learning organization critical thinking

education, community-building and change

Peter Senge and the learning organization

Peter senge and the learning organization. peter senge’s vision of a learning organization as a group of people who are continually enhancing their capabilities to create what they want to create has been deeply influential. we discuss the five disciplines he sees as central to learning organizations and some issues and questions concerning the theory and practice of learning organizations..

contents: introduction · peter senge · the learning organization · systems thinking – the cornerstone of the learning organization · the core disciplines · leading the learning organization · issues and problems · conclusion · further reading and references · links

Peter M. Senge (1947- ) was named a ‘Strategist of the Century’ by the Journal of Business Strategy , one of 24 men and women who have ‘had the greatest impact on the way we conduct business today’ (September/October 1999). While he has studied how firms and organizations develop adaptive capabilities for many years at MIT (Massachusetts Institute of Technology), it was Peter Senge’s 1990 book The Fifth Discipline that brought him firmly into the limelight and popularized the concept of the ‘learning organization’. Since its publication, more than a million copies have been sold and in 1997, Harvard Business Review identified it as one of the seminal management books of the past 75 years.

On this page we explore Peter Senge’s vision of the learning organization. We will focus on the arguments in his (1990) book The Fifth Discipline as it is here we find the most complete exposition of his thinking.

Peter Senge

Born in 1947, Peter Senge graduated in engineering from Stanford and then went on to undertake a masters on social systems modeling at MIT (Massachusetts Institute of Technology) before completing his PhD on Management. Said to be a rather unassuming man, he is is a senior lecturer at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology. He is also founding chair of the Society for Organizational Learning (SoL). His current areas of special interest focus on decentralizing the role of leadership in organizations so as to enhance the capacity of all people to work productively toward common goals.

Peter Senge describes himself as an ‘idealistic pragmatist’. This orientation has allowed him to explore and advocate some quite ‘utopian’ and abstract ideas (especially around systems theory and the necessity of bringing human values to the workplace). At the same time he has been able to mediate these so that they can be worked on and applied by people in very different forms of organization. His areas of special interest are said to focus on decentralizing the role of leadership in organizations so as to enhance the capacity of all people to work productively toward common goals. One aspect of this is Senge’s involvement in the Society for Organizational Learning (SoL), a Cambridge-based, non-profit membership organization. Peter Senge is its chair and co-founder. SoL is part of a ‘global community of corporations, researchers, and consultants’ dedicated to discovering, integrating, and implementing ‘theories and practices for the interdependent development of people and their institutions’. One of the interesting aspects of the Center (and linked to the theme of idealistic pragmatism) has been its ability to attract corporate sponsorship to fund pilot programmes that carry within them relatively idealistic concerns.

Aside from writing The Fifth Discipline: The Art and Practice of The Learning Organization (1990), Peter Senge has also co-authored a number of other books linked to the themes first developed in The Fifth Discipline . These include The Fifth Discipline Fieldbook: Strategies and Tools for Building a Learning Organization (1994); The Dance of Change: The Challenges to Sustaining Momentum in Learning Organizations (1999) and Schools That Learn (2000).

The learning organization

According to Peter Senge (1990: 3) learning organizations are:

…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.

The basic rationale for such organizations is that in situations of rapid change only those that are flexible, adaptive and productive will excel. For this to happen, it is argued, organizations need to ‘discover how to tap people’s commitment and capacity to learn at all levels’ ( ibid. : 4).

While all people have the capacity to learn, the structures in which they have to function are often not conducive to reflection and engagement. Furthermore, people may lack the tools and guiding ideas to make sense of the situations they face. Organizations that are continually expanding their capacity to create their future require a fundamental shift of mind among their members.

When you ask people about what it is like being part of a great team, what is most striking is the meaningfulness of the experience. People talk about being part of something larger than themselves, of being connected, of being generative. It become quite clear that, for many, their experiences as part of truly great teams stand out as singular periods of life lived to the fullest. Some spend the rest of their lives looking for ways to recapture that spirit. (Senge 1990: 13)

For Peter Senge, real learning gets to the heart of what it is to be human. We become able to re-create ourselves. This applies to both individuals and organizations. Thus, for a ‘learning organization it is not enough to survive. ‘”Survival learning” or what is more often termed “adaptive learning” is important – indeed it is necessary. But for a learning organization, “adaptive learning” must be joined by “generative learning”, learning that enhances our capacity to create’ (Senge 1990:14).

The dimension that distinguishes learning from more traditional organizations is the mastery of certain basic disciplines or ‘component technologies’. The five that Peter Senge identifies are said to be converging to innovate learning organizations. They are:

Systems thinking Personal mastery Mental models Building shared vision Team learning

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’ (Senge 1990: 69). It is to the disciplines that we will now turn.

Systems thinking – the cornerstone of the learning organization

A great virtue of Peter Senge’s work is the way in which he puts systems theory to work. The Fifth Discipline provides a good introduction to the basics and uses of such theory – and the way in which it can be brought together with other theoretical devices in order to make sense of organizational questions and issues. Systemic thinking is the conceptual cornerstone (‘The Fifth Discipline’) of his approach. It is the discipline that integrates the others, fusing them into a coherent body of theory and practice ( ibid. : 12). Systems theory’s ability to comprehend and address the whole, and to examine the interrelationship between the parts provides, for Peter Senge, both the incentive and the means to integrate the disciplines.

Here is not the place to go into a detailed exploration of Senge’s presentation of systems theory (I have included some links to primers below). However, it is necessary to highlight one or two elements of his argument. First, while the basic tools of systems theory are fairly straightforward they can build into sophisticated models. Peter Senge argues that one of the key problems with much that is written about, and done in the name of management, is that rather simplistic frameworks are applied to what are complex systems. We tend to focus on the parts rather than seeing the whole, and to fail to see organization as a dynamic process. Thus, the argument runs, a better appreciation of systems will lead to more appropriate action.

‘We learn best from our experience, but we never directly experience the consequences of many of our most important decisions’, Peter Senge (1990: 23) argues with regard to organizations. 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. However, when viewed in systems terms short-term improvements often involve very significant long-term costs. For example, cutting back on research and design can bring very quick cost savings, but can severely damage the long-term viability of anorganization. Part of the problem is the nature of the feedback we receive. Some of the feedback will be reinforcing (or amplifying) – with small changes building on themselves. ‘Whatever movement occurs is amplified, producing more movement in the same direction. A small action snowballs, with more and more and still more of the same, resembling compound interest’ (Senge 1990: 81). Thus, we may cut our advertising budgets, see the benefits in terms of cost savings, and in turn further trim spending in this area. In the short run there may be little impact on people’s demands for our goods and services, but longer term the decline in visibility may have severe penalties. An appreciation of systems will lead to recognition of the use of, and problems with, such reinforcing feedback, and also an understanding of the place of balancing (or stabilizing) feedback. (See, also Kurt Lewin on feedback). A further key aspect of systems is the extent to which they inevitably involve delays – ‘interruptions in the flow of influence which make the consequences of an action occur gradually’ ( ibid. : 90). Peter Senge (1990: 92) concludes:

The systems viewpoint is generally oriented toward the long-term view. That’s why delays and feedback loops are so important. In the short term, you can often ignore them; they’re inconsequential. They only come back to haunt you in the long term.

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 your 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’ Bolam and Deal 1997: 27; see, also, Senge 1990: 231).

The core disciplines

Alongside systems thinking, there stand four other ‘component technologies’ or disciplines. A ‘discipline’ is viewed by Peter Senge as a series of principles and practices that we study, master and integrate into our lives. The five disciplines can be approached at one of three levels:

Practices: what you do. Principles: guiding ideas and insights. Essences: the state of being those with high levels of mastery in the discipline (Senge 1990: 373).

Each discipline provides a vital dimension. Each is necessary to the others if organizations are to ‘learn’.

Personal mastery. ‘Organizations learn only through individuals who learn. Individual learning does not guarantee organizational learning. But without it no organizational learning occurs’ (Senge 1990: 139). 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’ ( ibid. : 7). It goes beyond competence and skills, although it involves them. It goes beyond spiritual opening, although it involves spiritual growth ( ibid. : 141). Mastery is seen as a special kind of proficiency. It is not about dominance, but rather about calling . Vision is vocation rather than simply just a good idea.

People with a high level of personal mastery live in a continual learning mode. They never ‘arrive’. Sometimes, language, such as the term ‘personal mastery’ creates a misleading sense of definiteness, of black and white. But personal mastery is not something you possess. It is a process. It is a lifelong discipline. People with a high level of personal mastery are acutely aware of their ignorance, their incompetence, their growth areas. And they are deeply self-confident. Paradoxical? Only for those who do not see the ‘journey is the reward’. (Senge 1990: 142)

In writing such as this we can see the appeal of Peter Senge’s vision. It has deep echoes in the concerns of writers such as M. Scott Peck (1990) and Erich Fromm (1979). The discipline entails developing personal vision; holding creative tension (managing the gap between our vision and reality); recognizing structural tensions and constraints, and our own power (or lack of it) with regard to them; a commitment to truth; and using the sub-conscious ( ibid .: 147-167).

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’ (Senge 1990: 8). 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 put it) is to develop the ability to <href=”#_the_reflective_practitioner”>reflect-in- and –on-action. Peter Senge is also influenced here by Schön’s collaborator on a number of projects, Chris Argyris .

The discipline of mental models starts with turning the mirror inward; learning to unearth our internal pictures of the world, to bring them to the surface and hold them rigorously to scrutiny. 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. (Senge 1990: 9)

If organizations are to develop a capacity to work with mental models then it will be necessary for people to learn new skills and develop new orientations, and for their to be institutional changes that foster such change. ‘Entrenched mental models… thwart changes that could come from systems thinking’ ( ibid. : 203). Moving the organization in the right direction entails working to transcend the sorts of internal politics and game playing that dominate traditional organizations. In other words it means fostering openness (Senge 1990: 273-286). It also involves seeking to distribute business responsibly far more widely while retaining coordination and control. Learning organizations are localized organizations ( ibid. : 287-301).

Building shared vision. Peter Senge starts from the position that if any one idea about leadership has inspired organizations for thousands of years, ‘it’s the capacity to hold a share picture of the future we seek to create’ (1990: 9). Such a vision has the power to be uplifting – and to encourage experimentation and innovation. Crucially, it is argued, it can also foster a sense of the long-term, something that is fundamental to the ‘fifth discipline’.

