Should Organizations Be A Learning Organization And How It Helped Managers Realize This?

If an organization is already established and wants to become an “effective learning organization” they have to take into account their relationship with their employees at the time they make this decision. If the employees who currently work for management are not “self-energized, committed, responsible and creative beings” (Kinicki, 2012) (or any combination thereof) like McGregor assumes, they will not be able to jump in to some of the activities that leading organizations are doing. Managers will need to understand that if they developed an environment where management is superior and the employees are workers, any part of the human relations theory will not benefit them quickly. Managers will need to gain the trust of their employees and actually listen to their emotions.

2. Give your opinion on the current Organizational Learning Mechanism(s) (OLMs) that hinder organizational learning. Support your response with one (1) example of a training or learning initiative (e.g., sharing knowledge, training programs, working as a team, experiences, procedures, processes, etc.) and the outcome when it was applied to the organization.

Many companies are very keen and ready to clinch Work Base Learning in an organization, not mainly because it provide you with lifelong learning, but also it is an important ingredient of what Senge (1990) has termed as the ‘learning organization’. A learning organization is a place in which the learning and flair of persons is backed and promoted so that the organization itself be able to form its future and it also very important to gain competitive advantage.

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

A learning organization is an organization that can change quickly, adapting to the new rules that the market environment has created. Businesses that know how to learn and develop quickly and effectively will thrive; those that don’t will not survive. It is easy to think of newer companies like Apple and Google as being the best learning organizations. Yet, some of the best examples of organizational learning practices are found in more mature organizations, such as the U.S. military. Throughout our lives we collect tidbits of information, knowledge through what we experience, we try to apply the lesson from these experience as we grow, we are curious by nature, adventurous we are learners and for many of us the process of learning never stops.

Learning at an organization is more of a self-conducted activity, and is a continuous process that lasts the entire cycle of the organization and the tenure of the employee. Nevertheless, each organization must effectively employ certain training and development activities for new as well as seasoned employees in order to accomplish different objectives:-

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 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.

Organizational learning promotes: adaptability, participation and information openness. Consequently, not only employee performance will be enhanced, but also the increase of organizations effectiveness and efficiency.

Throughout our final semester of study at Maryville, our cohort has studied Peter Senge’s, The Fifth Discipline: The Art and Practice of the Learning Organization. Rather than set of management practices, the book describes how organizations, especially those that are sustainably competitive, know how to learn. These “learning organizations” are continuously learning how to work together, where the norm is producing their best. In the book, Senge identifies five essential elements, that when practiced together, create perfect conditions for an effective learning organization. These five practices are Personal Mastery, Mental Models, Shared Vision,

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.

The novel, The Fifth Discipline, states the significance of learning organizations and the fundamental learning disabilities currently in companies. As the head of planning for Royal Dutch/Shell, Arie De Geus stated, the ability to learn faster than your competitors may be the only sustainable competitive advantage (“Discipline”). The world is becoming more interconnected and businesses are becoming more complex and dynamic, which is why it is significant for work to become more “learningful.” In more depth, organizations that discover how to tap people’s commitment and capacity to absorb at all levels in an organization will truly excel in the future, as it is no longer sufficient to have one person learning for a corporation (“Discipline”). Teams that are truly learning will result in individual members growing more rapidly than before, generating extraordinary outcomes.

An organization’s capability to learn and convey that learning into action quickly, is the supreme competitive advantage. The learning organization is the structure that eases the realization of such competitive advantage, it empowers employees, it deepens and enhances the customer experience and cooperation with main business partners and eventually improves business performance. Organizational learning is considered as the suitable process to develop knowledge resources and capabilities/core competencies (human capital, social capital and organizational capital) that engender ongoing values; which in turn yield persistence superior performance; which lead to sustainable competitive advantage within the context of the strategic management.

Learning organizations are successful in all aspects of the business. A learning organization provide staff with the opportunities to gain knowledge, they accelerate learning curves and adopt new technologies more quickly. By creating a learning environment, employees become empowered, which leads to innovation. Innovation is what drives the business to

Therefore, once the definition of organizational learning is settled, that of the learning organization will follow. It is commonly agreed that the concept of organizational learning is complex and multidimensional. Within the term organizational learning, the word learning is a live metaphor (Tsoukas, 1991) that transfers information from the relatively familiar domain of individual learning (the source domain) to a less known phenomenon in organizations (the target domain). As such, we should guard against the danger that ª the object being metaphorically described does not share many, if any, defining characteristics of the object used metaphorically (Pinder & Bourgeois, 1982). For example, what has been learned is stored in a neat and tidy physical location (i.e., the brain) for individual learning; the case for organizational learning is not so simple. An additional complication is that the study of individual learning is itself complex and in flux, and its use in guiding the research of organizational learning should be treated with caution. Usually when metaphors are used, the source domain is distinct from the target domain, as in the case of the garbage can model of organizational decision making (Cohen, March, & Olsen, 1972). Unfortunately, there is a close relationship between individual learning within an organizational context and organizational learning per se. Confusion may arise as