Replying to LO27520 --
Malcolm, I assume its ok to debate this -as one might in an Oxford Union
Debate - no holds barred
1) Organisations have got to the ridiculous state, largely caused by
accountant's monopoly to measure/audit that 15% of stuff that's correlated
with organisational growth is measured obsessively, 85% not at all
2) Even the 15% that a balance sheet measures is to a mathematician like
myself questionable. There's nobody other than the auditor who did it who
could look at a published balance sheet and explain exactly what
assumptions lie behind all the precise looking numbers
3) It's time people started measuring the other 85% , even if it means
forming standards as we go. A relevant example is the Baldrige movement.
Which formed a standard for what it meant by quality over years of
evolving/negotiating the standard
4) A start with learning organisation could be made by forming a top 5
consensus of needs that employees need to truly participate in learning
organisation. Experts such as Senge could help make a top items list.
People including this group could poll for any omissions etc. To start
with I'm a fan of Welch:
Boundaryless as he defines it is very clear and a survey measurement of it
could be constructed
So is core business - the idea of knowing what businesses an organisation
will be in year in year out, and therefore what the learning focus -and
relevant communities of practice/competence - relevant to the particular
organisation is. That's fairly easy to audit whether a board has been
consistent on that.
5) If we don't start measuring stuff which accountants find it convenient
for their monopoly to say just can't be audited, organisations will get
systematically worse and worse. See eg Dee Hock's comments on how we
couldn't possibly have worse measurements than we have today from the
perspective of organisational systems and community whatever new
measurements we started experimenting with. I can't really understand why
you are on a LO list but have no interest in trying to audit LO, to the
extent that you even imply that system principles may not exist
6) I hope this thread continues with no holds barred arguments presented
on both sides...
chris macrae
wcbn007@easynet.co.uk
researcher of intangibles audits
> David, you've raised from another angle a question that has appeared here
> repeatedly: how to assess an LO, in this case using the tools of
> auditing.
>
> As one who has been an LO practitioner for a number of years, and also has
> professional training as a quality auditor, I'd have to say that your
> quest will be difficult. Auditing, as I understand it, depends for its
> success almost entirely on the prior existence of an agreed standard
> against which compliance can be compared. In the classic formulation of
> the auditor's report, "condition expected" references a standard like ISO
> or ANSI, and "condition found" describes a discrepancy. But so far as I'm
> aware (and this is the community that would know), there is nothing even
> approaching an agreed standard for organizational learning, or the
> characteristics of a learning organization, against which to audit.
>
> Frankly, since many of us are agreed that there may not actually even "be"
> such a thing as a learning organization, such a standard (if it existed)
> would almost certainly not reveal much about an LO. So much as I find
> auditing a useful tool in some realms of organizational life, I'd not be
> much interested in trying to apply it to learning.
>
> What do others think?
>
> Malcolm Burson
--"chris macrae" <wcbn007@easynet.co.uk>
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