> the business consequences of learning initiatives
Quick note :)
My first thought (before the explanation) was that the question concerned
"How thorough is the learning at company Z?" Even after the explanation, I
still have my comments focused on that idea :)
The encouragement I received in reading "The Fifth Discipline" had to do
with the validation of individual learning endeavors (aka, my own). Thus,
to whatever extent the book defines Learning Organizations and to whatever
extent that validation is of central importance, evaluating a company's
learning should not be a process of exchanging 1. company investments and
2. averaged learning for the actual location of learning, the individual.
That's my (quick) opinion and an effort to move the focus back to what I
was thinking. I could possibly be wrong. The evaluation of a company's
learning could instead be expressed in terms of "here's a question that
requires knowledge. Do ya'll know the answer." Jim from Engineering says,
"yeah, I learned that in air conditioning theory." Another question,
Margaret from Sales knows the answer. "When customers come to us they
often have expectations that are based on unfulfilled promises from other
companies. Thus it behooves us, in the process of gaining new customers,
to go out of the mindset of "business as usual" to accomodate these
customer's requests and indeed to find what they may be." (I'm just
imagining!)
Everybody doesn't know those things (before Jim and Margaret talk), yet no
one sent them to learn those particular things. Their self-guided (and
company-related) learning has resulted in the company's benefit.
Have a nice day
John Paul Fullerton
jpf@myriad.net
--"John Paul Fullerton" <jpf@mail.myriad.net>
Learning-org -- Hosted by Rick Karash <rkarash@karash.com> Public Dialog on Learning Organizations -- <http://www.learning-org.com>