Some thoughts on measuring by a physicist:
1.) Basically every measurement is a comparison of the object to be
measured with a given standard. The question of measuring organisational
learning is about which standards to apply.
One may say, that objects only exist in terms of the standards with which
they are measured. But this is a dangerous statement, because some of the
essentialities (At de Lange) are impaired easily: By measurements, objects
are easily reduced to beings on the detriminent of their becoming
(impaired liveness). Measurements are often performed to increase
sureness, but it is difficult to establish categorical identity by only
measuring - for example, if becoming is neglected, the measured identity
will surely be uncategorical. The same is true for the unreactive parts of
the object, which are unreachable by the standards and which are thus the
dark side of it. Again, sureness is impaired, if this unreactive part is
neglected as part of the object.
2.) From quantum mechanics, we learnt that such a comparison/measurement
has an irreversible impact on the object. It does not leave it unchanged.
If the measurement is understood as asking a question to the object, the
object will anser according to the question. But the object that gave the
answer is different from the object the has been asked. If you know some
aspects of the object with increasing accuracy, other (socalled
complementary) aspects are becoming more and more uncertain. If you then
go to look at these other aspects, the first ones will change and the
gained knowledge on them becomes useless.
The meaning of measurement changes when the intention is to establish
effective connection with the object. But this would be an irreversible
process, changing the object to be measured. It takes becoming into
account, but knowledge about being will be un certain.
So my conclusions for organisational learning is following:
When I would be asked, how to measure organisational learning, I would ask
back, why to measure it.
Is it to see "how much organisational learing is there?" Then I am afraid,
that this intention has the potential to destroy a LO, if there was one
before the measurement. If there was no LO, the usual game will start:
People will try to know, what is going to be measured, and which kind of
values are valued to be "good" and try to appear as "good" as possible.
Does this not provide at least some learning as well? May be, but this is
surely not the vision of a LO in the sense of Senge and all who ever
experienced real learning environments. Or this is a very, very eroded
vision in the sense of Personal Mastery. An erosion due to the intense
emotional tension that appears, when even creativity did not yet emerge.
But if the intention is to learn about your business by means of fruitful
connections with any aspects of the business, then go ahead with your
creativity and measure whatever excites you, confuses you, puzzles you and
try to make sense about what you experience. Then the standards you apply
will act as "umlomo" to establish wholeness between you and your business.
This list is full of hints how to accomplish this, how to become curious,
how to create a passion for such learning.
Liebe Gruesse
Winfried Dressler
--"Winfried Dressler" <winfried.dressler@voith.de>
Learning-org -- Hosted by Rick Karash <rkarash@karash.com> Public Dialog on Learning Organizations -- <http://www.learning-org.com>