When there is a genuine vision (as opposed to the all-to-familiar ‘vision statement’), 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… What has been lacking is a discipline for translating vision into shared vision – not a ‘cookbook’ but a set of principles and guiding practices. The practice of shared vision involves the skills of unearthing shared ‘pictures of the future’ that foster genuine commitment and enrolment rather than compliance. In mastering this discipline, leaders learn the counter-productiveness of trying to dictate a vision, no matter how heartfelt. (Senge 1990: 9)

Visions spread because of a reinforcing process. Increased clarity, enthusiasm and commitment rub off on others in the organization. ‘As people talk, the vision grows clearer. As it gets clearer, enthusiasm for its benefits grow’ ( ibid. : 227). There are ‘limits to growth’ in this respect, but developing the sorts of mental models outlined above can significantly improve matters. Where organizations can transcend linear and grasp system thinking, there is the possibility of bringing vision to fruition.

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’ (Senge 1990: 236). 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 than could have occurred otherwise.

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’. To the Greeks dia-logos meant a free-flowing if meaning through a group, allowing the group to discover insights not attainable individually…. [It] also involves learning how to recognize the patterns of interaction in teams that undermine learning. (Senge 1990: 10)

The notion of dialogue that flows through The Fifth Discipline is very heavily dependent on the work of the physicist, David Bohm (where a group ‘becomes open to the flow of a larger intelligence’, and thought is approached largely as collective phenomenon). 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. Indeed, such is the emphasis on dialogue in his work that it could almost be put alongside systems thinking as a central feature of his approach.

Leading the learning organization

Peter Senge argues that learning organizations require a new view of leadership. He sees the traditional view of leaders (as special people who set the direction, make key decisions and energize the troops as deriving from a deeply individualistic and non-systemic worldview (1990: 340). At its centre the traditional view of leadership, ‘is based on assumptions of people’s powerlessness, their lack of personal vision and inability to master the forces of change, deficits which can be remedied only by a few great leaders’ ( op. cit. ). Against this traditional view he sets a ‘new’ view of leadership that centres on ‘subtler and more important tasks’.

In a learning organization, leaders are designers, stewards and teachers. They are responsible for building organizations were people continually expand their capabilities to understand complexity, clarify vision, and improve shared mental models – that is they are responsible for learning…. Learning organizations will remain a ‘good idea’… until people take a stand for building such organizations. Taking this stand is the first leadership act, the start of inspiring (literally ‘to breathe life into’) the vision of the learning organization. (Senge 1990: 340)

Many of the qualities that Peter Senge discusses with regard to leading the learning organization can be found in the shared leadership model (discussed elsewhere on these pages). For example, what Senge approaches as inspiration, can be approached as animation . Here we will look at the three aspects of leadership that he identifies – and link his discussion with some other writers on leadership.

Leader as designer . The functions of design are rarely visible, Peter Senge argues, yet no one has a more sweeping influence than the designer (1990: 341). The organization’s policies, strategies and ‘systems’ are key area of design, but leadership goes beyond this. Integrating the five component technologies is fundamental. However, the first task entails designing the governing ideas – the purpose, vision and core values by which people should live. Building a shared vision is crucial early on as it ‘fosters a long-term orientation and an imperative for learning’ ( ibid .: 344). Other disciplines also need to be attended to, but just how they are to be approached is dependent upon the situation faced. In essence, ‘the leaders’ task is designing the learning processes whereby people throughout the organization can deal productively with the critical issues they face, and develop their mastery in the learning disciplines’ ( ibid .: 345).

Leader as steward . While the notion of leader as steward is, perhaps, most commonly associated with writers such as Peter Block (1993), Peter Senge has some interesting insights on this strand. His starting point was the ‘purpose stories’ that the managers he interviewed told about their organization. He came to realize that the managers were doing more than telling stories, they were relating the story: ‘the overarching explanation of why they do what they do, how their organization needs to evolve, and how that evolution is part of something larger’ (Senge 1990: 346). Such purpose stories provide a single set of integrating ideas that give meaning to all aspects of the leader’s work – and not unexpectedly ‘the leader develops a unique relationship to his or her own personal vision. He or she becomes a steward of the vision’ (op. cit.). One of the important things to grasp here is that stewardship involves a commitment to, and responsibility for the vision, but it does not mean that the leader owns it. It is not their possession. Leaders are stewards of the vision, their task is to manage it for the benefit of others (hence the subtitle of Block’s book – ‘Choosing service over self-interest’). Leaders learn to see their vision as part of something larger. Purpose stories evolve as they are being told, ‘in fact, they are as a result of being told’ (Senge 1990: 351). Leaders have to learn to listen to other people’s vision and to change their own where necessary. Telling the story in this way allows others to be involved and to help develop a vision that is both individual and shared.

Leader as teacher. Peter Senge starts here with Max de Pree’s (1990) injunction that the first responsibility of a leader is to define reality. While leaders may draw inspiration and spiritual reserves from their sense of stewardship, ‘much of the leverage leaders can actually exert lies in helping people achieve more accurate, more insightful and more empowering views of reality (Senge 1990: 353). Building on an existing ‘hierarchy of explanation’ leaders, Peter Senge argues, can influence people’s view of reality at four levels: events, patterns of behaviour, systemic structures and the ‘purpose story’. By and large most managers and leaders tend to focus on the first two of these levels (and under their influence organizations do likewise). Leaders in learning organizations attend to all four, ‘but focus predominantly on purpose and systemic structure. Moreover they “teach” people throughout the organization to do likewise’ (Senge 1993: 353). This allows them to see ‘the big picture’ and to appreciate the structural forces that condition behaviour. By attending to purpose, leaders can cultivate an understanding of what the organization (and its members) are seeking to become. One of the issues here is that leaders often have strengths in one or two of the areas but are unable, for example, to develop systemic understanding. A key to success is being able to conceptualize insights so that they become public knowledge, ‘open to challenge and further improvement’ ( ibid. : 356).

“Leader as teacher” is not about “teaching” people how to achieve their vision. It is about fostering learning, for everyone. Such leaders help people throughout the organization develop systemic understandings. Accepting this responsibility is the antidote to one of the most common downfalls of otherwise gifted teachers – losing their commitment to the truth. (Senge 1990: 356)

Leaders have to create and manage creative tension – especially around the gap between vision and reality. Mastery of such tension allows for a fundamental shift. It enables the leader to see the truth in changing situations.

Issues and problems

When making judgements about Peter Senge’s work, and the ideas he promotes, we need to place his contribution in context. His is not meant to be a definitive addition to the ‘academic’ literature of organizational learning. Peter Senge writes for practicing and aspiring managers and leaders. The concern is to identify how interventions can be made to turn organizations into ‘learning organizations’. Much of his, and similar theorists’ efforts, have been ‘devoted to identifying templates, which real organizations could attempt to emulate’ (Easterby-Smith and Araujo 1999: 2). In this field some of the significant contributions have been based around studies of organizational practice, others have ‘relied more on theoretical principles, such as systems dynamics or psychological learning theory, from which implications for design and implementation have been derived’ ( op. cit. ). Peter Senge, while making use of individual case studies, tends to the latter orientation.

The most appropriate question in respect of this contribution would seem to be whether it fosters praxis – informed, committed action on the part of those it is aimed at? This is an especially pertinent question as Peter Senge looks to promote a more holistic vision of organizations and the lives of people within them. Here we focus on three aspects. We start with the organization.

Organizational imperatives. Here the case against Peter Senge is fairly simple. We can find very few organizations that come close to the combination of characteristics that he identifies with the learning organization. Within a capitalist system his vision of companies and organizations turning wholehearted to the cultivation of the learning of their members can only come into fruition in a limited number of instances. While those in charge of organizations will usually look in some way to the long-term growth and sustainability of their enterprise, they may not focus on developing the human resources that the organization houses. The focus may well be on enhancing brand recognition and status (Klein 2001); developing intellectual capital and knowledge (Leadbeater 2000); delivering product innovation; and ensuring that production and distribution costs are kept down. As Will Hutton (1995: 8) has argued, British companies’ priorities are overwhelmingly financial. What is more, ‘the targets for profit are too high and time horizons too short’ (1995: xi). Such conditions are hardly conducive to building the sort of organization that Peter Senge proposes. Here the case against Senge is that within capitalist organizations, where the bottom line is profit, a fundamental concern with the learning and development of employees and associates is simply too idealistic.

Yet there are some currents running in Peter Senge’s favour. The need to focus on knowledge generation within an increasingly globalized economy does bring us back in some important respects to the people who have to create intellectual capital.

Productivity and competitiveness are, by and large, a function of knowledge generation and information processing: firms and territories are organized in networks of production, management and distribution; the core economic activities are global – that is they have the capacity to work as a unit in real time, or chosen time, on a planetary scale. (Castells 2001: 52)

A failure to attend to the learning of groups and individuals in the organization spells disaster in this context. As Leadbeater (2000: 70) has argued, companies need to invest not just in new machinery to make production more efficient, but in the flow of know-how that will sustain their business. Organizations need to be good at knowledge generation, appropriation and exploitation. This process is not that easy:

Knowledge that is visible tends to be explicit, teachable, independent, detachable, it also easy for competitors to imitate. Knowledge that is intangible, tacit, less teachable, less observable, is more complex but more difficult to detach from the person who created it or the context in which it is embedded. Knowledge carried by an individual only realizes its commercial potential when it is replicated by an organization and becomes organizational knowledge. ( ibid. : 71)

Here we have a very significant pressure for the fostering of ‘learning organizations’. The sort of know-how that Leadbeater is talking about here cannot be simply transmitted. It has to be engaged with, talking about and embedded in organizational structures and strategies. It has to become people’s own.

A question of sophistication and disposition . One of the biggest problems with Peter Senge’s approach is nothing to do with the theory, it’s rightness, nor the way it is presented. The issue here is that the people to whom it is addressed do not have the disposition or theoretical tools to follow it through. One clue lies in his choice of ‘disciplines’ to describe the core of his approach. As we saw a discipline is a series of principles and practices that we study, master and integrate into our lives. In other words, the approach entails significant effort on the part of the practitioner. It also entails developing quite complicated mental models, and being able to apply and adapt these to different situations – often on the hoof. Classically, the approach involves a shift from product to process (and back again). The question then becomes whether many people in organizations can handle this. All this has a direct parallel within formal education. One of the reasons that product approaches to curriculum (as exemplified in the concern for SATs tests, examination performance and school attendance) have assumed such a dominance is that alternative process approaches are much more difficult to do well. They may be superior – but many teachers lack the sophistication to carry them forward. There are also psychological and social barriers. As Lawrence Stenhouse put it some years ago: ‘The close examination of one’s professional performance is personally threatening; and the social climate in which teachers work generally offers little support to those who might be disposed to face that threat’ (1975: 159). We can make the same case for people in most organizations.

