Doug Merchant asked:
>While TQM models focus on one organizational level learning mechanism
>(symbols and rules), my impression is that the LO community has not
>seriously addressed organizational level learning because of the focus on
>creating environments that nurture individual learning.
Doug then continued:
>...The extreme
>formulation of the organizational level learn question is: "How can
>organizations increase their capacity to effectively adapt to
>environmental changes with out requiring specific individuals to learn
>anything?".
In other words, rephrasing just a bit, "the extreme question is how can
organizations learn even if the individual people in the organizations do
not learn."
I've been puzzling over this question for a while. A recent interaction
with Doug brought it out again.
So, I'm going back to the LO list with this... Thinking about this might
help us identify the mechanisms and disciplines that produce organizational
(as distinct from individual) learning. A sort of thought experiment...
Now, beyond the thought experiment, I doubt we could find relevant examples
in which org learning occured but individual learning did not. That is,
where the org increased it's capacity for effective action but no
individual increased theirs. I say this because 1) I think the skills and
pers orientation for org learning is so congruent to that for individual
learning that we would see individual learning as well. And, 2) if the org
has a capability, this would usually appear in an interaction with a person
in the company (e.g. an interaction of a customer with a company
representative). If the company can deliver, then usually it's through some
individual who can deliver. There is an expansion of the individual's
capacity for effective action which is individual learning.
-- Rick
--Richard Karash ("Rick") | <http://world.std.com/~rkarash> Speaker, Facilitator, Trainer | email: rkarash@karash.com "Towards learning organizations" | Host for Learning-Org Discussion (617)227-0106, fax (617)523-3839 | <http://www.learning-org.com>
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