LEARNING ORGANIZATION – THE CHALLENGE OF THE
MODERN MANAGEMENT
Carmen Chasovschi
Faculty of Economics and Public Administration, "Stefan cel Mare" University,
Suceava , Romania,
carmenc@seap.usv.ro
Otilia-Maria Albu
Faculty of Economics and Public Administration, "Stefan cel Mare" University,
Suceava , Romania,
otilia@seap.usv.ro
Abstract
The need of change is imposed by globalisation process. In this context, even they like it or
not, the managers and the employees have to adapt to this new environment. They have to be
opened and prepared for new strategies and to understand the fact that risk and innovation
are unavoidable. Managers have to manage the organization in such a manner that the
employees will change their vision, ideas and attitudes on long term. These arguments are
meant to create the portrait of the Learning Organization and to underline the changes that
will surely come. In order to have a more complex description of this type of organization,
some stages in the evolution of this concept has to be mentioned, but is important to add a
constructive criticism that will remain the background for creating a more radical perspective
on organizational learning and learning organization.
Key words
Learning Organization, globalization, change, system thinking, performance, team learning,
vision, complexity, evaluation.
1. INTRODUCTION
The need of change, the need to adapt to the change is imposed by the globalization
process – disputed phenomenon, with many connotations and reverberations in all
the social life domains, determining many changes at social level, but also at
organizational level.
In this context, even they like it or not, the managers but also the employees have to
adapt to this new environment. It is not that easy as it seems, and it will never be an
easy process, and managers will have to implement new strategies, different from
the previous ones, in order to adapt and to prepare the organization for global
changes. Moreover, the employees also have to implement different techniques to
adapt, working together to improve the organizational performance by studying,
correcting errors and learning from the errors.
Managers from organizations have to be opened and prepared for new strategies to
understand the fact that risk and innovation are unavoidable. They also have to
manage the organization in such a manner that the employees will change their
vision, ideas and attitudes for long term.
These arguments are meant to create the portrait of the learning organization and to
underline the changes that will surely come. In order to have a more complex
description of this type of organization, some stages in the evolution of this concept
has to be mentioned.
During the last two decades, the subject of learning in organizational contexts has
become incredibly popular. Some journals are, in a way, devoted to this subject (e.g.
The Learning Organization; Management Learning). Many other journals publish
occasionally a special issue on organizational learning or the learning organization
(e.g. Accounting, Management and Information Technologies, No. 1 1995;
International Journal of Organizational Analysis, No. 1 1995; Journal of
Management Studies, No. 1 1983, No. 6 2000; Journal of Organizational Change
Management, No. 11996; Organization Science, No. 1 1991). Furthermore, the
number of published books and articles in this field is enormous. It is hard to
mention only a few articles and books. The most famous books are certainly Chris
Argyris’ and Donald Schon’s Organizational Learning: A Theory of Action
Perspective, Peter Senge’s The Fifth Discipline: The Art and Practice of the
Learning organization, and The Learning Company: A Strategy for Sustainable
Development by Mike Pedler, John Burgoyne and Tom Boydell. From the huge
number of articles, we can mention Bo Hedberg’s “How organizations learn and
unlearn”, “Organizational learning and communities-of-practice: toward a unified
view of working, learning, and innovation” by John Seely Brown and Paul Duguid,
and David Garvin’s “Building a learning organization”.[1] Almost every writer
describes organizational learning or the learning organization in quite positive terms.
Only a few critical studies exist, but they criticize the rhetoric of the concept (e.g.
Jackson) or they tend to criticize only previous research and literature. There are
even few studies devoted to criticize the organizational learning. During the past
time some studies have been written, but, a more critical approach is still needed.
2.
THE LEARNING ORGANIZATION – THE CHALLENGE FOR
THE MODERN MANAGEMENT
We can argue that the concept of learning organizations suffered many changes,
combinations, permutations, in which regards the theoretical approach but also in the
possibility of practical application. The concept of learning organizations was
mainly attributed to Peter Senge, but other authors, such as Chris Agyris, Donald
Schon şi Margaret Wheatley had a significant contribution in spreading the concept.
Peter Senge, in the paper “The Fifth Discipline” has offered the following definition
for learning organizations: ...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.[2] The basic rationale for such
organizations is that in situations of rapid change only those that are flexible,
adaptive and productive will excel. To reach this goal, organizations need to
discover how to obtain people’s commitment and capacity to learn at all levels.
According to Peter Senge, for a learning organization it is not enough to survive.
‘”Survival learning” or what is more often termed “adaptive learning” is indeed
necessary. But for a learning organization, “adaptive learning” must be joined by
“generative learning”, learning that enhances the capacity to create.
