Replying to LO26029 --
>Don't organizations get "graded" all the time as reflected in the value
>of their stock or their sales or their ability to attract
>clients/customers and provide service? If they haven't "learned"
>something in their organizational lifetime, they're not likely to have
>survived, are they? Or at least not as well as their competitors who have
>learned. Perhaps I will need to exempt public bureaucracies from this
>discussion. It does not appear that the Internal Revenue Service or the
>Dept. of Motor Vehicles is the least concerned about such matters.
>
>Harriett J. Robles
>hjrobles@aol.com
Dear Harriet,
Do individuals learn all the time? I assume they do. I assume I am
constantly bombarded with data and I spend my life selecting which parts
of it I will allow to influence me and change my behavior. I suppose that
is my definition of learning. Learning is only learning when it is
manifest in a change in behavior. Change can go in 4 directions: holding
on to the same, more of the same, less of the same, and different.
If I say that an organization is an entity, then they also are constantly
learning and changing in one of the 3 ways. IRS and Motor Vehicles will
change on a dime if the learning input reaches a level where different is
the only response. Therefore one of the questions is what are they
learning right now that is telling them that caring for people is less
important than whatever they are doing.
Whenever I start to work with an organization I try to ask questions that
will tell me what the situation is, what is right, what is wrong, where
there are signs of hope in the future and what assumptions are being
operated out of that form their world view. This helps me see where they
are learning right now and where they are looking for information on what
to do differently. Whenever I see a system that is not learning I know I
haven't asked the questions to the right people or I haven't asked
questions they could answer because learning is going on that energy in my
experience in latent in all of us.
Invariably within a bureaucracy they are looking at the laws and their
bosses not at what would be of service to the clients. This is because
they are almost always in more trouble if they do something than if they
do nothing. Most laws tell them what not to do and lay out the punishment
if they do it wrong. No rewards for success only punishment. The
learning is in how to spiritually survive 30 years to make it until your
pension. If you ask the IRS team the rules they must operate from the
chances are they learn those with amazing speed as soon as they are
available and adapt quickly to the new rules. This is tragic but
consistent. It is not hopeless, given the opportunity to be of service or
even to grow in their own competence and given enough safety to enact it I
have seen the same bureaucrats transform themselves and their systems.
Knowing where the energy to learn is being currently channeled does not
guarantee it can be shifted to the areas you want people to focus on but
at least you are thinking of an intervention based on the current learning
reality.
With respect, Larry
--"Lawrence Philbrook" <icalarry@ficnet.net>
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