Dr.Tuck-Wai KOH recently spoke about KPIs (Key Performance
Indicators)-focused learning (LO17568) saying:
"Learning in organizations should be focused on KPIs so that there
is a commercial purpose to the learning. In so doing, employers are more
inclined to support organizational learning ."
I agree with his importance on "focus", both for its relevance to the
well-being of the organizational community and as it can provide "anchors"
to the members of the community when they're confronted by the high seas
of their complex environments.
To add to this thread, let me mention a paper, titled "Helping Business
Cope with Change", recently published by Richard Baker, who's associated
with my consulting firm. Dick discusses stress in organizational systems
and how this stress leads to action or change. He suggests ways to improve
the change-making ability of an organization - ways that have been either
underdeveloped or underutilized in the past.
The paper is available at http://www.de-sa.com/helping.htm
Focusing without restricting the creative juices of an individual is
desirable but has been elusive. Dick's a Systems Thinker from way back and
has been steadily working on ways to improve the self-learning capacity of
business communities, in particular as these communities and their
environments become more and more complex. This increased capacity allows
a decision-maker to more effectively examine or track the effect of
current programs and to help define what needs to be done next.
It seems to me that the thrust of this thread can help us find ways to
wisely link highly developed human / organizational processes with
similarly highly developed technical processes. The result can be a
significant improvement in an organization's ability to learn and act.
We invite your comments on Dick's paper. Thanks.
Terry Priebe
Decision Support Associates, Inc.
http://www.de-sa.com
e-mail: insight@de-sa.com
--Terry Priebe <insight@dca.net>
Learning-org -- Hosted by Rick Karash <rkarash@karash.com> Public Dialog on Learning Organizations -- <http://www.learning-org.com>