The process of exploring one’s performance, personality and fundamental aims in life (and this is what Peter Senge is proposing) is a daunting task for most people. To do it we need considerable support, and the motivation to carry the task through some very uncomfortable periods. It calls for the integration of different aspects of our lives and experiences. There is, here, a straightforward question concerning the vision – will people want to sign up to it? To make sense of the sorts of experiences generated and explored in a fully functioning ‘learning organization’ there needs to be ‘spiritual growth’ and the ability to locate these within some sort of framework of commitment. Thus, as employees, we are not simply asked to do our jobs and to get paid. We are also requested to join in something bigger. Many of us may just want to earn a living!

Politics and vision . Here we need to note two key problem areas. First, there is a question of how Peter Senge applies systems theory. While he introduces all sorts of broader appreciations and attends to values – his theory is not fully set in a political or moral framework. There is not a consideration of questions of social justice, democracy and exclusion. His approach largely operates at the level of organizational interests. This is would not be such a significant problem if there was a more explicit vision of the sort of society that he would like to see attained, and attention to this with regard to management and leadership. As a contrast we might turn to Peter Drucker’s (1977: 36) elegant discussion of the dimensions of management. He argued that there are three tasks – ‘equally important but essentially different’ – that face the management of every organization. These are:

To think through and define the specific purpose and mission of the institution, whether business enterprise, hospital, or university. To make work productive and the worker achieving. To manage social impacts and social responsibilities. ( op. cit. )

He continues:

None of our institutions exists by itself and as an end in itself. Every one is an organ of society and exists for the sake of society. Business is not exception. ‘Free enterprise’ cannot be justified as being good for business. It can only be justified as being good for society. (Drucker 1977: 40)

If Peter Senge had attempted greater connection between the notion of the ‘learning organization’ and the ‘learning society’, and paid attention to the political and social impact of organizational activity then this area of criticism would be limited to the question of the particular vision of society and human flourishing involved.

Second, there is some question with regard to political processes concerning his emphasis on dialogue and shared vision. While Peter Senge clearly recognizes the political dimensions of organizational life, there is sneaking suspicion that he may want to transcend it. In some ways there is link here with the concerns and interests of communitarian thinkers like Amitai Etzioni (1995, 1997). As Richard Sennett (1998: 143) argues with regard to political communitarianism, it ‘falsely emphasizes unity as the source of strength in a community and mistakenly fears that when conflicts arise in a community, social bonds are threatened’. Within it (and arguably aspects of Peter Senge’s vision of the learning organization) there seems, at times, to be a dislike of politics and a tendency to see danger in plurality and difference. Here there is a tension between the concern for dialogue and the interest in building a shared vision. An alternative reading is that difference is good for democratic life (and organizational life) provided that we cultivate a sense of reciprocity, and ways of working that encourage deliberation. The search is not for the sort of common good that many communitarians seek (Guttman and Thompson 1996: 92) but rather for ways in which people may share in a common life. Moral disagreement will persist – the key is whether we can learn to respect and engage with each other’s ideas, behaviours and beliefs.

John van Maurik (2001: 201) has suggested that Peter Senge has been ahead of his time and that his arguments are insightful and revolutionary. He goes on to say that it is a matter of regret ‘that more organizations have not taken his advice and have remained geared to the quick fix’. As we have seen there are very deep-seated reasons why this may have been the case. Beyond this, though, there is the questions of whether Senge’s vision of the learning organization and the disciplines it requires has contributed to more informed and committed action with regard to organizational life? Here we have little concrete evidence to go on. However, we can make some judgements about the possibilities of his theories and proposed practices. We could say that while there are some issues and problems with his conceptualization, at least it does carry within it some questions around what might make for human flourishing. The emphases on building a shared vision, team working, personal mastery and the development of more sophisticated mental models and the way he runs the notion of dialogue through these does have the potential of allowing workplaces to be more convivial and creative. The drawing together of the elements via the Fifth Discipline of systemic thinking, while not being to everyone’s taste, also allows us to approach a more holistic understanding of organizational life (although Peter Senge does himself stop short of asking some important questions in this respect). These are still substantial achievements – and when linked to his popularizing of the notion of the ‘learning organization’ – it is understandable why Peter Senge has been recognized as a key thinker.

30 The Learning Organization: Critical Analysis and Future Directions

Department of Business and Management, Aalborg University

Business School, University of Nottingham Ningbo, China

Department of Culture and Learning, Aalborg University

Published: 08 January 2020
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This chapter contains a critical analysis of the learning organization (LO). As part of this agenda, the possibilities for a more positive agenda for LO are also explored. The chapter introduces a political perspective in which LO is seen as part of power relations that produce particular types of learning. From this perspective the authors move to Foucault’s later ethical writings to clarify an important distinction between reflective and reflexive practices. Three different narratives of LO are then identified and discussed. 1st generation LO is characterized by learning models that are consistent with the rationalities of the classical bureaucratic model. 2nd generation LO is characterized by learning models that emphasize reflection, self-management, and self-directed learning according to corporate performance goals. 3rd generation LO focuses on reflexivity, creativity, and co-creation in groups and teams and across silos supported by the design of collective spaces where such actions and collaborative learning processes unfold.

Introduction

This chapter contains a critical analysis of the learning organization (LO). As part of this agenda, we also explore the possibilities of a more desirable future for LO. LO is an approach which has evolved in the last three decades in many different directions. It is neither homogeneous, nor unambiguous. Rather, LO has become increasingly plural, fragmented, and inconsistent. Many different concepts, models, and ways of speaking about organization and learning claim to be part of, or related to, LO. The question of whether organizational learning is part of LO, or if these are separate domains (Easterby-Smith and Araujo 1999 ; Örtenblad 2001 ), contributes to the confusion.

Örtenblad and Koris ( 2014 ) define LO broadly through a typology that addresses four types of LO: learning at work , organizational learning , climate for learning , and learning structure . Their definition combines both the governance structures of learning and the micro-practices that take place within this structure. Our take in this chapter is similar. We define LO as a discourse that seeks to prescribe learning in organizations in different ways and on different levels. LO works through a heterogeneous set of learning technologies that mediate between the organization and the people in it. Thus, LO seeks to design structural interventions and/or actions with the purpose of controlling, guiding, and enabling specific forms of action in organizations (Jørgensen 2018 , 2019 ). Furthermore, LO entails particular narratives of desired learning or learning paths in organizations. Therefore, LO has political implications for the kinds of behaviors and actions that are recognized in organizations.

We organize our discussion of the discourse of LO in three overall narratives. 1st generation LO is characterized by learning models directed towards correction of errors in ways in which LO is consistent with the goals and rationalities of the classical bureaucratic organizational model. 2nd generation LO is characterized by learning models that emphasize reflection, self-management, and self-directed learning according to corporate performance goals. In this model multiple control points are set up to ensure compliance and followership while speeding up individuals’ learning through practices of self-examination and confessional practices. 3rd generation LO is characterized by learning models that emphasize reflexivity, community, co-creation, and creativity. In 3rd generation LO, the focus is on creativity and co-creation in groups and teams and across silos supported by the design of collective spaces where such actions and collaborative learning processes can unfold.

These movements from 1st, to 2nd, and 3rd generation LO signal shifts of emphasis from an organizational systemic level towards deep engagement with what takes place in the spaces between people. For us, this implies a shift of emphasis away from perceiving the organization as an overall oppressive machine that produces technical-rational learning, towards discussing the possibilities for an emancipatory and creative politics. Furthermore, we argue that these movements imply a shift of focus from employers and shareholders towards stakeholders (Örtenblad 2011 ; Örtenblad, Hsu, and Lamb 2015 ). None of the three types of narratives and discourses, however, exist in organizations in a pure form. Rather they oscillate within and between organizations. They provide three signposts from which debates can be performed about the role of LO in regard to the political conditioning of what people can become in organizations.

The next section introduces a political perspective on LO. We are inspired by Harvey’s ( 1998 ) discussion of how space produces people and particular learning paths. We then combine this perspective with Foucault’s notions of how people are products of power relations but also how they, through practices of the self, internalize, modify, or resist power in organizations. Foucault’s later writings are considered important for distinguishing between reflective and reflexive practices in 2nd and 3rd generation LO that we perform after the discussion of practices of the self. After these conceptual clarifications, we perform a critical reading of LO by identifying and discussing the three generations of LO. Finally, in the last section, we explore the 3rd generation LO and the possibilities for LO to become part of an emancipatory politics.

A Political Perspective on Lo

As noted above, we perceive LO as a discourse that seeks to prescribe particular types of learning and learning paths in organizations. This discourse offers different perspectives in regard to the role of action (Arendt 1998 ; Jørgensen 2019 ), the role of sense- and meaning-making (e.g., Cunliffe and Eriksen 2011 ; Hersted and Gergen 2013 ), the role of bodies (Shotter 2008 ), and the role of materiality in learning (Jørgensen and Strand 2014 ; Orlikowski 2005 ). These perspectives have implications in relation to what kinds of learning are recognized and permitted. As a final point, the organization as a whole can be seen as a heterogeneous memory system for guiding learning formally and informally (Argyris and Schön 1996 ; Lave and Wenger 1991 ; Wenger 1998 ).

According to the discourse on LO there is a close relationship between the organization and the learning that can take place within it. One tension in regard to the critical literature of LO is the one between what Harvey ( 1998 ) calls the production of bodies and the creative capacities of the body . Through Harvey’s work, LO can be perceived as a set of learning technologies that shapes paths of learning but also constrains people in an overall oppressive fashion. On the other hand, LO also contains within it particular possibilities of setting people free and for creating creativity in organizations. Harvey focuses on how people are always being changed and transformed through time and through interaction with the contexts in which they live (Harvey 1998 : 98).

The Production of Learning

Harvey performs a Marxist analysis of how organizations produce particular conditions for learning. This analysis goes together with arguments that capitalism has reached new heights with globalization. He suggests that people are increasingly in situations where they risk being downsized, rendered technologically obsolete, forced to adapt to new labor processes and working conditions and so forth (Harvey 1998 : 16). For Harvey, learning in general—and thus also LO—is important for the modern capitalistic corporation simply because learning new knowledge and skills are a critical part of the development of one’s human capital. The argument is that the combination of globalization and capitalism means that conditions are more rapidly changing, unstable, and uncertain. This means that learning becomes a critical process for maintaining and accumulating capital for organizations and for people.

The later writings of Foucault, in particular his notion of practices of the self (Foucault 2005 ), is useful here for performing a critical analysis of how many contemporary learning technologies work in organizations. Foucault introduces the notion “subjectification,” which refers to how people are shaped through daily interactions with other people and through using technologies, systems, procedures, and by entering and participating in organizational life (Milchman and Rosenberg 2009 : 64). Subjectification is consistent with Foucault’s early views concerning how particular discourses produce particular legitimate and established practices of power/knowledge relations (Foucault 1980 ).