The dimension that distinguishes learning from more traditional organizations is the
mastery of certain basic disciplines or “component technologies”. The five
component technologies in the Five Disciplines model from Senge are [2]:
1. Systems Thinking (the integrative [fifth] discipline that fuses the other 4
into a coherent body of theory and practice)
2. Personal Mastery (people should approach life and work "as an artist would
approach a work of art")
3. Mental Models (deeply ingrained assumptions or mental images "that
influence how we understand the world and how we take action")
4. Building Shared Vision (when there is a genuine vision "people excel and
learn, not because they are told to, but because they want to")
5. Team Learning (team members engaging in true dialogue with their
assumptions suspended)
All these 5 disciplines must be employed in a never-ending quest to expand the
capacity of the organization to create its future. Learning Organizations are those
that are able to engage in generative learning - "learning that enhances the capacity
to create".
He adds to this recognition that people are agents, able to act upon the structures and
systems of which they are a part. All the disciplines are, in this way, “concerned
with a shift of mind from seeing parts to seeing wholes, from seeing people as
helpless reactors to seeing them as active participants in shaping their reality, from
reacting to the present to creating the future”. [2]
Systems thinking – the cornerstone of the learning organization. A great aspect
of Peter Senge’s work is the way in which he includes systems theory in practice.
Peter Senge argues that one of the key problems is that there are used simplistic
frameworks to complex systems. It is argued that we tend to focus on the parts rather
than seeing the whole, and to fail to see organization as a dynamic process.
Peter Senge argues with regard to organizations that “We learn best from our
experience, but we never directly experience the consequences of many of our most
important decisions”. We tend to think that cause and effect will be relatively near to
one another. Thus when faced with a problem, it is the “solutions” that are close by
that we focus upon. Classically we look to actions that produce improvements in a
relatively short time span. The systems viewpoint is generally oriented toward the
long-term view.
Peter Senge advocates the use of “systems maps” – diagrams that show the key
elements of systems and how they connect. However, people often have a problem
“seeing” systems, and it takes work to acquire the basic building blocks of systems
theory, and to apply them to organization. On the other hand, failure to understand
system dynamics can lead us into “cycles of blaming and self-defense: the enemy is
always out there, and problems are always caused by someone else”.
Personal mastery. As we mention before, “Organizations learn only through
individuals who learn, individual learning does not guarantee organizational
learning. But without it no organizational learning occurs. Personal mastery is the
discipline of continually clarifying and deepening our personal vision, of focusing
our energies, of developing patience, and of seeing reality objectively” [2]. It goes
beyond competence and skills, although it involves them. It goes beyond spiritual
opening, although it involves spiritual growth. Mastery is seen as a special kind of
proficiency. It is not about dominance, but rather about calling. Vision is vocation
rather than a simply good idea.
People with a high level of personal mastery live in a continual learning mode.
Personal mastery is not something you possess; it is a process, a lifelong discipline.
People with a high level of personal mastery are acutely aware of their ignorance,
their incompetence and their growth areas.
Mental models. These are “deeply ingrained assumptions, generalizations, or even
pictures and images that influence how we understand the world and how we take
action”[2]. As such they resemble what Donald A Schön talked about as a
professional’s “repertoire”. We are often not that aware of the impact of such
assumptions etc. on our behaviour – and, thus, a fundamental part of our task (as
Schön would say) is to develop the ability to reflect-in- and –on-action. Peter Senge
is also influenced here by Schön’s collaborator on a number of projects, Chris
Argyris.[3]
The discipline of mental models starts with turning the mirror inward; learning to
unearth our internal pictures of the world. It also includes the ability to carry on
‘learningful’ conversations that balance inquiry and advocacy, where people expose
their own thinking effectively and make that thinking open to the influence of
others.[2]
If organizations want to develop a capacity to work with mental models then it will
be necessary for people to learn new skills and develop new orientations. Moving
the organization in the right direction entails working to transcend the internal
politics and game playing that dominates traditional organizations. In other words it
means fostering openness [2]. It also involves seeking to distribute business
responsibly far more widely while retaining coordination and control. Learning
organizations are localized organizations.
Building shared vision. Peter Senge starts from the idea about leadership who has
inspired organizations for thousands of years, “it’s the capacity to hold a share
picture of the future we seek to create” [2]. Such a vision has the power to encourage
experimentation and innovation. When there is a genuine vision, people excel and
learn, not because they are told to, but because they want to. But many leaders have
personal visions that never get translated into shared visions that galvanize an
organization. The practice of shared vision involves the skills of unearthing shared
‘pictures of the future’ that foster genuine commitment and enrolment rather than
compliance.
Visions spread because of a reinforcing process. ‘As people talk, the vision grows
clearer. As it gets clearer, enthusiasm for its benefits grow” [2].
