>>How can we create system
>>structures that engender outcomes we value without relying on specific
>>individual learning of those in the system.
>
>If these outcomes are going to take place, someone has to (consciously?)
>do something differently. That individual must have, by definition,
>learned. So you can't have the outcomes without some degree of learning.
As indicated above, I suspect many question an organization's capacity to
learn that is not the direct result of individual learning. If we view
learning as changing future behavior based on the response from previous
behavior there are several mechanisms where organizational level learning
can occur even absent the learning of individuals in the organization.
The most obvious organizational level, "knowledge storage" and learning
mechanism are the populations of individuals in an organization and intake
and selection mechanisms by which those populations change. As a National
Account Branch Manager for AT&T, I once hosted a client sports event that
attracted about 10-15 high level executives from one of my National
Accounts. While I am 6' 5", I was startled to find that many of my
late-middle-aged guests towered over me. It seems that 20-30 years ago
the company had a very active AAU Basketball effort which influenced their
selection criteria for management hires. While I don't pretend to know
how this long term intake selection bias influenced the organization's
behavior, I find it hard to believe it had no influence (and I know that
height isn't individually learned).
Another organizational level learning mechanism is the fabric of
information sharing relationships among individuals in the organization
and the mechanism by which these relationships increase or diminish
information flow. An extreme example -- I once read where a "neural
network" was created from a gym full of students (each student had a fixed
instruction set, a meter and switch which were wired together to create
the network). The "organization" was then "taught" to recognize input
presented to the "receptor" level of students. What I find interesting
about this example: 1) no student learned anything (their instructions
and conditional behavior didn't change), 2) no student knew what the
organization knew, in fact, 3) no one could know what the organization
knew without observing the organization's response to stimulus and 4) the
process of testing what the organization knew would most likely change the
organization's behavior.
I have not doubt that such networks exist and influence large
organizations. And, I have not doubt that in many cases no one in the
organization (or even in the network) are aware of the network's existence
or influence. I remember one case where organizational level behavior was
eventually tracked back to a network of smokers that emerged when the
smokers were forced to periodically go to a smoking room or outside
courtyard.
In "Democracy In America", Alexis de Tocqueville discussed the importance
of inheritance laws in shaping a society. He compared the Primogeniture
and Equal Share approaches to inheritance and argued that Equal Share made
the society much more democratic and dynamic. These organizational level
governance rules fundamentally shaped societies capacity to adapt. While
I suspect there are analogues in a business organizations they will be
difficult to find and understand if the primary LO Community focus is on
the learning of the individuals in the organization.
Doug Merchant
On Career Sabbatical
--"Doug" <dougm@eclipse.net>
Learning-org -- Hosted by Rick Karash <rkarash@karash.com> Public Dialog on Learning Organizations -- <http://www.learning-org.com>