learning from each other.
--Rol Fessenden LL Bean, Inc. 76234.3636@compuserve.com
Learning-org -- An Internet Dialog on Learning Organizations For info: <rkarash@karash.com> -or- <http://world.std.com/~lo/>