What's a learning organization LO10516

andrew d rowe (adrowe@essex.ac.uk)
Wed, 16 Oct 1996 13:22:57 BST

Replying to LO10485 --

On Mon, 14 Oct 1996 20:47:17 -0400 RMTomasko@aol.com wrote:

> From:RMTomasko@aol.com> Date: Mon, 14 Oct 1996 20:47:17 -0400
>
> How about: a learning organization is one that, when a mistake is made,
> it:
>
> - notices the mistake
> -fixes it
> -and then figures out what caused the problem in the first place
> -and then gets to work correcting that root cause.
>
> Example: a recent Singapore airlines flight from London ran out of
> champagne in Raffles Class - too many consultants aboard engaging in deep
> dialogue (or something). Alert flight attendents quickly raided the stock
> of Krug in first class. Everybody happy. Upon landing in Singapore the
> event was noted in the airline database, and an extra case of business
> class champagne is now packed on every flight heavily booked by
> consultants.

Bob,

I think this is only half the answer. A LO involves adaptive learning (as
you describe here) but it also needs something MORE than this:
double/triple-loop or generative learning is also needed. In this
example, perhaps the airline would dilute the drinks down; not just to
avoid a similar situation, but in order to sell more dirnks!

(Of course, this could, in turn encourage MORE "dialogue", leading to
further drunkeness and debuchery: hey, isn't this systems thinking? Must
be an 'archetype' that fits this story!)

Andrew Rowe (adrowe@essex.ac.uk)

-- 

andrew d rowe <adrowe@essex.ac.uk>

Learning-org -- An Internet Dialog on Learning Organizations For info: <rkarash@karash.com> -or- <http://world.std.com/~lo/>