>In answer to your [Malcolm's] statement that "it is the LO task to
>create, and be clear about the importance of, this [safe learning]
>environment," I say no. The power for change is within the people
>within that organisation - and their need, desire, actions,
>consistency and dedication to join forces in a creative act of
>living learning that will have the longest lasting positive results.
And our old friend, David Birren, wrote me off the list to summarize and
comment on a Wheatley/Kellner-Rogers session, citing from their book, "We
get order for free. Self-organization ... is what we do until we
interfere with a process and try to control one another. If order is for
free, we don't have to be the organizers. . . . We don't have to structure
existence. ......"
To my way of thinking, this brings us back to an old dilemma: in what
sense is it meaningful or good to speak of the organization's
responsibility for learning? If Leon's correct, that all change lies
within individuals (which for me implies that there IS no "organization"
to do or be), and if Wheatley and Kellner-Rogers urge us toward a simpler
way of "just letting it happen by getting out of the way," is there any
shared responsibility for the "common weal" that lies at the meta-level
of the organization, particularly in creating/sustaining the conditions
for learning?
And to return to Senge, more fundamentally, is the phrase, "learning
organization" meaningful if it implies that the organization is an entity
capable of learning?
Malcolm Burson
Community Health and Counseling
Bangor, Maine
mooney@maine.maine.edu
--"Malcolm Burson" <mooney@MAINE.MAINE.EDU>
Learning-org -- An Internet Dialog on Learning Organizations For info: <rkarash@karash.com> -or- <http://world.std.com/~lo/>