Replying to LO27015 --
Dear Organlearners,
Fred Nickols <nickols@att.net> writes:
>Organizations don't learn, people do.
Greetings dear Fred,
I agree with you in the sense of Ordinary Organisations (OOs).
But I think that in the sense of LOs we have to go beyond this
understanding. I will illustrate with a metaphor what I mean. Consider a
person's body as the LO and the organs in that body as the members of the
LO. Consider learning as living. Every organ of that body lives. The body
which emerged from those organs also lives. Likewise the whole of the LO
learns just as each memeber of the LO learns.
>Much of the learning that people do in formal organizations
>is done in informal, primarily social organizations known as
>"communities of practice" (CoPs). Much of what is learned
>there contributes greatly to improved performance -- of people
>and of the processes they operate.
I agree. But allow me to extend the metaphor used above to explain why I
agree. Let us call the parts which makes up an organ its organelles.
Consider now the learners as organelles of an organ, the organ as a CoP
and all the CoPs (organs) as the LO (organism, body). Each CoP (organ) is
focussed on a certain practice to the benefit of all other CoPs in the LO.
>If the leaders of organizations can learn to harness
>the power of CoPs, they will greatly increase the
>productivity and the performance of people, processes
>and thus of the organization. It really is that simple
>and straightforward. Implementation, however, is an
>altogether different matter.
I agree. The best which many leaders come up with, is to create a
"Frankenstein" by artifically adding parts collected from mortuaries
together rather than letting the organs emerge themselves and
simultaneously the body from the organs. It is a process usually called
metamorphosis ("meta-"=between, "morphe"=form) in biology. However, I
prefer to call it "morphogenesis" ("genesis"=evolution).
Leaders ought to have a greater awareness to morphogenesis or what also
may be called "spontaneous autopoiesis". The term autopoiesis
"auto-"=self, "poieso"=making was created by the biologist Maturana. It
is this "spontaneous autopoiesis" which is for me so characterestic of
CoPs and LOs.
With care and best wishes
--At de Lange <amdelange@gold.up.ac.za> Snailmail: A M de Lange Gold Fields Computer Centre Faculty of Science - University of Pretoria Pretoria 0001 - Rep of South Africa
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