A Learning Organization.
B.P.M Wijesekara.
18/11/2020
Have you ever heard about a LEARNING ORGANIZATION ? most of us are very familiar with individual or group learning activities but learning can be done as a whole unit of a organization as well by encouraging and motivating organizational employees to continually learn,create,acquire,transfer knowledge in order to help their organization to be a common learning unit rather than having individual learning habits.
Sengi, (1990) defined the concept as "people are continually learning how to learn together".
Learning organization has become popular among the companies world wide because of the benefits which has defined by many literature journals.
"With tougher competition,technology advances, and shifting customers preferences it is more crucial than ever that companies become learning organizations". Gravin et al., (2008)
Gravin et al., (2008) further explained in Harvard business review March 2008 by dividing the idea of learning organization into three categories as follow.
1. Supportive environment
2. Concrete learning processes.
3. Leadership that reinforces learning.
Senge, (1990) Also has introduced five disciplines of Learning organization
1. Shared vision.
Employer and all the employees understand the common goal.
2. Mental models.
Thinking of future changes and act accordingly.
3. System thinking.
Thinking as whole organization not individual performances.
4. Team learning.
Team of employees learning even with their common mistakes.
5. Personal mastery.
All individuals work and act as masters of their own job role.
Multi or international organizations as Google,adobe,Publix can recognized as global examples implementing the idea of learning organizations in order to reduce or solve systematic problems, learn from others, learn from past experiences, transfer the knowledge effectively, provide or seek for new knowledge, establishing benchmark icons to success.
Local or national level companies also keen on learning organization concept and tried with good outcomes. if Sri lankan TEA industry taken as a example the notion of learning organization, has been practically followed and showed some remarkable results as follow.
1. Tea estates always promoting shared vision among all workers, staffs, executives and top management.
2. System thinking is a must for a tea estate as there should be a strong link between field,factory,office,general stores, as well as head offices.
3. Learning with climatic changes,pests and diseases attacks,labor unrest situations and many more issues give some experience learning even from the mistakes which comes under team learning.
4. Personal mastery is a must for a tea estate as individuals (field staffs must be masters of their agricultural work in order to give good raw material for factory staffs to perform their duties and the same time factory staffs must be master their subject by producing quality product for marketing division to sell them at a good rate. all and all office staffs need to analyse and properly accounted the details while mechanical staffs and transport division must be effective and the medical and welfare teams also to be very efficient in order to maintain the facilities of labors and staffs to perform their duties and avoid any shortfalls in the estate work).
Further Lalani et al., (2020) expressed that idea of learning organization act in any place based on Learning opportunities, support of innovations,managed risk taking,capitalizing on the will of staffs to work in multidisciplinary teams.
Conclusion.
Final conclusion of the notion of Learning organization can be described briefly as below.
"At its most basic level,organizational learning is the development of new knowledge or insight that have the potential to influence behavior". Fiol and Lyles, (1985).
References.
CM Fiol, MA Lyles - Academy of management review, 1985 - journals.aom.org
Available at:
https://scholar.google.com/citations?user=jCYDL2QAAAAJ&hl=en&oi=sra
[Accessed, 18.11.2020].
DA Garvin, AC Edmondson, F Gino - Harvard business review, 2008 - alnap.org
Available at:
https://www.alnap.org/system/files/content/resource/files/main/r0803h-pdf-eng.pdf
[Accessed, 18.11.2020].
M Lalani, S Bussu, M Marshall - Social Science & Medicine, 2020 - Elsevier
Available at:
https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0277953620304731
[Accessed, 18.11.2020].
A learning culture is one with organizational values, systems and practices that support and encourage both individuals, and the organization, to increase knowledge, competence and performance levels on an ongoing basis. This, in turn, promotes continuous improvement and supports the achievement of business goals, innovation and the ability to deal with change.
ReplyDeleteGood explanation.
Thank you for the comment
DeleteInterrelationship between the 5 disciplines on learning an organization is the most important as they can not perform individually on its own. To witness a sucsess on an organization all 5 disciplines should come togather. Well explained.
ReplyDeleteVery good interpretation of five disciplines of learning on organization collaborate with Sri Lanka’s most ancient and foreign currency earning industry with practical examples
ReplyDeleteThank you for the comment.
Deletelearning organizations in order to reduce or solve systematic problems, yes we believe
ReplyDeleteThank you
DeleteLearning organization also will help to invent innovative products in the industry.
ReplyDeleteLearning organizations are made possible when the managers are willing to groom their subordinates on the job. The employers should make sure that such culture is created in the organization and top positions being given to those who align with the culture
ReplyDeleteA learning organization encourages improvement through trial and error. It provides the employment to learn from their mistakes and problem solve to bring the operation back to normal.
ReplyDelete