Practices of the Self

However, Foucault also introduces another term, “subjectivation,” which carries the seeds for both a critical, but also emancipatory politics in regard to the particular relationship of power between the organization and the person, which we identified above. Subjectivation refers to the relationship of the person to her-/himself (Milchman and Rosenberg 2009 : 66), and is accomplished through practices of caring for the self (Foucault 2005 ). These practices comprise deep and systematic practices where the person learns and works on her-/himself to become a “better” and maybe even a more “effective” working person. However, Foucault distinguished between two different sets of practices of self-care, which have very different purposes. This distinction is important because it makes it possible to reflect critically on contemporary popular learning technologies, which we know under the terms of reflective and reflexive practices.

There are what Foucault referred to as the Christian inspired practices of self-care in which people work on themselves and learn to adapt to the system and specific rules in order to become a better servant of an “unquestionable” discourse given from an outside authority (Milchman and Rosenberg 2009 : 67). Townley ( 1995 ) argues that such practices of the self have as their aim that people should learn to become more self-aware so that they can align their actions with the purposes defined by the organization where this organization is seen as the “highest” context. The learning technologies that enable such self-awareness have the character of self-examination and confession (Edwards 2008 ; Gros 2005 ; Ibarra-Colado, Clegg, Rhodes, and Kornberger 2006 ), for instance as seen in some variations of leadership based coaching and annual performance appraisals.

The second set of practices of self-care are identified by Foucault as originating in ancient Greece. The mode of subjectivation that belongs to such practices is either called self-fashioning (Milchman and Rosenberg 2009 : 68) or self-formation (Townley 1995 ). Such activities are characterized by a reflexive caring for the activities in which one is engaged according to a set of more or less explicit/implicit and consistent/fragmented values or codes of conduct that the person has chosen to live by. Self-fashioning entails learning, training, and creating oneself as a work of art (Barratt 2008 ; Starkey and Hatchuel 2002 ). This work is associated with the careful practices of for example the relational reflexive artist, artisan, craftsperson, or professional. In the following we will take a closer look at reflective and reflexive practices and their relationship with LO.

Reflective and Reflexive Practices

The dividing line between the two different sets of practices of the self is not as sharp and clear in practice. However, it does provide signposts by which it becomes possible to perform both a critical analysis of contemporary modes of learning but also for discussing how LO can become part of an emancipatory politics. It is important to make a distinction between reflective and reflexive practices, which are important parts of the 2nd and 3rd generations of LO discussed later in the chapter.

Both of these approaches of LO employ practices of the self in the form of personal development techniques, dialogues, and coaching. The decisive point that separates the two pertains, however, to the purposes of employing practices of the self. Some practices of the self, for instance specific learning activities, are used as technologies of power that are employed in order to ensure active and motivated submission to the organization. Such learning technologies demand acts of obedience and submission from those who are led and the obligation that the person who should learn is required to tell the truth about her-/himself to an outside authority (manager, leader, group, etc.). In the remainder of the chapter, we refer to these Christian inspired practices as reflective practices . Learning which results from such practices is assessed against criteria defined by these “external authorities” and are materialized in various strategies, procedures, documentation systems, routines, and cultures in organizations.

In contrast, we refer to the Greek practices of self-care as reflexive practices . Such practices examine the assumptions underlying actions and the impact of those actions (Cunliffe 2016 : 748). Reflexive thinking means engaging in “questioning the basis of our thinking, surfacing the taken-for-granted rules underlying organizational decisions, and examining critically our own practices and ways of relating with others” (Cunliffe and Jun 2005 : 227). The notion of reflexive practices is today one of the most important markers of critical engagement with organization studies. Reflexivity is becoming an important principle for management education (Cunliffe 2016 ), for leadership development (Cunliffe 2002 , 2004 ; Cunliffe and Eriksen 2011 ), and for enabling group development through dialogical practices (Hersted 2016 ; Hersted and Madsen 2018 ). In addition, the stories of people constitute in many cases an important focus of inquiry since stories are regarded as an important sensemaking currency in organizations (Adorisio 2014 ; Boje 1991 ; Dawson and Sykes 2019 ). Reflexivity as emancipatory practice can be accomplished here through re-storying narrative plotlines (Schedlitzki, Jarvis, and MacInnes 2015 ) by means of deconstructing dominant narratives (Jørgensen and Boje 2010 ). With these ideas in mind let us take a closer look at the 1st, 2nd, and 3rd generations of LO.

1st, 2nd, and 3rd Generation LO

In what follows we conduct an analysis of three overall approaches to learning, which we consider important in the literature. As noted we call them 1st, 2nd, and 3rd generation LO. In Table 30.1 we have summarized the characteristics of these approaches.

1st Generation LO

When LO emerged in the beginning of the 1990s, LO was defined as “a company that facilitates the learning of its members and continuously transforms itself” (Pedler, Burgoyne, and Boydell 1991 : 2) and as an organizational model that was characterized by the simultaneous presence of five disciplines: personal mastery , mental models , shared vision , team learning , and systems thinking (Senge 1990 ). Systems thinking, which Senge calls “the fifth discipline,” is here considered the most important discipline, because it integrates the four other disciplines (Senge 1990 : 12–13).

The emergence of LO was part of a broader development in organization and management theory, where the focus was on the integration of more “humanistic concepts” in management thinking. LO came after and, to some extent, replaced the focus on organizational culture , which was the buzzword of the 1980s (Smircich 1983 ). Inspired by Spector’s political analysis of the concept of corporate culture (2016: 66) LO can be seen as exercising power over “followers” by defining the spaces of action in organizations. The introduction of humanistic concepts entailed the introduction of the metaphor “leadership,” which today in many circles has replaced the more administrative-minded metaphor “management” (Hill 2003 ; Kotter 1990 ). Leadership implies that a new symbolic role is assigned to managers. For example, they have to lead culture by creating and communicating shared values and meanings and they have to lead learning by fostering, nurturing, and harnessing the trajectories of learning for the “followers” in the organization.

The “leader–follower” binary discloses some of the politics associated with LO. The “corporate humanism” associated with the early invention of culture and learning in organization theory did not break with the classical hierarchical model of organizations. Rather LO carries the spatial configuration of the bureaucracy and/or the “functional” factory within itself. LO, as well as some of its foundational inspiration in the work of Argyris and Schön ( 1996 ), has as its reference point a critique of some of the dysfunctional elements of the bureaucracy, but it never rejects this model as the ideal model. Both Argyris and Schön’s model and LO produce spaces of learning designed to repair or correct some of the errors associated with the bureaucracy but without renouncing its basic superiority in regard to other organizational forms. Furthermore, they also reproduce the idea of the necessity of a few great leaders at the top of the organization (Spector 2016 ).

1st generation LO thus adopts the classical model and its basic power distribution as a source of inspiration. More specifically 1st generation LO perceived and perceives learning as a resolution to some of the dysfunctions that were always associated with the bureaucracy: sub-optimization, lack of communication, lack of creativity, and lack of flexibility. By institutionalizing spaces for single-loop learning and double-loop learning (Argyris and Schön 1996 ) and for systems thinking (Senge 1990 ) in the organizational memory system—such as rules, documents, procedures, processes, feedback systems—the organization becomes a learning organization that has learned how to learn on a functional basis. This structure of LO produces and legitimizes specific forms of learning by providing a technical-rational foundation (Easterby-Smith and Araujo 1999 ) for what it is their learning is supposed to achieve—to correct errors in the ways people do things. 1st generation LO thus constructs spaces for legitimate learning based on a sequential process of (1) surveillance, (2) inquiry, and (3) action in relation to existing operations. This learning model is today institutionalized in accreditation systems, total quality management, lean production, accounting systems, evaluation systems, corporate social responsibility systems, and other kinds of monitoring systems.

2nd Generation LO

While writings in the early 1st generation LO were concerned with technical-rational ways of knowing and learning, recent decades have seen a marked increase in writings where the focus has been changed from the overall structure of learning to a meticulous inquiry into the micro-processes of learning, i.e., the interpersonal level. In particular, focus has turned towards reflective and reflexive practices. As noted above, reflective practices are a key feature of the 2nd generation LO. They comprise practices of self-care where the person works upon her-/himself in order to “improve” according to observation points defined by an outside authority.

In 2nd generation LO people in organizations are submitted to practices of control where practices of self-care are employed in order that the person should become visible to her-/himself and others in such ways that the body becomes open, modifiable, and adaptable to the requirements of the external authority. This control infrastructure encompasses a variety of different, and often inconsistent, measurement and observation points, that people in organizations have to comply with, in order to be recognized as valuable for the organization.

The observation points include performance management, the balanced scorecard, KPI, personality tests, 360 degree feedback systems, and other kinds of evaluation and performance assessments (e.g., Pokharel and Choi 2015 ; Wang and Ahmed 2003 ). They are typical for the modern corporation, for new public management and new public governance control structures. In such organizations, personal development and coaching techniques are employed as important tools for developing an effective corporate spirit. These practices of learning are submitted to what Townley ( 1995 ) calls a need-discourse understood as what the dominant discourses in the organization perceive as necessary improvements, which are actualized by promoting a sense of urgency for example (Kotter 1990 ).

In contrast, theories concerning reflexive practices explicitly or implicitly presume what Townley calls a “right to participate” (Townley 1995 : 285)—the freedom to think, act, and judge in perceiving and defining problems and solutions and making decisions. When employed they are concerned with enabling and furthering the careful engagements that resemble the activities of, for example, craftspeople, artists, artisans, or professionals. Importantly such practices are based on notions of reciprocity and the collective nature of action—hence a very different kind of spatial politics. Thus, reflexive practices are different, and have a strong critical impulse. This leads us to the 3rd generation LO.

3rd Generation LO: LO as an Emancipatory Space

3rd generation LO implies a decisive shift from seeing the organization as the highest context towards enabling the creative actions of the person as part of an organization understood as a community (Arendt 1998 : 55). This approach has hitherto had little impact upon the LO discourse. It implies a focus on what possibilities organizations offer for becoming unique and creative. Following Harvey, the body has the potential to act as the site of resistance to dominant power relations, but it requires a relational or social learning space that can support this kind of emancipation.

There are exceptions in the LO literature from the mainstream approaches to LO, which are captured under 1st and 2nd generation LO. Some authors contend that the LO should serve broader societal interests (e.g., Örtenblad 2002 ; Örtenblad et al. 2015 ), and others argue that it is necessary to articulate a more radical LO discourse, informed by alternative modes of awareness and wisdom (e.g., Hsu 2013 ; Örtenblad 2002 ; Pedler and Hsu 2014 ). We adopt the concept of “ecological awareness” as an important contemporary example. Guattari’s ( 2000 ) work, The Three Ecologies , offers here an entry point for an understanding of the connection between subjectivity and emancipation.

