Episode 21 - Learning Organizations

James Cameron and John Kotzman discuss the tenets of learning organizations.

Learning organizations facilitate the learning of its members and continuously transform themselves. The concept was coined through the work and research of Peter Senge and his colleagues.

The Fifth Discipline: The Art and Practice of the Learning Organization, and The Fifth Discipline Fieldbook: Strategies and Tools for Building a Learning Organization, describe five disciplines that must be mastered when introducing learning into an organization:

-Personal Mastery - begins "by becoming committed to lifelong learning," and is the spiritual cornerstone of a learning organization. Personal Mastery involves being more realistic, focusing on becoming the best person possible, and striving for a sense of commitment and excitement in our careers to facilitate the realization of potential (Senge 1990,11).

-Mental Models - must be managed because they do prevent new powerful insights and organizational practices from becoming implemented. The process begins with self-reflection; unearthing deeply held belief structures and generalizations, and understanding how they dramatically influence the way we operate in our own lives. Until there is realization and a focus on openness, real change can never take place (Senge 1990,12).

-Building Shared Visions - visions cannot be dictated because they always begin with the personal visions of individual employees, who may not agree with the leader's vision. What is needed is a genuine vision that elicits commitment in good times and bad, and has the power to bind an organization together. As Peter Senge contends, "[building shared vision fosters a commitment to the long term" (Senge 1990,12).

-Team Learning - is important because modern organizations operate on the basis of teamwork, which means that organizations cannot learn if team members do not come together and learn. It is a process of developing the ability to create desired results; to have a goal in mind and work together to attain it (Senge 1990,13).

-Systems Thinking - the ability to see the big picture, and to distinguish patterns instead of conceptualizing change as isolated events. Systems thinking needs the other four disciplines to enable a learning organization to be realized. There must be a paradigm shift - from being unconnected to interconnected to the whole, and from blaming our problems on something external to a realization that how we operate, our actions, can create problems (Senge 1990,10).