Learning Organizations

Learning organizations

Objective: - Define and state the main features of a learning organization. Find an example of a company in any industry in any country that is paying a lot of attention to creating a learning environment. Briefly describe this company's effort to become a learning organization and the successful outcomes of these efforts. -

"The survival of the fittest" is a well known phrase, which means that those who are strongest and fittest are those who will survive. The phrase doesn't imply that those who are in the best physical shape will survive. It implies that those who are better adapted for a current environment will be the survivors. Many large corporations can live as long as human beings. According to Senge (1994), Shell, a multinational petroleum company, estimated that the average life time of the largest industrial companies was less than 40 years, which is less than half the life time of an individual. I believe that the phrase described above fits well in this context. Companies that do not adapt to changes in their environment, and will therefore not be strong enough, can eventually vanish despite their size and magnitude. Furthermore, Senge (1994) states that the survivors can be successful companies but poor learners, therefore never living up to their potential. Senge (1994) wonders if the high mortality rate is a symptom of deeper problems that intimidate all companies and not only the ones that go out of business. What if this mortality rate can be attributed to lack of ability or readiness of change?

According to Easterby-Smith, Araujo and Burgoyne (1999) the idea of learning organizations has been present in the management studies literature for decades, but only become widely recognized in the past 20 years. Senge (1994) states that the most powerful learning comes from direct experience. We learn to eat, crawl, walk, and talk through trial and error. By taking action and seeing the consequences of our actions, we decide new and different actions. In most cases our actions are based of former experiences. Therefore, learning organizations are possible because, deep down, we are all learners (Senge, 1994).

The definition of a learning organization varies between people, but the content is usually the same. A learning organization is an organization that acquires knowledge and innovates fast enough to survive in a rapidly changing environment. It disseminates the new knowledge throughout the organization for incorporation into day-to-day activities. Moreover, it creates a culture that encourages and supports continuous employee learning, critical thinking, and risk taking with new ideas among its employees. Employees are allowed to make mistakes without getting the cold shoulder and managers value employee contributions. The organization therefore puts a lot of emphasis on learning from experiences and experiments. A learning organization can therefore be described as an organization in which deep learning cycles take place that enable new capacities to develop that cherish fundamental changes of both employees and the organization (Murrel, Schneider and Gould, 2009; Senge, 1994). Easterby-Smith, Araujo and Burgoyne (1999) define a learning organization as a form of organization that enables learning of its employees in a way that it creates innovation, efficiency and competitive advantage and emphasize that the environment may allow successful outcomes to flourish. In The Fifth Discipline, Senge (1994) describes the concept of a learning organization as an entity that is always expanding its capacity in order to create its future.

The learning organization concept was initially applied in the corporate world according to Murrel, Schneider and Gould (2009), but as time went by it became obvious that the learning organization principles were relevant for schools, the public sector and more as well. All individuals who are members of some kind of organizations have untapped potential that can help organizations improve their prospects for the future (Murrel, Schneider and Gould, 2009). A learning organization is structured in a certain way so that its' employees can learn and continue to learn within it (Prieto, 2009). Senge (1994) identifies six fundamental characteristics of a learning organization. A learning organization:

1) Creates continuous learning opportunities for its employees.

2) Founds programs to apprehend and share learning.

3) Promotes collaboration and team learning.

4) Encourages communication between employees.

5) Connects the organization to the environment.

6) Empowers employees towards a shared vision.

According to Murrel, Schneider and Gould (2009) these characteristics are features that make sure that the organization learns and grows as a whole entity. Furthermore, Senge (1994) describes in his book, The Fifth Discipline, the five disciplines that enable an organization to become a learning organization. Here below are explanations of those disciplines:

1. Systems thinking: An organization is a system of interrelationships and to become more successful we need to analyze these relationships to find the problems in them. This will allow an organization to see the whole picture and not only one part of it, which helps to eliminate the obstacles to learning.

2. Personal mastery: The commitment by an individual to the process of learning is known as personal mastery. An organization has a competitive advantage if it has a workforce that is willing and able to learn.

3. Mental Models: The assumptions