Dear LO network readers:
Please correct me if I'm wrong but somewhere in the recent past the theme
"Is it alive" (like a person is alive) was spun-off from the theme "Can
organizations learn". Many of the postings on these two themes have
suggested that you need the former to have the latter. IMHO, these two
themes are not interdependent. Of course, as John Constantine states in
LO16226, it all depends on how you define your terms.
In LO16219, I resoundingly said 'yes, organizations can learn'. For me,
that does not mean that organizations are living things or that
organizational learning is analogous with the learning that individuals
do. Learning processes of individuals are different from the learning
processes of organizations.
I define learning as 'the maintainence or improvement of performance based
on experience'. Org learning refers to the learning processes of
knowledge acquisition, dissemination, and use that take place in the
social context of a team or institution. Whether organizations are
'alive' or conscious like an individual is not an issue for me.
regards from the 'organizations-can(most definitely)-learn school',
Tony DiBella
www.orgtransitions.com
--AJDIBELLA <AJDIBELLA@aol.com>
Learning-org -- Hosted by Rick Karash <rkarash@karash.com> Public Dialog on Learning Organizations -- <http://www.learning-org.com>