In would like to respond to Emerson Whitacre's request to collect more
real, practical information about learning organizations and to answer his
question, " Are we really learning?". I will briefly describe my research
in trying to answer this question.
I am working with two large mutlinational companies in a buyer/seller
situation. The goal of the project is to try and have them learn from each
other and work together to achieve joint improvement in their performance.
After about six months, the joint group is not working. Any time their is
an opportunity for either company to win at the expense of the other, they
do. Someone is always losing and that increases mistrust. Both
organizations seem constainted in their learning by personal mistrust,
corporate politics and a lack of real interest in meeting the customer's
needs although they see the potential benefits to them
It will be a long, slow and difficult process before the group becomes a
learning organization, if it ever will. Unfortunately, the practical
reality of this situation does not match the theoretical expected results.
As with many other good ideas for business improvement, the implementation
is the most difficult part.
Doug Young
doug.young@hct.ac.ae
--doug young <doug.young@hct.ac.ae>
Learning-org -- Hosted by Rick Karash <rkarash@karash.com> Public Dialog on Learning Organizations -- <http://www.learning-org.com>