For Guattari, our ecological crisis is the reflection of capitalistic power relations that turn the body against its own interests. He notes that “Environmental ecology … will be to radically decenter social struggles and ways of coming into one’s own psyche … Ecology in my sense questions the whole of subjectivity and capitalistic power formations” (Guattari 2000 : 2). In the sense given by Guattari, ecological awareness is far more than an issue of environmental protection, but more about inspiring an alternative way of being that resists the predominant economic progress and growth paradigm. He contends that “the only true response to ecological crisis” should be to bring about an “authentic political, social and cultural revolution” (Guattari 2000 : 28).

Yet, this does not mean that Guattari sought to inspire a political revolution at the level of the nation-state. It is a revolution in thought and ways of being (e.g., Carter and Jackson 2004 : 121). Guattari’s theory bears little resemblance to some pro-corporate concepts like corporate social responsibility or sustainability development that seek to generate a balance between a company’s financial performance and the goal of environmental protection (e.g. Haertle, Parkes, Murray, and Hayes 2017 ). A true response to our ecological crisis lies in an authentic social change. Such change implies a clear-cut split between old and new thought and practice. This view echoes Foucault’s Greek mode of subjectivation and resonates with Townley’s ( 1995 ) understanding of self-formation.

Accordingly, the challenge for LO is to create relational or social spaces of emancipation and learning, based on multi-voiced dialogues and reflexivity, which question and provide alternatives to the corporate language of progress, performance, and productivity. This is possible if organizations change their identity from being solely concerned with maximizing shareholder value to become political actors that are engaged in producing a good society. The vision is that organizational members should engage and interact with each other according to alternative forms of wisdom and knowledge that enable questioning of predominant social presuppositions. This entails recognizing marginalized and plural voices—the local knowledge that has been disguised or excluded in a formal systematization (Foucault 1980 : 81–2).

Moving Towards Reflexive Dialogical Practices in 3rd Generation LO

We thus suggest a radical change, in concept and in practice, which implies a much wider space for development and a higher degree of freedom and involvement, for instance concerning strategy development, discussions about values and ethics, creative unfolding, learning, and development from within (Shotter 2012 ). This means that LO in practice needs to move and develop in a responsive interplay with the surroundings in ways that are environmentally and socially responsible. We suggest creating spaces for knowledge building and learning from within the organization through engaged dialogical, reflexive, and collaborative processes, where people are recognized and valued for their experience, knowledge, and creative ideas.

Alternatives to the management tools belonging to 1st and 2nd generation LO could for instance be more open and build on dialogically based inquiries inspired by action learning and action research which can open up for multiple perspectives, voices, and realities. However, these must be carried out and facilitated in ethically responsible ways, based on principles of pluralism and democracy. When working with dialogically based inquiries for learning and creative development we need to question the discourses, narratives, and metaphors we use as scholars, managers, employees, and change agents. We need to reflect critically upon what kind of space our use of discourse is closing down or opening up, and be aware of how the use of discourse is limiting or widening the space for the people involved.

The use of discourse positions people in specific ways and serves to constitute the identities of individuals and groups, and this unfortunately often in ways that confine people to narrow categories. Discourses of the heroic leader, productivity, or high performance are examples. Possibilities for actions are accepted or excluded in discourse. As scholars and practitioners we need to initiate critical reflexive discussions on the limitations and possibilities of discourse and develop a new LO language based on more inclusive and human worldviews. This implies working with people rather than working on people. In addition, we need to critically examine, question, and discuss the tools and underlying assumptions that organizations draw on in their attempts to create learning and development.

Concluding Remarks

Most of the theories and practices presented in the early LO literature were developed within a modernist paradigm and vision of infinite progress favoring the traditional subject–object division, causality, alienation, transfer, and top-down implementation and the division into separate units and entities. Instead we suggest a more pluralist and process-oriented approach where people’s voices, experience, knowledge, and need for freedom are taken seriously into account. This approach should be concerned about inviting multiple voices into the processes of learning, strategizing, and decision making.

In addition, rather than using fixed, standardized tools and concepts that often create alienation between people we recommend adopting an orientation that is more sensitive and ethically responsible to the life of human beings and to the environment. As human beings we are not isolated entities but all connected and we influence the lives and possibilities of each other in a living world. Our sayings and doings have consequences for the life of present and future generations. Shotter argues that we are all embodied in a living world, and that we need to move away “from a dualistic view of ourselves as separate, self-contained beings living in a world conceived simply as a space full of separate objects to a view of ourselves as inextricably entwined in with it, as being of the world rather than merely in it” (Shotter 2012 : 71). This implies moving from “ aboutness ” -thinking to “ witness ” -thinking .

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What Is A Learning Organization? The Learning Organization In A Nutshell

Learning organizations are those that encourage adaptative and generative learning where employees are motivated to think outside the box to solve problems. While many definitions of a learning organization exist today, author Peter Senge first popularized the term in his book The Fifth Discipline: The Art & Practice of The Learning Organisation during the 1990s.

Table of Contents

Understanding a learning organization

In the book, Senge defined a learning organization as one:

“ 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. ”

In an increasingly innovative and transformative world, only those organizations that establish a culture of learning will remain competitive over the long term.

This culture of learning is also important in improving relationships between employees from different backgrounds as workplaces become more globalized and culturally inclusive.

Senge’s five disciplines of a learning organization

Senge was an advocate of decentralized organizational leadership where every member of the organization works toward a common goal.

The following five disciplines of a learning organization provide clues on how this process may be facilitated:

Systems thinking

Or the idea that an organization is comprised of many smaller, interrelated and interconnected parts.

Each individual is recognized for their contribution with respect to the overall framework.

For example, learning organizations must make the connection between compliance, workplace efficiency, and employee safety.

Importantly, a collaborative learning culture must also be established where contradictory opinions are heard, respected, and celebrated as avenues for growth .

Personal mastery

Learning organizations must also recognize the importance of continuous improvement with a focus on acquiring skills useful in real-world scenarios.

This is connected to the concept of continuous innovation .

Here it’s critical to understand that while in certain time windows, breakthrough innovation is a critical element of success, in most other scenarios, continuous innovation matters.

To achieve mastery of a skill, the employee must display a commitment to personal and organizational goals.

Mental models

Collectively, employees within a learning organization can challenge their beliefs or assumptions using critical thinking and self-reflection.

This enables the organization to challenge the limiting beliefs that are hindering its progress.

By extension, the organization must also be prepared to implement and test new ways of thinking and be comfortable with risk.

This process helps the company learn from its mistakes and improve its processes.

Knowledge sharing

As is the case in most organizations, collaboration is key.

Team members must be aware of learning objectives and desired outcomes and be able to work collaboratively to achieve goals.

Knowledge-sharing infrastructure helps each employee benefit from a wider and more holistic pool of skills and expertise.

Shared vision

Senge also recognized that managers, supervisors, and trainers must be forward-thinking and committed to the learning process.

Ideally, leadership should set a good example and display the characteristics of the four disciplines mentioned above.

Subordinates should feel empowered to take risks and move toward a shared vision – regardless of the learning medium or approach.

Drawbacks of Learning Organizations

Resource intensiveness:.

Requires Significant Investment: Building a learning organization demands substantial investment in training, development, and learning infrastructure.
Time-Consuming: The process of transforming into a learning organization can be slow and may distract from immediate operational goals.

Cultural Challenges:

Resistance to Change: Employees and managers may resist the changes necessary to foster a learning culture, particularly in traditional or hierarchical organizations.
Potential Overemphasis on Learning: Focusing too much on continuous learning could potentially lead to analysis paralysis, where decision-making is slowed due to excessive information gathering and discussion.

Implementation Difficulties:

Complex to Implement: Creating a learning organization involves complex changes in organizational culture, structure, and strategy , which can be challenging to implement effectively.
Balancing Learning with Performance: Finding the right balance between learning opportunities and meeting performance targets can be difficult.

Potential for Misalignment:

Risk of Misalignment with Business Goals: Learning initiatives may become disconnected from the organization ’s core business objectives.
Inconsistent Application: The benefits of a learning organization might not be uniformly felt across all departments or levels of the organization.

When to Use the Learning Organization Model

Suitable contexts:.

Dynamic and Competitive Industries: Where rapid adaptation and continuous improvement are critical for success.
Organizations Undergoing Change: Especially useful for organizations navigating through significant changes or restructuring.

Strategic Application:

For Long-term Organizational Development: Ideal for organizations focusing on long-term growth and sustainability.
Innovation-Driven Businesses: For businesses where innovation is a key competitive advantage.

How to Use the Learning Organization Model

Fostering a learning culture:.

Encourage Experimentation and Risk-Taking: Create an environment where employees are encouraged to try new things and learn from failures.
Promote Knowledge Sharing: Facilitate open communication and knowledge sharing across all levels of the organization.

Implementing Learning Structures:

Invest in Training and Development: Allocate resources for continuous employee training and professional development.
Develop Learning Communities: Establish communities of practice or learning groups within the organization.

Integrating Learning with Operations:

Link Learning to Strategic Goals: Ensure that learning initiatives are aligned with the organization’s strategic objectives.
Incorporate Learning into Daily Activities: Make learning an integral part of everyday work rather than a separate activity.

Evaluating and Adapting:

Regularly Review Learning Initiatives: Assess the effectiveness of learning programs and their impact on organizational performance.
Adapt Learning Strategies: Be prepared to adjust learning strategies in response to organizational changes and external environmental shifts.

What to Expect from Implementing the Learning Organization Model

Enhanced organizational agility:.

Improved Adaptability: Organizations become more adaptable and better equipped to respond to changes in the external environment.
Continuous Improvement: A culture of continuous learning fosters ongoing improvement in processes and products.

Increased Employee Engagement and Innovation:

Higher Employee Motivation: Employees are likely to be more engaged and motivated when they see opportunities for personal and professional growth .
Boost in Innovation: Fostering a culture of learning can lead to increased creativity and innovation .

Challenges in Implementation:

Initial Discomfort and Adjustment: Employees and managers may initially struggle with the shift towards a learning-oriented approach.
Ongoing Commitment Required: Requires a sustained commitment from leadership to nurture and maintain a learning culture.

Long-Term Organizational Benefits:

Building a Knowledgeable Workforce: Develops a more skilled and knowledgeable workforce capable of driving the organization forward.
Competitive Advantage: Over time, learning organizations can develop a significant competitive advantage through their adaptive and innovative capabilities.