Team learning. Such learning is viewed as ‘the process of aligning and developing
the capacities of a team to create the results its members truly desire’ [2]. It builds
on personal mastery and shared vision – but these are not enough. People need to be
able to act together. When teams learn together, Peter Senge suggests, not only can
there be good results for the organization, members will grow more rapidly.
The discipline of team learning starts with ‘dialogue’, the capacity of members of a
team to suspend assumptions and enter into a genuine ‘thinking together’. When
dialogue is joined with systems thinking, Senge argues, there is the possibility of
creating a language more suited for dealing with complexity, and of focusing on
deep-seated structural issues and forces rather than being diverted by questions of
personality and leadership style.
On the other hand, we can underline Mike Pedler contribution in creating the portrait
of the learning organization. He suggested another version of the same concept:
“The learning organization is a projection, a vision of what might have been
possible“. [4] To reach this idea it is not just a matter of individual formation, but it
will become possible only when the learning process is at organizational level. A
learning organization is one who facilitates the learning of the individuals and
transforms itself continuously. An organization becomes a learning organization
when all the members, at all managerial levels, are learning, through cooperation, to
develop and improve their abilities and general performances, being opened and
willing to learn continuously from previous experiences.
The learning organization is maybe the greatest challenge of all the post-modern
approaches in organizational domain.
The characteristics of the learning organization are the following:
 continuous offering new opportunities to learn;
 using the learning process to reach its goals;
 finding the link between the individual performance and organizational
performance;
 encouraging the dialogue and creating the specific environment where
people to express their opinion and assume risks;
 using creative tensions as energetic renewable source;
 being aware by the relationship with the environment where the activity
takes place.
Seems that the future of each company depend on its capacity to transform into a
learning organization.
Therefore, it is the manager task to determine a organization to become a learning
organization, prepared to react in a specific, right manner to the unexpected
problems; only the learning organization can learn from the errors, as opportunities
to gain more knowledge; only the members of a learning organization can openly
share the problems, believing in each other, respecting each one ideas, suggestions
or personal believes.
Fig. 1. Learning organization model [10]
A. Toffler also speaks about the organization of the future, called “adhocracy”,
which is a organization served by information, with individuals with a great mobility
(so that the author propose another concept of “associative man”- the man who’s
creative and flexible). [6]
Table 1. The old and the new paradigm of organizations [7]
Old paradigm
New paradigm
Organizational discipline
Organizational learning
Vicious cycles
Virtuous cycles
Inflexible organizations
Flexible organizations
Management through administrator
Management through leader
Difficulties in communication
Open communication
Hierarchies
Markets
Strategic units administrate product Basic competences
orientate product
development
development
Strategic learning take place on the The capacities of strategic learning are
top of the organizational hierarchy
distributed in all organization
Assumption that you cannot have trust Assumption that you can have trust in
in many members of organization
most of the members of the organization
Most of the members are not being Most of the members are
being
empowered
empowered
Knowing the members of the Knowing the members of the organization
organization must be controlled by the is the key factor of success, and the
management prerogatives.
creativity creates its own prerogatives.
An important role in organization is played by the evaluation. There must be a way
to measure the efficiency of the systems that facilitates learning. The organization
will always create an output – a product or a service – and the efficiency of the
product/service has to be measured. Concrete aspects, such as the changes in
service’s quality, or customer orientation, changes in financial performances,
following deadlines, rising the productivity, represents, in fact, indicators that can be
– qualitative and quantitative – measured, being the evaluation background for the
efficiency of the organizational learning in practice.
We can state that there is no organization that can reach a point where to say: We
did it! We created the Learning Organisation!, because, this organization is, by
definition, one that continuously evolve. Building the Learning Organisation is a
challenge that can start with a positive attitude regarding the change, continuous
learning and with the image of a visionary process.
4.
THE NEED FOR A MORE CRITICAL APPROACH. FUTURE
RESEARCH DIRECTIONS
Even if the concept is very popular, still remains abstract. In the article „Why
Organizations Still Can’t Learn“, Senge presents the obstacles in implementing this
concept into practice.
Some authors even proposed a participative step by step guide in order to build the
learning organization and also guidelines in order to reach this goal. So, in a way, we
are tempted to say that the recipe for creating the successful learning organization
was invented, as an example of “good practices” to be followed by all the
organizations embracing the change. Things are not that simple as it seems. For
surely, in this case we can draw a line between the theoretical and practical frame,
because there are many obstacle in implementing this concept into practice. For
example the focus on the individual learning may be one of the main impediments in
implementing this paradigm. At least at this level the things are clear and simple to
express: organizations learn only through individuals who learn; but individual
learning does not guarantee organizational learning. Another reason why the
practical approach of this concept fails is due to the fact that many organizations are
using this concept as e pretext to rise the training budgets, not reaching the expected
impact.
