Our most kind and generous host, Rick - much appreciated, thanks -
somewhere wrote the following:
What is a "Learning Organization"?
A "Learning Organization" is one in which people at all levels,
individually and collectively, are
continually increasing their capacity to produce results they really
care about.
According to Donne, no man is an island. And neither is any
organisation. Both the individual and the organisational system -
which includes sub-systems of larger organisations - exist in and
through interaction with all the people in the environment; people who
willingly and freely interact with the system, or the individual,
because they find benefit in doing so. And, for a system, this
purposeful interaction includes the members of the system, as they,
too, come from its environment to find benefit through their
membership.
The question is to what degree any organisation or system can exist
purely for the benefit of its own members. To answer this, we can
postulate a spectrum of "purpose" that an organisation brings to its
relationship with its environment. This ranges from near one extreme
where the relationship is out and out exploitative, to near the other
end where the relationship is fully beneficial to both the
organisation and its environment. (At the extreme ends one would find
organisations that are either so damaging to its environment that they
are not tolerated very long, or so altruistic that they run out of
resources and do not exist very long.)
A relatively closed system, or organisation, such as this LO list,
exists, as such, almost totally for the benefit of its members. Its
relation to a wider environment is much more dissipated and tenuous,
almost totally through what members obtain from the organisation and
then communicate outwards into the wider world. Such an organisation
would exist within the vicinity of the neutral point on the spectrum;
partially by default, because the interface to the wider environment
is so vague. And because the coupling to the environment, members
excluded, is so weak, one could liken it to the sound of one hand
clapping.
But the more open the organisation is and the more direct the
interactions of its members with many other parts of the environment,
the greater becomes the imperative to select a position on the above
spectrum. To state clearly what the nature of its relationship with
the environment is to be.
For example, if the pursuit of profit is the sole and overriding
motive that drives the organisation and thus its relationship with its
environment, then by the nature of the beast that relationship will be
exploitative and even predatory - with suppliers, customers and even
its own members, the employees. This despite any lip service to "our
employees are our greatest asset", "we care for the environment",
"without our many suppliers we can never succeed" and last but
definitely not least, "you, our customers, make us the success that we
are!"
It will be a relationship where the people of the environment are
progressively perceived and treated more as means to the
organisation's ends than as ends in themselves. One could liken this
to both hands of the organisation too busy grasping and tearing away
to think of clapping.
Towards the other hand of the spectrum one would find organisations
trying to exist in harmony with the environment. At the optimal point
would be those who pursue the normative directive, that of increasing
their worth to their total environments. Some readers may have
perceived this directive as perhaps too altruistic, or at least too
passive and purely reactive to sound attractive. But this is not so.
Trying to increase worth to the environment by finding the best
compromise between conflicting needs and requirements of people in the
environment is not a one way street. The people of the system can
communicate and set example and otherwise influence the way people in
the environment think of and perceive their relationship with the
organisation. And in this manner introduce change and lead change in a
direction that would benefit both the environment and the organisation
over the longer term. The organisation - with a more clear vision of
what relationship should be like for all to benefit - can become a
teacher and facilitator; not merely react slavishly to a changing
environment.
Consider an organisation that decides to implement the normative
directive - to increase the worth of itself and all its subsystems.
First, within the organisation and at all levels, decision makers
examine the relationships of 'their' systems with others in its
neighbourhood - both with respect to other subsystems within the
larger organisation and also with people outside the organisation - to
determine the real and varied needs and requirements of all these
people. Then searches for the best compromise given all manner of
constraints that are imposed. It pursues increased worth and synergy
within itself and with its overall environment. Caring, but never
altruism. (And surely would do much better at this if it behaves as a
Learning Organisation! There is no conflicting relationship between
Normative Management and LO - in fact, just the opposite, a good deal
of synergy.)
In its relationship with entities and groups outside itself, the
organisation communicates this philosophy and by message and example
persuades others to behave in a similar manner - to set a similar
overall goal, one that leads to co-operation rather than
exploitation. The moment there is a second organisation committing
itself to the pursuit of worth, thereby co-operating with the first
one towards this now shared ideal, we can liken this to two hands
clapping.
As often happens at public gatherings, the sound of two hands clapping
soon have others joining in. Perhaps, when two, and then three, six
ten, organisations behave in this manner they may show through their
performance that there are lasting advantages for all in forsaking
goals and objectives that are inherently exploitative for another
purpose that is synergetical. Who knows, if that should happen we may
even over time get a standing ovation as a whole community clap hands
to show their full appreciation of and joy in Life!
In the words of our host quoted at the top of the post, this would be
a result to really care about!
With kind regards and best wishes to all
daan
Daan Joubert, in Roodepoort
Waxing a little lyrical
Perhaps carried away (inspired?) by the spirit of our
Human Rights holiday today here in South Africa!
--Daan Joubert <daanj@kingsley.co.za>
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