Replying to LO27828 --
Dear Organlearners,
Greetings to all of you.
While doing research on Rick's request, I became deeply under the
impression of the difference between an organisation functioning as a LO
(Learning Organisation) and an organisation having to transform itself
into a LO.
Some wrote that a LO is not real, but an ideal which we have to strive
towards. I had the wonderful experience of belonging to three LOs. Two of
them lived long before Senge's book The Fifth Discipline appeared and the
third lives not knowing (except for me) that his book exists. Thus for me
a LO is as real as a flowering plant or a singing bird.
Some write that an organisation will become a LO when management gives it
the correct tools. These tools are the five disciplines -- Personal
Mastery, Team Learning, Mental Models, Shared Vision and Systems Thinking.
It is for me like a Dr Heckle trying to create a Frankenstein out of all
the organs available from the mortuary of information.
Some write that an organisation will become a LO when conditions are
created which makes people happy to belong to the organisation. A cactus
will only grow when its conditions are like that of a desert. But a plant
like an orchid will wilt away in desert conditions. A LO, whether like a
cactus or an orchid, has to match its conditions since it cannot change
them.
Some write that regular audits are needed to ensure the transformation.
Yet we know that tampering with a germinating seed or a hatching egg
usually leads to its death. An organisation will know when it has
transformed into a LO by the metanoia abounding in it. Members of the
organisation will be happy to be part of it while outsiders will be happy
to have relationships with it.
Peter Senge writes that wholeness is one of the 11 essences of a LO. I am
afraid that he said too little. It is not wholeness, but "increasing
wholeness" (two words, one concept) which is essential to a LO. It is the
same for each of the other 10 essences of a LO. They are, combined into
groups called the five disciplines:-
PERSONAL MASTERY
being
generativeness
connectedness
TEAM LEARNING
collective intelligence
alignment
MENTAL MODELS
love of truth
openness
SHARED VISION
common purpose
partnership
SYSTEMS THINKING
holism
interconnectedness
It is the increase in each of them which makes the emergence of a LO from
an OO (Ordinary Organisation) inevitable. To use a word which causes
spiritual indigestion in me, we need a PROFIT in each of the 11 essences
to transform from an OO into a LO. Each of the 11 essences characterises a
LO, but it is the profit in each of them which makes the emergence of a LO
inevitable. When the last one of them shows enough profit, the
transformation into a LO cannot be prevented.
Senge thinks of the behaviour of a LO as a dance. Two hundred years ago
Goethe had a much more down to earth vision of authentic learning. He
called it a "Steigerung". There is little to discern between the
staggering of a person intoxicated by external drugs and the "Steigerung"
of a learner driven by inner passion. Both seems to be drunk to the
uninitiated. However the one will not cause accidents.
Let us think of the 11 essences as mechanical things. In this sense then I
think three dynamical things are crucial to the emergence of a LO. They
are the compassion, commitment and spontaneity involved with care.
Compassion is to care without reservation. Commitment is to care despite
stumbling blocks. Spontaneity is to care freely rather than with coercion.
Spiritual free energy is needed for this caring with compassion,
commitment and spontaneity.
Only some members in any OO will have this free energy. They were gifted
with it, neither by birth nor by creed, but by experiencing deeds of love.
If these members want their OO to transform into a LO, they will have to
begin that transformation self by letting other members of their
organisation experience deeds of love. They will have to come together
regularly and openly, studying and practising the five disciplines. But
they will not be an exclusive class on their own since they will endlessly
reach out to others with deeds of love.
Sometimes the transformation will take weeks from less than 5% members in
the original initiating group to more than 95% members. Sometimes it will
take years. It all depends on maintaining peace in that organisation.
Peace cannot be forced, but comes with letting all members share in
freedom. Those wanting not to transform is just as free as those desiring
the transformation.
The transformation has to happen within the existing structures and
processes of the organisation. Changes in these structures and processes
are not prerequisite to the transformation. Insisting on any
organisational condition for the transformation will cause its abortion
soon after it has begun. For the actual transformation into a LO is not in
the tangible structures and processes of the organisation, but in the
minds and hearts of its members.
As the transformation proceeds, some of the existing structures and
processes in the organisation will become changed. These changes need not
to be planned and commanded by management since most of the members will
have learned that such changes have become necessary. Few would be able to
tell in advance what these changes will be, but many will fear in advance
these unknown changes. This fear, although real and human, is unnecessary
since reaching out with care is the bottom line of the transformation.
Changes hurting or endangering some members will be avoided.
Have you fellow learners ever tried to keep a living thing alive? That is
the difference between a LO and OO. In a LO the primary directive is "this
organisation will not die because we care for each other". Many of our
organisations are about to lose their life in a world changing rapidly.
For some it might be bankruptcy. For others it might be a vision suddenly
becoming an irrelevancy. For some it might even be a natural cause like
old age. But unlike its living members who have to die sooner or later,
the living organisation need not to die. It will not die as a Learning
Organisation since learning is a way of living and living is a way of
learning.
At the outskirts of the great Kalahari desert there is a salt pan called
"Heuningnesvlei" (Honey nest lake). It is very difficult for African honey
bees to find a suitable shelter in the Kalahari. Holes dug in the sand by
animals soon collapse again. Few of the few trees have trunks thick enough
to harbour a nest should a hole had developed in it. To the north-west
side of the pan there is a strange geological structure, unique to the
Kalahari. A vertical cliff of sandstone rises some ten metres high and
some two hundred metres wide. Its top has an overhanging, flat veranda of
dolerite about a metre and a half wide. Here the honey bees found a
perfect shelter, even though completely open. No animal could reach the
veranda and the hot baking sun neither.
The remains of dozens of gigantic nests can be seen against the ceiling of
the veranda. When I say gigantic, I mean it. A single comb would span
almost the entire metre and a half of its width. The attachment zones were
often some 10 centimetres wide, indicate the enormous weight of the comb
beneath which it had to carry. Some nests had up to twenty such combs. To
stand there, trying to calculate the age of a nest, gave me shivers. I
reckon that it took more than a hundred year just to build a nest to such
a gigantic size. It was impossible for me to even guess how old such a
nest became. It could have been a thousand years or more.
Trillions of bees were hatched in that nests, worked for their nests and
died for their nests. They worked for the Kalahari too by pollinating its
precious flowers. The San people (Bushmen) knew about these nests for
thousands of years, but left them alone as a sign of all God's other gifts
to the Kalahari. But then settlers of a different kind moved in. Soon only
the remains of God's gift was to be seen. The last time when I was there,
I saw one tiny new comb about the size of my hand. Many LOs may become
destroyed, but among the ruins the first new one will emerge again.
Thank you Andrew for reminding me in your recent contibution of the bees
of Heuningnesvlei. I wish you were there too. It is more than awesome. It
is sacriledge of the sacred, but the sacred once again emerging form the
remaining scars.
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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