Replying to LO29569 --
Dear Harriett:
To the extent that any organization takes action on the basis of
collective learning at some underlying level, the organization can be said
to be learning -- or be said to be a learning organization. This is
especially true when the underlying learners have the authority to commit
the organization to specifc courses of action. They are its surrogate
learners. The extent of such collective learning, and the quality of its
outcomes, however, are widely variable. Enron's organizational learning
was tightly controlled and closely held by an oligarchy. Its
effectiveness, therefore, was low. Still, there was organizational
learning going on there, since more than one person was involved in the
development of strategies that ultimately led to its demise. So even
Enron was a learning organization, but not a very good one -- indeed, an
exceptionally bad one. But it was a learning organization, nevertheless.
The idea that an organization either is or isn't a learning organization
is the dualistic claim I'm critiquing here. All organizations learn, I
argue -- only to varying degrees. Our job as practitioners is to make
interventions aimed at enhancing the quality of OL, not to take
organizations that are not learning and convert them into ones that are,
for there are no such organizations. Anyway, that's my claim.
Regards,
Mark
HJRobles@aol.com wrote:
>I believe Enron might be a good example.
>
>>From: "Mark W. McElroy" <mmcelroy@vermontel.net>
>> ... To test my claim, can anyone provide
>>me/us with examples of organizations that do NOT learn?
--"Mark W. McElroy" <mmcelroy@vermontel.net>
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