Response to Terri Deems
"I've noticed in Senge's post-Fifth Discipline writing, he talks less of
empowerment and much more of community, aligning himself a bit more
closely with the "soul" writers than previously. How are communities of
practice different than work teams of "empowered" workers? Is it possible
to create true learning organizations by using only technical-rational
approaches? And are such questions merely interesting fodder for debate
of a philsophical or ethical nature, or do they have a place in business?"
You can have empowered workers who never communicate, or work together to
achieve anything. A community of practice is a space created not only to
balance inquiry and advocay to learn from each other, but it is also a
space utilized for developing one of the fundamental building block of
learning; Practice. By doing something over and over we tend to get
better at it, even if we aren't empowered. Merely being empowered doesn't
guarantee achieving a higher level of expertise.
Adam
--"Adam Condo"<acondo@ms.com>
Learning-org -- An Internet Dialog on Learning Organizations For info: <rkarash@karash.com> -or- <http://world.std.com/~lo/>