Pegasus: Senge Keynote LO10774 -Notes

Michael McMaster (Michael@kbddean.demon.co.uk)
Wed, 30 Oct 1996 09:19:42 +0000

Replying to LO10751 --

Rick,

Thanks for sharing your notes on Senge's talk. I am delighted that
he is moving beyond individual learning to "organisational learning".
I believe the more powerful question is: "What is the nature of an
entity that learns?" Maybe it's better expressed as "lives by" or
"survives by" learning - to center it at the core of a being.

The last paragraph of your post is the one that I'd like to pick up.

>In our organizations, where are the researchers? That is, who in our
>organizations is practicing a disciplined approach to discovery and
>understanding with a commitment to share? Until someone is doing this
>there will be no org learning.

The phrasing implies something that is still below organisation and
community. That is, the question isn't, I think, "who" (located in a
"someone"). The question is, "What practices and structures are in
place that call for, cause, acknowledge, measure, reward, etc.
organisational learning?"

The hardest part of working in this field for me is getting
executives interested in the issues of organisation, organisational
design, organisational practices, etc. These are going to be the
source of organisational learning if it is to happen.

Communities of interest, communities of commitment, communities of
practice are very good places to start for development of
organisational learning BEFORE the big questions of organisational
design are tackled. These are good places to start because they can
begin before the much harder work (thinking and doing) of tackling
formal structure begins.

I don't have the time or the capability of reviewing all the posts to
this list which would be useful to the questions raised in Senge's
talk but if someone wants to take it on, they will find some very
good stuff on distinguishing "the learning organisation" from
"organisational learning", on "communities for learning", "practice"
and "knowledge" as well as the distinctions of "the nature of
something that learns".

I think this points to the richness and developmental nature of the
dialogue on this list.

--
Michael McMaster :   Michael@kbdworld.com
book cafe site   :   http://www.vision-nest.com/BTBookCafe
"I don't give a fig for the simplicity this side of complexity 
but I'd die for the simplicity on the other side of complexity." 
            attributed to Chief Justice Brandeis
 

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