THE LEARNING ORGANISATION

The Learning Organisation



The Learning Organisation

Introduction

One mechanism to foster organisational change that has been presented in the management and human resource development literature is the concept of the learning organisation. A brief introduction to the concept is given here. For private security officers and students who desire to learn more about the learning organisation, we recommend that you review the excellent work of Peter Senge. He proposes a systems approach to doing business, one that encourages a continuing flow of feedback from the external environment and through and among organisational units to promote the learning necessary for the organisation to adapt to changing conditions. A system is a collection of parts that interact with each other to function as a whole. Managers should focus on the system or organisation as a whole but often are deterred from doing so successfully by workplace learning disabilities, such as the natural tendency for territoriality in the workplace and the tendency to put the blame on nonexistent third parties for things amiss (Senge, 1997). The challenge issued by the learning organisation is to use knowledge as a basis for its strategy and to use organisational learning as bedrock for its ability to be proactive.

Discussion

A concept developed in the 1990s that argues that winning companies have an aptitude to obtain skills and knowledge and relate these efficiently, in much the same way as human beings learn. The term 'learning organisation' was first used by Harvard Business School's Chris Argyris in the 1970s to mean a firm that learns as it goes along, responsively adjusting its way of doing business. Closely involved and greatly influenced by the human-relations school of the late 1950s, Argyris has examined learning processes, both in individual and corporate terms, in depth. (Flood 2009, 78-85)

Problems with learning, as Argyris has revealed, are not restricted to a particular social or professional group. Indeed, it is the very people we expect to be good at learning - teachers, consultants and other 'professionals' - who often prove the most inadequate at actually doing so.

The entire concept of learning was brought back onto the agenda with the publication and success of the 1990 book The Fifth Discipline. Written by Peter Senge of the MIT Sloan School of Management, it was released to immediate acclaim. (Senge 1990, 36-44)

One of the clearest indications of the decision-making culture of an organisation is how tolerant it is of mistakes. To a large extent, this will determine how willing managers are to take risks: managers are unlikely to voluntarily shoulder additional responsibilities if the message from the organisation's culture is that they are likely to get shot if they put their heads above the parapet. An organisational willingness to make mistakes is also an important factor in whether the organisation has the ability to learn. Yet despite current thinking, which suggests that experimentation is vital for companies to remain vigorous, in many corporate cultures there is a very low tolerance for mistakes, and individuals' career ...