Key takeaways

A learning organization is an organization where adaptative and generative learning is the norm. In these organizations, employees are motivated to think creatively and work collaboratively.
Learning organizations tend to be more agile to fluctuating market conditions. They also tend to display a more inclusive company culture.
A learning organization is typically characterized by five disciplines: systems thinking, personal mastery, mental models, knowledge sharing, and shared vision . Each helps foster continuous learning, improvement, and collaboration.

Key Highlights

Learning organizations encourage employees to engage in adaptative and generative learning.
They foster an environment where individuals think creatively to solve challenges and continuously improve.
Author Peter Senge introduced the term “learning organization” in his book “The Fifth Discipline: The Art & Practice of The Learning Organization.”
Senge’s work brought attention to the importance of creating a culture of learning within organizations.
A learning organization is where people continually expand their capacity to create desired results.
Expansive patterns of thinking are nurtured, and collective aspirations are set free.
Individuals learn to see the whole together, fostering collaboration and holistic understanding.
In an innovative and rapidly changing world, organizations that prioritize learning remain competitive.
Learning cultures also foster better relationships among a diverse and globally connected workforce.
Systems Thinking : Emphasizes understanding complex systems and their interconnections, encouraging holistic perspectives.
Personal Mastery : Focuses on continuous personal and professional development, aligning individual skills with organizational goals.
Mental Models : Encourages critical thinking, self-awareness, and challenging assumptions to overcome barriers to learning.
Knowledge Sharing : Promotes collaboration by creating a culture of sharing expertise and learning from each other.
Shared Vision : Leaders set a compelling shared vision , fostering alignment and motivation among team members.
Systems thinking involves looking at the organization as a complex system with interconnected parts.
It promotes a non-linear approach to problem-solving and decision-making.
Recognizing the relationships between components is crucial for effective decision-making.
Personal mastery is about continuous improvement and the acquisition of skills that are relevant in practical situations.
It contributes to an organization’s ability to adapt and innovate in a changing environment.
A commitment to personal and organizational goals is key.
Mental models are underlying assumptions and beliefs that influence behavior and decision-making.
Employees challenge their mental models through critical thinking and self-reflection.
This process helps overcome limiting beliefs and opens pathways to innovative solutions.
Collaboration is essential for a learning organization.
Knowledge sharing infrastructure enables individuals to tap into a broader pool of expertise, leading to collective growth .
Shared learning objectives and outcomes facilitate teamwork.
Leaders play a vital role in setting a compelling vision that aligns the efforts of all members.
Empowerment and risk-taking are encouraged as everyone works toward the shared vision .
Leadership exemplifies the principles of the other four disciplines.
Learning organizations are more adaptable and resilient in the face of change.
They foster a more inclusive and collaborative organizational culture.
Continuous learning leads to innovation and improved problem-solving.
Establishing a culture of learning requires commitment from leadership .
Encouraging open dialogue, embracing diversity of thought, and celebrating experimentation are key aspects.
Learning becomes an ongoing process integrated into the organization’s DNA.

Connected Learning Frameworks

Growth vs. Fixed Mindset

Constructive Feedback

High-Performance Coaching

Training of Trainers

Active Listening

Active Recall

Baptism by Fire

Dreyfus Model

Kolb Learning Cycle

Method of Loci

Experience Curve

Feynman Technique

Learning Organization

Forgetting Curve

Instructor-Led Training

5 Whys Method

Single-Loop Learning

Spaced Repetition

Blended Learning

VAK Learning

Lessons Learned

Post-Mortem Analysis

5E Instructional Model

Related Strategy Concepts: Read Next: Mental Models , Biases , Bounded Rationality , Mandela Effect , Dunning-Kruger Effect , Lindy Effect , Crowding Out Effect , Bandwagon Effect , Decision-Making Matrix .

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Home » Change Management » What Is A Learning Organization And How To Become One

What Is A Learning Organization And How To Become One

A learning organization is a company that fosters a culture of continuous learning and development .

It facilitates the personal and professional growth of its members through knowledge transfer, encourages exploration of new ideas, and constantly transforms itself. This process involves total employee involvement in collaboratively conducted activities, making learning an ongoing and creative endeavor.

Learning organizations cultivate an environment where individuals can enhance their ability to generate desired outcomes, nourish innovative and broad thinking patterns, and persistently explore collective learning methodologies.

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The concept of a learning organization gained prominence in 1990 when author and systems scientist Peter Senge introduced businesses to it through his “The Fifth Discipline” book.

Navigating through today’s dynamic and perpetually changing business environment can encourage businesses to evolve, innovate, and anticipate the next wave of change management – emerging digital technologies or market innovations.

Such a landscape necessitates a pivotal transition in how companies formulate and execute their learning and personal development strategies, steering them toward becoming agile learning organizations.

By the end of this article, you will learn:

What a learning organization is, including its five disciplines
What type of organizational practices make a learning organization
The benefits of a learning company
Key learnings from existing learning organizations
12 ways to help you make a fundamental shift toward lifelong learning
How a digital adoption platform can encourage knowledge acquisition and change management in digital transformation

What Is A Learning Organization?

A learning organization champions a culture prioritizing continuous learning and knowledge creation across every level. It embodies an organizational model that underscores the crucial nature of embracing change, assimilating new knowledge, and employing insights to amplify performance and realize strategic goals.

The whole organization partakes in the processes of obtaining, disseminating, and implementing knowledge, with an emphasis on innovation, teamwork, and agile responses to both challenges and opportunities .

Learning organizations advocate for transparent communication, experimentation, and introspection, valuing their workforce’s cumulative intelligence and learning aptitude.

What Are The Five Characteristics Of A Learning Organization?

In his book, Peter Senge defines the key characteristics or five disciplines of learning organizations:

Building a shared vision

A shared vision is a crucial trait of a learning organization, forming a unified objective and possessing the capability to inspire innovation and imaginative thought.

When a vision is collaboratively crafted, individuals perceive their ideas as cherished and believe they contribute toward a mutual objective.

Personal mastery

Personal mastery pertains to an individual’s dedication and ongoing pursuit of self-growth, learning, and professional development. It fosters a mentality dedicated to perpetual learning and aims for exemplary performance in one’s selected profession or specialty.

Mental models

Mental models encompass deeply ingrained assumptions, generalizations, or perceptions that shape our understanding of the world and dictate our actions.

However, such models can either advance or obstruct learning and organizational development.

In a learning organization, emphasis is placed on uncovering and questioning mental models, prompting individuals to scrutinize their foundational assumptions and predispositions.

This vital characteristic paves the way for novel viewpoints, innovation, and enhanced problem-solving, ultimately bolstering the organization’s capacity to adapt and learn in a swiftly evolving environment.

Team learning

Team learning embodies a cooperative process in which team members unite to proactively exchange knowledge, experiences, and insights, thereby augmenting the collective learning and effectiveness of the entire team.

Learning organizations can tap into their teams’ collective wisdom and abilities through team learning, subsequently elevating problem-solving, innovation, and comprehensive team performance.

Systems thinking

The fifth discipline is systems thinking, which involves perceiving the organization as a sophisticated and interlinked system in which diverse components, processes, and individuals interplay and influence each other.

Utilizing systems thinking, a learning organization can pinpoint systemic elements that affect learning efficacy, tackle the root origins of challenges, use interrelated components for enhancement, and promote a comprehensive methodology for microlearning and organizational progression.

How Can You Identify A Learning Organization?

You can identify a learning organization through its actions of championing learning across every echelon, implying that management and executive-level employees must embody a strong learning culture and cultivate innovative thinking from the executive suite to the production area.

Moreover, all employees are made to feel secure in expressing their thoughts, taking risks, evaluating failures, and contesting prevailing ideologies. Diversity is valued, and a receptiveness to fresh ideas is present, for it counteracts stagnation and spurs innovation.

Learning organizations also exhibit a profound allegiance to learning processes and strategies. They gather varied data from many sources, both internal and external, analyzing and deciphering it to address issues and discern trends.

Crucially, leaders in a learning organization are continually learning themselves. They model the behavior of others and enable the learning environment, in addition to learning processes and methodologies.

Learning organizations also glean lessons from their errors and actively participate in problem-solving to swiftly pivot toward more effective solutions.

Benefits Of A Learning Organization

Let’s take a look at some of the paramount advantages of a learning organization:

Empowering Employees for Enhanced Productivity

When thoroughly engaged and motivated to deepen their understanding of their work, domain, and company, employees feel better prepared to thrive in their roles and exhibit elevated productivity.

Boosting Employee Engagement and Drive

Learning organizations prioritize the personal and professional growth of their employees. This commitment to continuous learning and advancement instills a sense of engagement, fulfillment, and motivation within the workforce, boosting productivity, employee flow , and retention.

Mitigating Employee Attrition

Learning organizations inspire staff members to engage deeply, forge a potent community, and empower teams to take pride in their contributions and positions within the firm.

These factors symbiotically reinforce each other, enticing more employees to remain with a company for longer, thus minimizing expenses related to employee turnover.

Facilitating Knowledge Sharing

Efficiency is augmented, and connections are forged in learning organizations through knowledge sharing.

This eradicates employees’ need to squander vital energy on redundant efforts, furthers comprehension, and ensures everyone possesses a lucid understanding of the prerequisites for success.

Amplifying Innovation and Creativity

Encouraging experimental approaches, risk-taking, and pursuing novel ideas are hallmarks of a learning organization.

This nurtures innovation and creativity across the board, culminating in the genesis of new products, services, and processes that afford a competitive advantage.

Enhancing Problem-Solving and Decision-Making Proficiency

Learning organizations advocating for critical thinking, creative endeavors, and collaboration pave the way for refined problem-solving and decision-making capabilities.

Employees are encouraged to think outside the box, explore diverse viewpoints, and employ their expertise and abilities to navigate intricate challenges.

What Are Some Examples Of A Learning Organization?

Examples of modern organizations exemplifying mastery in lifelong learning and product adaptation encompass:

Amazon: Championing Self-Initiated Growth

In Amazon, continuous personal development is paramount. For instance, each employee is envisaged to embody ownership.

When employees discern any issue impacting the customer experience or conceive an improvement idea, they are encouraged to solve problems proactively , irrespective of their expertise. Various awards, like the “Just Do It,” have been instituted to acknowledge such proactive behaviors.

Pixar: Cultivating Team Learning and Discarding Presumptions

At Pixar, embracing team learning and relinquishing assumptions and judgments is vital.

For example, teams are systematically motivated to share their in-progress work to counteract a culture obsessed with perfectionism , which can stifle innovative ideas and normalize the reception of feedback.

