Organizational Learning Through The Improvement Of Individual Learning

For most companies, identifying what a learning organization should be and actually becoming one is tricky at best, impossible at worst. One way that manager's and companies can promote the concept of being a learning organization is to assess whether the company is in need of a short-term fix or whether it is more focused on long-term results. Organizational learning is a long-term activity that will build competitive advantage over time and requires sustained management attention, commitment, and effort. Learning organizations maximize their competitive positions during strong economic times and they prudently train their employees and prepare for change even in turbulent times. As a result, learning organizations and learning

Just as students are learning at Post, organizations and the personnel within them need to continue to learn. Organizations need to continue to refine processes and focus on innovation. Organizational learning gives companies the ability to create, remember, and share knowledge within an organization. In order for an organization to be an effective learner they need to make it a focus on everyday work, practice it through all levels of the organization, create a focus on the creation, retention and transfer of knowledge through the organization, and solve problems where they begin, Organizational learning provides an opportunity to effect positive change throughout the organization. A company that is an organizational learner is one that is innovative, continually refining its processes and learns from its mistakes. Personal learning within an organization greatly enhances the organizations core competencies. It can be done through education and training programs. Such programs consist of schooling, training seminars, mentorships and on

Learning organizations today must be adequately able to readily adapt to change the mind-sets and behaviors of the people within. Although this sounds like a unified joint statement for each and every organization however, there are so many organizations that yet do not acknowledge the actual truths and current trends that illustrate particular dysfunctional behaviors that exist and occur each day. Learning organization aid and enable companies and business to run, operate, and function with efficiently. As organizations learn together, they attain knowledge, acquire skills and information and evolve at a faster rate. Culture begins to be created after learning organization are established and they are placed

Learning organizations also promote teamwork and cooperation and an organizational culture that encourages experimentation. The fact that the paper suggests that these five strategic building blocks and the supporting foundations are the key factors in this new organizational archetype called a learning organization. These building blocks and supporting foundations need to be present or to be implemented to have a learning capability. However, if this idea of a learning organization is to take hold in organizations and gain credence and support by practicing managers, it must also have an impact on organizational performance.

Feedback is the useful information or criticism that a person has provided to another person or group of individuals who will find the information helpful when improving future performance and practice. It is important for management to provide both positive and negative feedback; this feedback is constructive because it supports the personal and professional development of staff as well as having an effect on employee motivation, retention and satisfaction. It is important that as an organisation feedback is requested across the organisation (citizens, staff, other professionals etc) it is a factor in finding ways to make services and performance throughout the company better.

Each learning cycle and process is to be treated as reorganizing feedback mechanism to achieve the task’s objectives. “The technical view assumes that organizational learning is about the effective processing, interpretation of, and response to,

This article discusses the effect feedback has on an employee or subordinate, and evaluates the most appropriate way to deliver feedback. Negative feedback given in a positive manner can be very

More often than not, learning organizations use new knowledge to change employees’ and organizational behavior while others believe it can result to changes in new ways of thinking.

On the other hand, effective performance feedback has the potential to improve employee participation, motivation, and job satisfaction (Aguinis, Gottfredson, Joo, 2011). Performance feedback is a critical component of all performance management systems. Effective feedback on performance is timely, specific, behavioral and presented by a credible source. The objectives of performance feedback are to improve individual and team performance, as well as commitment, motivation and job satisfaction of employees (Aguinis, 2009). One of the most critical parts of the evaluation process is direct communication between the supervisor and the individual. In the ideal situation, the employee receives information about how they perform and where they can improve. According to Zachary and Dacha, (2010) managers identify the weaknesses of employees and together they make a plan for employee

In today's dynamic and unstable operating conditions of enterprises the ability to innovate is a key factor of survival and success of the organization. Innovations in this case are understood in a broad sense – it means not only to create and offer a new product, but rather the ability of the organization continually develop creative solutions to problems and challenges. In this regard, the role of intangible assets of the organization, especially the knowledge and experience, should be possessed by members of the organization. The concept of "learning organization” forms the approach to management, allowing the most efficient use of data

“…organizations where people continually expand their capacity to create the results they truly desire, where new and expansive patterns of thinking are nurtured, where collective aspiration is set free, and where people are continually learning to see the whole together”.

Traditional (EPO) and (LO) learning organizations capitalize off their ability to create learning opportunities because organizations have the opportunity to motivate leaders and followers giving them a since of empowerment through training to eschew mistakes. The main characteristic difference between traditional organizations and LO were their system thinking (Johnson, 2009). O’Connor & McDermott (1997) noted that system thinking is comprised of feedback loops (reinforcing and balancing) with identifiable patterns and continuous loops that helped people think in circles that were comprised of system theory and systems thinking. These authors revealed that the concept of a system have to be understood based on individuals’ experiences to

Feedback - All boxes in the model are related to feedback. This idea shows that organizational development is not an exact science but in which the selection of appropriate goals and methods of intervention depends on the quality of diagnosis problems.

A learning organization emphasizes or prioritizes certain characteristics that typical organization does not. These can be divided in five broad categories. Personal mastery; Personal mastery is the commitment by an individual to the process of learning. There is a competitive advantage for an organization whose workforce can learn quicker than the workforce of other organizations. Mental models; these are terms given to ingrained assumptions held by individuals and organizations. Their role is to preserve certain behaviors, norms and values applicable to all employees. Systems thinking; it is a conceptual framework that allows people to study businesses. This method of thinking is employed when assessing a company and will have developed information systems that measure the performance of the organization as a whole and of its various components. Shared vision; it is important in incentivizing the workforce to learn as it creates a common identity that can provide focus and energy for learning. The most successful visions build on the individual visions of the employees at all levels of the organization. Team learning; it is the accumulation of individual learning. The benefit of sharing individual learning is that employees grow more quickly and the problem solving capacity of the organization is improved through

Learning organisation thrives for continuous improvement of its capacities in order to make the organisation ready to face the future. For example learning and development process at Corus; a Tata Steel company and Europe 's second largest steel producer with annual revenues of around £12 billion, employing around 40,000 people worldwide, is moderated by structuring the learning process within their organisation through setting up a Corus Academy. The Corus Academy was based on sharing best practices and maximizing common approaches. Its main objective focus on Constant Improvement was achieved through the sharing of ideas across the entire company, where both individual and organisational learning occurred simultaneously becoming a learning organisation itself. (TheTimes100, 2009).