One criticism against organizational learning is the lack of clarity concerning the
entities of learning, suggesting that current literature and perspectives of
organizational learning might be undemocratic (Bood et al.; Born and Nollen; Jones
and Hendry; Leymann; Sims and McAulay ; Snell and Chak) [5]. According to
Leymann , such a lackof clarity hides matters of power and control. [1]
A closely related criticism concerns a kind of control in organizations, namely the
existence of unifying elements in the literature of organizational learning – for
instance a shared vision or shared mental models (e.g. Bood et al.; Burgoyne and
Jackson; Coopey). According to Fenwick, the employees are assumed to reflect
critically in the learning organization, but only on the surface and not on such
themes as power structures and the learning organization ideology. [1]
The learning organization implies a less structured organization, which the critics
have debated quite a lot. According to Victor and Stephens, not every person will be
comfortable with ‘‘free-floating demands of the hyperflexible workplace’’. Flood
adds that participatory structures are threatening to some people. Coopey argues that
in less structured organizations, such as the learning organization, the managers
preserve or even increase their power.
Another criticism against organizational learning is that learning is not always a
good thing (e.g. Hawkins; Grey; Miner and Mezias). Individuals, as well as
organizations, may learn things that can be unhealthy for them, as well as harmful to
the wider society. For instance, they can learn how to make an atomic bomb.
According to Fenwick, some workers might not learn – in the sense of generating
knowledge – at all and are therefore excluded from the ‘continuous learning’
discourse. [1]
Finally, many critics argue that the learning organization threatens people’s life
outside work. Flood argues that Senge’s learning organization assumes that people
want to be part of something larger, something exceeding self-interest, and want to
build something important with other people. [8] Victor and Stephens argue that the
learning organization implies that everyone becomes obsessed with learning at work;
otherwise their places in the organization will be threatened. Coopey claims that the
employees are assumed to take more responsibility for corporate problems. [9]
Fenwick argues that the individuals are supposed to learn more, better and faster in
the learning organization, and that they thereby become responsible for the
organization’s health. The increased level of organizational commitment might,
according to Coopey, risk other commitments such as family and close friends A
radical perspective of organizational learning would imply a fair work time, so the
family life of the employees would not be interfered with.
5.
CONCLUSION
If for some organizations the concept creates confusion, for others the concept is
clear and possible to be put into practice. A learning organization can be recognized
through the specific relations established among its members, at horizontal level;
they communicate easily and more often, are sensitive to others thoughts and ideas,
are sincere, creative, learning from each other, but also from other external
situations/facts. In learning organization framework, the employees are encouraged
to take risks, facts that create new opportunities for organization. Other visible,
measurable aspects, which can prove the existence of a learning organization
emerging from organization investigation, from observation of its members (way of
thinking, artifacts – maps, memoirs, programs) and of their interaction. Thus, the
organization learns when the employees, continuously creates, organize, stock,
analyze, interpret and apply information. Information becomes knowledge. The
continuity becomes the key element in this context, because, since the organization
become passive, the whole process of learning begins to fail.
In conclusion, the writings of the critics are not just destructive . Their critical
arguments will remain the background for creating a more radical perspective on
organizational learning and learning organization.
References
[1] Ortenblad, A. - Organizational learning: a radical perspective - International
Journal of Management Reviews, 2000, Volume 4 Issue 1 pp. 87–100
[2] Senge, Peter -The Fifth Discipline - New York, Doubleday, 1994
[3]Argyris, C. and Schön, D.A.- Organizational Learning: A Theory of Action
Perspective.- London: Addison-Wesley, 1978
[4] Pedler, M., Burgoyne, J. and Boydell, T. - The Learning Company: A Strategy
for Sustainable Development -London: McGraw-Hill, 1991
[5] Bood, R.P., Homan, T.H., Rietdijk, M.M. and van Uden, J.C. -Towards a critical
perspective on large scale interventions. Paper presented at the 3rd International
Conference on Organizational Learning, University of Lancaster, UK, 1999
[6] Toffler, Alvin - Al treilea val - Bucureşti, Editura Politică, 1990
[7] Hoffman, Oscar -Sociologia organizaţiilor- Bucureşti, Editura Economică, 2004,
p. 293
[8] Flood, R.L. - Fifth discipline: review and discussion. Systemic Practice and
Action Research, 1998, p. 259–273.
[9] Coopey, J. (1996). - Crucial gaps in ‘the learning organization’: power, politics
and ideology, In Starkey, K. (ed.) How Organizations Learn. London: Thomson
Business Press. Coopey, J. (1998). Learning to trust and trusting to learn: a role for
radical theatre. Management Learning, p. 365–382.
[10] adapted from www.realcom.co.jp (Knowledge Management Solutions That
Empower Your Enterprise).