This strategy engenders an enriched atmosphere of playful exploration and security, nurturing enhanced creativity.

12 Ways To Build A Learning Organization

Developing a learning organization demands deliberate strategies and actions to cultivate a perpetual learning and evolution culture.

Here are several pivotal strategies to nurture a learning organization:

Establishing Vision and Securing Commitment

Leadership’s role in sculpting an organizational learning culture is vital. Top management must comprehend and convey the significance of continual learning while championing its integration into the organizational culture.

Analyzing the Present State

Execute a thorough analysis of the organization’s current learning practices, systems, and culture. Recognize strengths, weaknesses, and opportunities for advancement. This analysis will be a foundation to gauge progress throughout the learning journey.

Formulating a Learning Strategy

Utilizing the findings from the assessment, formulate a strategy for individual and collective learning and development that correlates with the organization’s overarching goals and objectives.

Identify primary focus areas, such as knowledge management, procurement, collaboration, and innovation, and describe distinct initiatives to be employed.

Constructing an L&D Team

Assemble a team from diverse organization sectors to devise and implement L&D initiatives.

These team members should utilize survey data, personal experiences, and hard data from L&D tools to steer their efforts while consistently evaluating progress and adjusting for the future.

Investing in L&D Infrastructure

Supply the essential infrastructure, tools, and resources to back learning initiatives. This includes investing in learning management systems, knowledge-sharing platforms, digital adoption platforms, online libraries, and pertinent training materials.

Each platform and tool plays a crucial role in enabling and streamlining the learning process across the organization.

Utilizing Diverse Learning Techniques and Styles

Different employees thrive with various learning conditions and methods. Understanding their learning styles—considering factors like training objectives, goals, cost, and timeline—is crucial for L&D teams to identify effective training methods for the workforce.

Enabling Effortless Knowledge Access and Just-in-time Learning

Adapt to modern employees’ expectations for flexibility in their working and learning conditions.

Ensure L&D projects embody agility and flexibility, allowing team members to engage in suitable lessons at their convenience, enhanced by L&D software that supports mobile compatibility and user-friendly access.

Encouraging a Culture of Experimentation and Learning from Failures

Foster an atmosphere that values experimentation and learning from missteps. Encourage employees to undertake calculated risks, explore innovative strategies, and learn from triumphs and failures.

Advocate for a growth mindset that perceives failures as opportunities for refinement and innovation.

Supporting Learning Advocates

Identify and fortify learning advocates within the organization. These individuals can champion learning, aid their colleagues’ learning paths, and facilitate knowledge exchange.

Offer them avenues for further personal growth, create an open forum to discuss issues , and acknowledge their contributions to the learning culture.

Implementing Feedback and Evaluation Systems

Incorporate feedback systems and evaluation frameworks to assess the efficacy of training and identify areas needing improvement.

Implement post-training surveys to collect feedback, monitor learning outcomes, and examine the impact of learning on organizational performance.

Ensuring Continuous Improvement and Adaptability

Learning organizations perpetually evolve. Review and fine-tune learning strategies, programs, and processes, considering feedback, emerging trends, and shifting organizational requirements.

Adopt a culture of ongoing improvement and adaptability to ensure organizational relevance and resilience amidst rapid changes.

Acknowledging Diversity in Strategy Applicability

Managers must respect departmental processes and practices differences while aiming to build a learning organization. Units may vary in their objectives or learning maturity.

A uniform strategy for building a learning organization is typically ineffective due to the possible variances in local learning cultures among units. Ensuring sensitivity towards diverse cultural aspects of learning, which can significantly vary, is crucial.

How Can A Digital Adoption Platform Help You Become A Learning Organization?

A Digital Adoption Platform (DAP) strengthens the learning capabilities of organizations that favor continuous learning by delivering a thorough solution that encompasses:

Guidance Within the Application: DAPs furnish in-app assistance by delivering context-specific, immediate support within the digital resources employees utilize. This guidance assists employees in maneuvering through intricate workflows, comprehending tool functionalities, and efficiently accomplishing tasks.
Support for Self-help: DAPs empower users to autonomously discover answers, troubleshoot issues, and navigate challenges without dependence on external support avenues.

Employees can access pertinent information and guide themselves whenever they face hurdles through a knowledge repository, FAQs, and searchable documentation.

Behavioral Analytics: DAPs capture and scrutinize user interactions within digital resources, tracking and recording user activities such as clicks, navigational patterns, and task achievements, offering crucial insights into how employees engage with their tools.

These analytics help pinpoint usage trends, bottlenecks, and opportunities for enhancement. By dissecting user behavior, organizations understand user inclinations, challenges, and skill deficiencies.

This allows them to implement data-informed decisions to uplift user experience and propel continuous learning initiatives.

The Future Of Learning Organizations

A learning organization encourages a continuous learning culture so that it can perpetually evolve for the better. The foundational principle is that amplifying employee skills directly correlates with achieving sought-after results.

Peter Senge highlights the pivotal role of personal mastery, collaborative learning, a collective vision, mental paradigms, and systems thinking in evolving into a learning organization.

This manifests in a corporate environment where leaders and team members are ardently committed to constant learning from various sources, striving toward peak performance.

Embarking on your enterprise’s journey toward nurturing an organization deeply embedded in continual learning and enhancements at every tier can begin by deriving insights from the five principles of a learning organization and observing companies that inherently embody these attributes.

Embarking on the journey of becoming a learning organization involves several key steps.

Here’s a brief outline to guide you through the process:

Start by examining your organization’s current learning practices and develop a clear vision and strategy for implementation.
Establish a Learning and Development (L&D) team to lead the transformation of your organization.
Consider integrating L&D tools to facilitate and simplify the digital adoption journey for your employees.
During this transition, gather and incorporate feedback from your team members to continuously refine and improve the learning process.
Learn from failures and recognize team members who actively participate in this culture of continuous improvement.

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Senge’s Five Disciplines of Learning Organizations

Senge five disciplines of learning - toolshero

Senge’s Five Disciplines: this article explains the five disciplines of learning organizations by Peter Senge in a practical way. Next to what it is, this article also highlights the application of these five disciplines and tips to experience a learning organization. After reading it, you will understand the basics of this management and learning organization philosophy. Enjoy reading!

Background Senge’s Five Disciplines of Learning Organizations

According to Peter Senge , one-third of 500 companies will disappear within 15 years, and the average lifetime for the largest enterprises is approximately 40 years. It addresses the question how today’s organizations can experience continuous growth to perform better than its competitors.

Instead of visualizing a traditional hierarchy, today’s companies can survive when it succeeds in creating a learning organization .

An organization 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 how to learn together.

The Senge’s five disciplines of learning organizations or Senge’s learning organisation describes how to manage the success and development of an organization and how employees give the extra mile that goes beyond the expectations of the company.

What are the five disciplines of learning organizations?

The five disciplines of learning organizations are as follows:

Building a Shared vision
Systems Thinking
Mental Models
Team Learning
Personal Mastery

Senge five disciplines of learning organization model - Toolshero

Figure 1 – the Senge five disciplines of learning organization

1. Building a Shared vision

In learning organizations, the vision should be created through interaction with the employees in the enterprise. Many leaders have personal visions that lack transferring them to a shared vision.

The only way to create a shared vision is by compromising the organization’s and individual’s visions. People who do not share the same vision might not contribute as much to the organization.

The effect of sharing the same vision is that employees do tasks because they want to do so instead of they are told to do so. It changes the relationship with the company, and it turns its performances in a learning mechanism.

2. Systems Thinking

Instead of focusing on individual issues, systems thinking reflects the observational process of an entire system. Managers have to understand that every action and consequence is correlated with another.

Many times it happens that managers focus on individual actions, and therefore, forget about seeing the big picture.

When the correlation is understood, it enables us to see interrelationships and patterns of change in particular situations. Managers will be able to determine cause and effect .

3. Mental Models

According to Peter Senge, the employees must identify the values of the company and what the business is all about.

A correct understanding of who we are will enable us to visualize where to go and how to develop further. The organization has to be flexible in accepting changes to new mental models and a new image of the company.

The most successful companies are those who can learn and adapt to new models to become faster than its competitors.

4. Team Learning

To accomplish excellent functional team dynamics, team-learning is a primary importance. It is the discipline by which personal mastery and shared vision are brought together.

It is crucial for the workforce to consider its colleagues as team members instead of rivals. It is the first step to set up dialogues wherein people dare to be vulnerable and express their real personality . The working environment should be safe where honest mistakes are forgiven. Otherwise, no learning can be experienced.

5. Personal Mastery

Personal mastery occurs when an individual has a clear vision of a goal, combined with an accurate perception of reality. The gap between the vision and reality drives the employee to practice all necessary related activities to realize the vision.

This creative tension depends on a clear understanding of current reality. For this reason, for personal mastery and the related discipline of a shared vision, looking at, and sharing the truth is a crucial fundamental.

However, employees could believe they lack the competencies to achieve their goals. A vicious circle might have established and could be difficult to remove. According to Peter Senge , we should train our subconscious mind because it can handle more complex problems quicker than what our consciousness can.

When people believe in their own powerlessness, it will hold them back from realizing their vision. For this reason, we should train the subconscious mind to tackle the stress and problems in reality.

Application of the Five Disciplines of Learning Organizations

Applying the five disciplines of learning organizations can be challenging for many organizations. It would be more attractable to only focus on one or a few of these disciplines. However, the utilization of all disciples is critical since all disciplines are interlinked.

For instance, when an organization starts to build a Shared Vision with its team, an important aspect is to have better conversations with its team members (Team Learning).

In addition, if an organization starts to work on System Thinking to identify common problems, its employees need to understand the Mental Models. Since all disciplines are linked to another, it does not matter where to start.

It does not mean that the organization has to focus on all disciplines at the same time. By focusing more narrowly on one or two disciplines and work to the others will gain competitive advantages for the organization.

On the other hand, the five disciplines of learning organizations focus on long-term growth for both internal and external the organization. Typical events within the organization are the discussion about urgent tasks that could affect the operations.

The real threat in this scenario is the focus of the small event because the organization has to focus on the long-term growing process that keeps it competitive.

Another example is the desire from management that the team is pulling in the same direction. According to Chris Argyris , a former professor at Harvard Business School, most organization reward those who follow senior’s management views.

Employees who ask questions or stir the view into another direction may be penalized. As described, management should focus on Building a Shared Vision via strategic planning .

Thus, transferring management vision into a shared vision by compromising both the organization’s and individual’s vision.

The key point of understanding and applying the five disciplines of learning organizations is that they are all interrelated. Each discipline cannot stand independently.

