Analysis: The Art and Practice of the Learning Organization

Today, the relationship between the organization and the employee has changed. There is greater emphasis placed on the value of individual and team contributions to find business solutions. The employee is viewed as a 'learning customer', bringing personal preferences and motivation to the workplace. The learning organization therefore requires an environment that supports growth for individual capability and experience and, at the same time, increases business performance. For learning to truly benefit both the organization and the employee, the employer must consider the learner--the employee--as a vital investment for business success.

Describe the five disciplines of Senge’s Learning Organisation. In your response, explain how each discipline could be used by a business to ensure that it is successful during a period of change.

Organizations that have developed the capacity to adapt and to change continuously are known as learning organizations. Learning organizations is when people set aside their old ways of thinking, freely share ideas with others, form a vision for the organization, and work together on a plan for achieving that vision. To become a

Peter Senge was born in 1947, and he graduated in an engineering Stanford and then undertake a Master in Social Systems modelling at MIT (Massachusetts Institute of Technology) and after that he completed his PhD on Management (Mark,2001). According to Peter Senge , learning organizations are “ Organizations where people continuously expand their capacity to create the results they really want , where expanded and new patterns of thinking are developed, where collective goal is set free, and where people are continuously learning to see the whole together”.

The concept of a learning organization knows its roots back to Garratt in 1987, which later on in the late 90’s was revived by Peter Senge. Senge (1990) focuses on the organization acting as a unit where innovative ideas are generated and common goals are reached. Collective commitment of the team is fundamental. Furthermore, according to Senge (1990), the organization must go through 5 domains in order to reach the productivity of a learning organization: systems thinking, personal mastery, mental models, building shared vision and team learning.

Peter Senge, (1990), a learning organization is organization “where people continually expand their capacity to create the results they truly

This paper will summarize the organizational learning strategy and how it is significant as well as essential, specifically in the course of the progression periods of a company, or once new technology or new techniques within an industry are implemented. As a result, organizational learning has established itself to be one of the most efficient ways for an entire company, a division or a team to accept a wide range of new polls, tactics and concepts to allow for growth and improvement (Senge, 1990). Thus, when comparing to traditional learning techniques, or classrooms, individual learning schedules and other techniques are employed, organizational learning has proven itself to be far more efficient and effective overall, while costing less time and money among other resources.

This paper describes and discusses the practical steps taken by Peter Senge in identifying “Why aren’t we all working for learning organizations?” The concept of an adaptive and generative learning organization is defined, and will discuss how organizational learning faces critical issues within its organization. First, the organization’s single-loop learning is discussed and reviewed. Second, the organization’s command and control structure is discussed whether it can be revamped to provide better attributes to an organizations learning. Last, the core paradigm is defined and discussed on its impact within the organization. In 2010 the professors’, John Seddon and Brendan

Garvin, (1993). Defined a “learning organization,” as “an organization skilled at creating, acquiring, and transferring knowledge, and at modifying its behavior to reflect new knowledge and insights.” (p. 80). That said, Garvin qualified his definition, by requiring two necessary conditions: (a) for organizational learning to take place, new ideas needed to be introduced. (b) the new ideas had to bring about the improvement of the organization. This requirement or condition meant that the new ideas would be a catalyst for change. The

The success of learning organisations is predicated on particular internal organisational relationships and particular relationships between the organisation and its environment. Discuss.

According to Senge’s 2012 concept of learning, organizations normally focus on its position as philosophy of organizational learning, while constantly minimizing its sole claim to recognize leadership with learning. To remain competitive, organizations must ensure that their workforce continually learns and develop (Salas, Scott, Kraiger, and Smith-Jentsch, 2012). Much adult informal or individual learning occurs in a business environment deriving from a variety of training methods where the focus is a way of providing employees with the tools they need to perform better in the workplace (Kenner and Weineman, 2011). Individual learning comprises of procedures and curricula used to increase the competences of individual employees (Armstrong and Taylor, 2014). Education is described as the techniques, principles, and facts that are absorbed and understood by mentees (Ford, 2014). For example, in a retail environment, an employee may learn key features as it relates to selling a product or service to a customer. Subsequently, learning may result in selling of the product based on how much the employee retains. Eventually, the employee will embrace the knowledge and articulate them often in their job duties.

According to Peter Sange, the pioneer of the fifth discipline, learning organizations are organisation in which people continually expand their capacity to learn in order to produce result which they truly desire; where innovation and new ways of thinking is encouraged; where collaborative aspiration is set free and people learn to see the big picture. (Senge, 1990)

In a Learning Organization, change is seen as an opportunity to learn through problem solving. Shifting Focus; many agencies are changing their focus from a role of ensuring compliance to one of serving customers. A Learning Organization can ensure that there is a strategic alignment between customer needs, organizational goals, individual learning, and resource allocations. Eroding Knowledge Bases; the recent attrition of employees; reductions-in-force, and expected retirements are eroding the organizational knowledge bases. A Learning Organization fosters information exchange and captures expertise from all levels of personnel. Limited Training Resources; employee training budgets are shrinking while staff members have less time to attend formal training sessions. A Learning Organization can make use of alternative strategies that integrate learning into the workplace. These alternative methods cost less and are effective. Evolving Roles of Supervisors; Supervisors are assuming increasing responsibility for traditional human resource functions. In a Learning Organization, managers serve as teachers and each individual is empowered to be responsible for his or her own learning.

It 's essential to distinguish between “learning group” and “organizational learning”, they deem that these ideas must no longer be regarded as they 're identical (Graham & Nafukho, 2007). A learning organization is involved in making a metamorphosis in behavior in an effort to behavior the company to fully grasp its preferred reworking (Blackman & Henderson, 2005). The learning organization (LO) embodies the monitor of the group in a definite structural framework; even as organizational learning (OL) is deemed as a enormous operative software used to encapsulate the training movements within the organization (Garavan, 1997). The two terms are unique but strongly interrelated; organizational learning need to achieve a segment where the switch of learning and sharing of knowledge is simpler (sun & Scott, 2003). Although learning organization is an analysis of how companies learn, the preliminary factor will perpetually be a scrutiny of how contributors learn. In parallel, the organizational learning is deemed a approach to categorical that organizational members are man or woman freshmen who own the potential to be trained jointly. Then, organizational learning is pertained as a knowledge sharing method; additionally, the competitive strategy of the institution that can engender its sustainable competitive advantage (Hoyle, 1995).

A learning organization is one that is able to transform its culture and behaviors from an occurred situation. This includes the organization realizing a repeated pattern of behaviors that is not growing or helping the organization in the right direction. When organizations admit to certain truths or facts and acknowledge flawed behaviors, then change can start. Organizations attempt to change by restructuring and reorganizing the company. Organizations learn only through individuals who learn. Individual learning does not guarantee organizational learning but, without it no organizational learning occurs’ (Senge 1990).