Replying to LO27988 --
Dear Organlearners,
Elixabete Escalona <eliescalona@hotmail.com> writes:
>I would really appreciate if you could explain or
>list disadvantages or drawbacks of the LO.
>
>I cannot wait to hear from you ;-).
Greetings dear Elixabete,
I cannot wait to answer you ;-) I will be in trouble because I had to be
home already.
Well, your question (not any mistake) did cause me into making self the
fatal mistake of thinking "she questions the unquestionable" since
Learning Organisations (LOs) have no disadvantages which I can think off.
But then I corrected myself thinking that the impossible question often
delves deeply in to what has not yet been said, i.e. our tacit knowledge.
Elixabete is a new-comer to our list. She probably has heard of so many
Systems for Organisational Management (SOMs) that she might think that the
LO is merely one among the many SOMs proposed up to now. I do not think
that a LO is a replacement SOM for another SOM. Each SOM has its own
peculiar disadvantages. I think that the LO is rather a way for making any
SOM to work better as it should. This means that we have to picture the LO
as a "processing structure" or "structuring process". Should we fail to do
so, the LO may have disadvantages.
Living organisms and populations of them are profound examples of
processing structures. One of the main disadvantages in the present
understanding of LOs based on the "Fifth Discipline" and the "Field Book"
is that Systems Thinking has too little "systems living" in it. In other
words, too little thinking is done on a Learning Organisation as a Living
Organisation. But this is merely a result of the times we live in because
how many people would say that learning is like living while living is
like learning?
Both learning and living is for me different outcomes of something, say
XYZ, which initially had the name "evolution", but now also has different
names like "autopoiesis", "irreversible self-organisation" and "complex
adaptive systems" as a result of different viewpoints. From my own
viewpoint I can also add the name "constructive creativity". A LO not
aware of the struggle to articulate this XYZ may easily stop functioning
in perilous conditions. Furthermore, the ultimate destiny of this XYZ in
human organisations is for me metanoia. A LO not aware of the importance
of metanoia may also easily stop functioning in perilous conditions. I
will now try to articulate possible disadvantages of the LO, not from
viewpoints on XYZ such as "evolution", "autopoiesis", "irreversible self-
organisation", "complex adaptive systems" and "constructive creativity",
but by comparing learning with living.
Let us consider elephants as an example. An elephant cannot live in either
the Sahara desert or the Arctic pole. Both regions have no food for an
elephant. Furthermore the Sahara desert is too hot and the Arctic pole is
too cold for an elephant to live in. This does not imply that there are
living organisms in the Sahara desert or Arctic pole. For example, the
Sahara desert has its lizards and the Arctic pole has its ice bears.
Likewise, when an OO (Ordinary Organisation) has to transform itself into
a LO, it has to ask the fundamental question:- Is our environmental
conditions such that we can retain our SOM while becoming a LO? In other
words, can we retain our identity like an elephant when trying to live in
desert or arctic conditions? The answer is no in my opinion. For example,
I think that an OO which has developed a highly hierarchial SOM to
maintain itself in its environment, will find it impossible to become a
LO. Should it try as such to become a LO, it would die off. The elephant
first has to become a lizard or an ice bear before it can attempt to live
in such harsh conditions as in the desert or arctic zone. Similarly a
honest answer has to be given to that OO. It will first have to change its
highly hierarchial SOM before becoming a LO. In short, the present
articulations on the LO are not suitable for all kinds of organisations
under all kinds of conditions.
Let us compare elephants to humans. It is possible for humans to live in
such extreme conditions like in desert or arctic regions. They can
accomplish this by making use of modern equipment such as transportable
water reservoirs or gas heaters. But when these external support systems
fail, they will soon die just like an elephant without it. Likewise I
think that any LO relying with blind faith on its external support systems
will stop functioning as a LO when they fail. A LO which relies on any
such an external support system, should do so merely temporally. It should
develop a strategy to keep on living when such an external support system
fail and actually begin to employ that strategy.
Some people like the San in the desert and the Eskimos in the arctic zone
have actually put such a strategy into action. They are able to live there
without external support systems. They use whatever that region can offer
and nothing more. But they had to develop a lifestyle completely different
to someone who makes use of transportable water reservoirs or gas heaters.
Likewise I think that the viability for a LO depending on external support
systems are oversold, unless it actually makes itself increasingly less
dependent on them.
For example, knowledge (which lives within people) and information (which
exists outside people) are vital to any LO. The LO ought to generate its
own knowledge and information rather than frequently importing
knowledgable persons and information sources from elsewhere. This means
that the LO has to change rote learning into authentic learning. In short,
the present articulations on the LO make a LO very vulnerable when it
relies too heavily on rote learning.
Another disadvantage of a LO is that it is prone to diseases which often
can be fatal. For example, an elephant is prone to bacterial diseases.
Yes, the biggest animal on earth has little defence against the tiniest
organisms on earth, namely bacteria. Thus the LO should never assume that
it is immune to all diseases. These diseases are called in LO terminology
Mental Models (MM). Forgetting about such MMs or neglecting to identify
those in action may have fatal consequences. It ought not to happen in a
LO, but it does happen.
For example, I tend to think of the first Christians congregations some
2000 years ago as LOs. The writings of the apostles like John and Peter as
well as Luke and James give me more than enough evidence that these first
congregations acted like LOs. But in the last book Revelations of the
Bible the apostle John is told to write seven letters to the seven major
churches in Asia Minor. The light giving candle from each will be taken
away from them should they not rectify their mistakes. All these mistakes
were that they diverted from their earlier authentic learning, falling
back into MMs which they got rid of.
I think that it is likewise for LOs. Learning alone will not help them to
discover the MMs which they should have discovered. They will have to
learn that to learn is to create. It is by creating that they will
discover these MMs. Unfortunately, far too little attention is paid to
creativity in the present articulations of the LO. An elephant is able to
overcome bacterial diseases by its Immunological System (IS). Should we
study this IS, we ought to find that it is a magnificent example of
creativity. But should we neither understand how the IS function nor how
it can be an example of creativity, then it signifies the impairing of our
creativity. Creativity does for a LO what the IS does for an animal.
Creativity keeps the LO healthy.
The Fine Arts (FA) are a profound outcome of human creativity. Any LO
giving little attention to the FA in it, cannot be serious about
creativity. Such a LO will frequently become ill because of MMs (Mental
Models) in it. That illness may easily become fatal because of the poor
functioning of the LO's creativity. In my country South Africa the
articulated concept of a LO is very much unknown. Yet many organisations
try to articulate in their own manner with metaphors known to them that
they try to become LOs or that they function as LOs. The first thing which
I then do, is to look for the role which the FA play in them. It tells me
how healthy they are as LOs. Often, when there is little FA in them, they
also have little metanoia. Sometimes it is so serious that I think that
they are dead as LOs. But where there is still a spark of life, there is
still hope of becoming healthy again.
As a sidetrack, I am reminded of universities. Can a university become a
LO? Perhaps it can, but when it keeps Einstein in one faculty and Magritte
in another faculty, it will be an ill LO all its time, fighting against
its looming death.
Creating a theory of all the Fine Arts (FA) is extremely difficult. For
each theory proposed up to now there are so many exceptions to it that the
theory becomes dead soon. This points to how difficult it is to create a
theory for creativity itself which will not become dead soon. I am self
now definitely sure that any theory of creativity which do not take the
7Es (seven essentialities of creativity -- liveness, sureness, wholeness,
fruitfulness, spareness, otherness and openness) into account, will be
more dead than alive. Consequently, when we want to keep healthy in the
presence of our MMs (Mental Models), how much do we need these 7Es to deal
with these MMs in a healthy manner? For me personally the 7Es are of
immense help.
We can also learn about another disadvantage of a LO and not merely its
present articulations by looking once again at elephants. When young
elephants are removed from a herd of elephants to be kept in a game park
all on their own, they develop all sorts psychological deviations. Perhaps
the most important deviations are aggression and sexual misbehaviour.
These misbehaviours are unknown in the herd because of its highly
developed Social System (SS).
It makes me think of young LOs operating in a society without mature LOs
to assist them. They may easily become like these young elephants with
their misbehaviour. Thus I think it is vitally important for LOs of
various ages to reach out to each other so as to cultivate a highly
developed SS among themselves within the greater society. A young elephant
can be trained by a human in captivity to behave itself. This usually
works, but when that elephant gets suddenly total freedom through some
accident, that elephant usually gets berserk. The same can happen to a LO
making use of consultants not operating themselves from a LO.
I am part of a team helping a certain organisation to transform itself
into a "tacit LO". By that I mean that nobody else in the team nor in the
organisation knows anything about a LO as articulated in many sources by
now. I am not going to tell the team and the organisation about a LO. I
merely help them by using their own peculiar articulations to help them
focussing on their thoughts. Using a "strange language" will help them
little, if anything.
One of the things which I had to convince the team of, is not to make use
of information sources as usual, but to have a dialogue with others who
are actually involved in "tacit LOs". Several dialogues with two other
organisations of the same kind, but acting as "tacit LOs" has been
arranged. The one "tacit LO" is healthy and the other one is ill. The
outcome of these dialogues were dramatic. The tacit knowledge of the team
on the LO increased considerably. The team is now much more focussed on
what to do. For example, they clearly now understand how dangerous it is
for their "little elephant to wander without a herd" and for their "little
elephant to be trained by a human who is not also an elephant".
Elixabete, I can mention other disadvantages too, but they all boil down
to one thing: too little living in the present Systems Thinking. I wonder
what Artur da Silva will say on my answer to you.
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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