Even though the focus can be set at one or two disciplines before preceding to the other, the interrelation will enable the organization to identify complexities and opportunities both internal and external the organization.

For this reason, the implementation of the five disciplines of learning organizations will lead to a continuous learning process, and therefore, created a learning and competitive organization. However, some disabilities such as the experience of a traditional hierarchy in the organization can make the implementation challenging.

How would you tackle these problems?

Tips to experience a learning organization

Sharing your vision.

Before sharing your vision, ask everyone else first to share their vision. Creating a vision is everyone’s job. Thus, even though you might be confident of your vision, you should also ask what the rest of team thinks of it.

Accomplishing goals

Focus on outcomes, and not on output. When thinking strategically, it is the result and not the process and activities that have to be executed. Do not rush in developing a strategic plan, give it time to permeate.

Previous results

It’s Your Turn

What do you think? Are the five disciplines of a learning organization applicable in your organization? Do you recognize the practical explanation or do you have more suggestions? What are your success factors for continuous growth, organization and employee development and engagement?

Share your experience and knowledge in the comments box below.

More information

Chang, S. C., & Lee, M. S. (2007). A study on relationship among leadership, organizational culture , the operation of learning organization and employees’ job satisfaction . The learning organization, 14(2), 155-185.
Senge, P. M. (2014). The fifth discipline fieldbook: Strategies and tools for building a learning organization . Crown Business .
Senge, P. M. (2006). The fifth discipline: The art and practice of the learning organization . Broadway Business.
Website ExamSnap . Retrieved 02/20/2024 from ExamSnap.

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Alexander Zeeman

Alexander Zeeman is Content Manager at ToolsHero where he focuses on Content production, Content management and marketing. He is also an International Business student at Rotterdam Business school. Currently, in his study, working on the development of various management competencies and improving operational business processes.

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The Practices That Set Learning Organizations Apart

Companies committed to building workforces equipped for the future apply seven key principles to training and development.

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Organizations are struggling to keep pace with the new skills needed in their workforces, thanks to large-scale trends such as the shift to digital business models and the increased adoption of workplace automation, AI, and advanced analytics. The pandemic accelerated those trends, putting an increased premium on learning and development (L&D) as a means of equipping companies to handle both long-term challenges and short-term crises.

To understand the implications of these changes, we recently engaged in more than 60 in-depth conversations with CEOs, chief human resources officers, chief learning officers, chief operating officers, and other senior HR and business leaders across six countries. We supplemented that research through surveys of more than 250 professionals worldwide about their approaches to L&D. The results show that relatively few organizations had strong L&D programs in place before the pandemic.

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Those companies offer a model of how learning and development makes companies more responsive and agile. In studying their practices, we identified seven core principles that other companies can implement to improve their L&D efforts and equip themselves to thrive in both the short and long terms.

The Case for Investments in L&D

We conducted our quantitative survey in 2019 and found that few organizations had a strategic, forward-looking approach to L&D. Only 4 in 10 respondents to our survey identified preparing for the future as a high or top priority for their organization, and only 30% of respondents were confident in their ability to meet future skill needs.

Before COVID-19, technology was already changing employee and customer behaviors in dramatic ways, but the pace has now increased.

About the Authors

David G. Collings ( @collingsdg ) is a professor of human resource management at Dublin City University Business School. John McMackin is an assistant professor in human resource management and organizational behavior at Dublin City University Business School.

1. “ Work-at-Home After COVID-19 — Our Forecast ,” Global Workplace Analytics, accessed Dec. 16, 2020, https://globalworkplaceanalytics.com.

2. C. Bradley, M. Hirt, S. Hudson, et al., “ The Great Acceleration ,” McKinsey & Company, July 14, 2020, www.mckinsey.com.

3. Y. Kim and R.E. Ployhart, “The Effects of Staffing and Training on Firm Productivity and Profit Growth Before, During, and After the Great Recession,” Journal of Applied Psychology 99, no. 3 (May 2014): 361-389.

4. “ Leading With Learning: Insights and Advice on the New State of L&D, ” PDF file (Carpinteria, California: LinkedIn Learning, 2020), https://learning.linkedin.com.

5. A. Kidwai, “ How PwC Keeps Its Digital Upskilling Relevant ,” HRDive, May 12, 2020, www.hrdive.com.

6. J. Bersin and M. Zao-Sanders, “ Making Learning a Part of Everyday Work ,” Harvard Business Review, Feb. 19, 2019, https://hbr.org.

7. K. Peters, “m-Learning: Positioning Educators for a Mobile, Connected Future,” International Review of Research in Open and Distance Learning 8, no. 2 (June 2007): 1-17.

8. R.L. Ray, P. Hyland, A. Pressman, et al., “ DNA of Engagement: How Organizations Can Foster Employee Ownership of Engagement, ” PDF file (New York: The Conference Board, 2017), www.conference-board.org.

9. V. Ratanjee, “ Four Ways to Continue Employee Development When Budgets Are Cut ,” Gallup, Aug. 3, 2020, www.gallup.com.

10. M. Schrage, J. Schwartz, D. Kiron, et al., “ Opportunity Marketplaces: Aligning Workforce Investment and Value Creation in the Digital Enterprise ,” MIT Sloan Management Review, April 28, 2020, https://sloanreview.mit.edu.

11. M. Lombardo and R.W. Eichinger, “The Career Architect Development Planner” (Minneapolis: Lominger, 1996).

12. T. Vander Ark, “ Pandemic Spike in AI Learning — and What It Means for Schools ,” Forbes, May 7, 2020, www.forbes.com.

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LEARNING ORGANIZATIONS

Kai Larsen Claire McInerney Corinne Nyquist Aldo Santos Donna Silsbee

I. Introduction II. Personal Mastery III. Mental Models IV. Teams

A. WHAT IS A TEAM AND WHY ARE THEY IMPORTANT? B. CHARACTERISTICS OF SUCCESSFUL TEAMS C. TEAM BUILDING AND TEAM LEARNING D. TEAM PRACTICES E. EVALUATION

V. Shared Vision VI. Systems Thinking

A. THE PRIMACY OF THE WHOLE B. LEARNING IN ORGANIZATIONS. C. THE FIFTH DISCIPLINE, A METANOIA D. SYSTEMS THINKING SKILLS AND TOOLS E. REINFORCING FEEDBACK F. BALANCING FEEDBACK G. DELAYS H. SYSTEM ARCHETYPES I. MODELING & SIMULATION J. MICRO-WORLDS AND GAMES

VII. Conclusion VIII. Appendix A IX. Appendix B X. Mediagraphy

�Contemplate to see that awakened people, while not being enslaved by the work of serving living beings, never abandon their work of serving living beings.�

Thich Nhat Hanh

The Miracle of Mindfulness ! (1976, p. 98)

I ntroduction

In a way those who work in a learning organization are �fully awakened� people. They are engaged in their work, striving to reach their potential, by sharing the vision of a worthy goal with team colleagues. They have mental models to guide them in the pursuit of personal mastery, and their personal goals are in alignment with the mission of the organization. Working in a learning organization is far from being a slave to a job that is unsatisfying; rather, it is seeing one�s work as part of a whole, a system where there are interrelationships and processes that depend on each other. Consequently, awakened workers take risks in order to learn, and they understand how to seek enduring solutions to problems instead of quick fixes. Lifelong commitment to high quality work can result when teams work together to capitalize on the synergy of the continuous group learning for optimal performance. Those in learning organizations are not slaves to living beings, but they can serve others in effective ways because they are well-prepared for change and working with others.

Organizational learning involves individual learning, and those who make the shift from traditional organization thinking to learning organizations develop the ability to think critically and creatively. These skills transfer nicely to the values and assumptions inherent in Organization Development (OD). Organization Development is a �long-term effort at continuous improvement supported at all levels of the organization, using interdisciplinary approaches and modern technologies.� 1 Organization Development is the mother field that encompasses interventions, such as organization learning. OD is about people and how they work with others to achieve personal and organizational goals. Many times achieving goals means making changes that require creative thinking and problem solving. French and Bell report that the values held by OD practitioners include �wanting to create change, to positively impact people and organizations, enhance the effectiveness and profitability of organizations, [to] learn and grow, and exercise power and influence.� (1995, p. 77) Although values do shift over time, the values held by OD practitioners mesh well with the characteristics of learning organizations as outlined in this paper.

The paper is organized according to the five disciplines that Peter Senge (1990) says are the core disciplines in building the learning organization: personal mastery, mental models, team learning , shared vision, and systems thinking. 2 Even though the paper makes liberal use of Senge�s pervasive ideas, it also refers to OD practitioners such as Chris Argyris, Juanita Brown, Charles Handy, and others. What these writers have in common is a belief in the ability of people and organizations to change and become more effective, and that change requires open communication and empowerment of community members as well as a culture of collaboration. Those also happen to be the characteristics of a learning organization. The paper is influenced by team meetings in which the five authors prepared a class presentation on the topic of learning organizations. The team worked to emulate a learning community within the group. The paper reflects the learning, reflection, and discussion that accompanied the process.

P ersonal M astery

Personal mastery is what Peter Senge describes as one of the core disciplines needed to build a learning organization. Personal mastery applies to individual learning, and Senge says that organizations cannot learn until their members begin to learn. Personal Mastery has two components. First, one must define what one is trying to achieve (a goal). Second, one must have a true measure of how close one is to the goal. (Senge, 1990)

It should be noted that the word �goal�, in this context, is not used the same way it normally is in management. Managers have been conditioned to think in terms of short-term and long-term goals. Long-term goals for the American manager are often something to be achieved in the next three to five years. In personal mastery, the goal, or what one is trying to achieve, is much further away in distance. It may take a lifetime to reach it, if one ever does. (Senge, 1990) Vision is a more accurate word for it. Senge worked with Chart House International to prepare a videotape on Personal Mastery. In the videotape, the idea of lifelong learning is represented by the story of Antonio Stradivari whose quest was a particular musical sound that could be produced by a violin. Stradivari spent his entire life in the pursuit of that sound. He made constant refinements to the violins he crafted and produced instruments that are considered outstanding to this day. No one will ever know if Stradivari was fully satisfied with his last violin. Senge would say that Stradivari was not satisfied because of his obsession with continually trying to improve on the sound. (Senge, Self-Mastery , 1995) Senge refers to the process of continual improvement as � generative learning .� (Senge, 1990)

The gap that exists between where one is currently functioning and where one wants to be is referred to as �creative tension.� Senge illustrates this with the image of a rubber band pulled between two hands. The hand on the top represents where one wants to be and the hand on the bottom represents where one currently is. The tension on the rubber band as it is pulled between the two hands is what gives the creative drive. Creativity results when one is so unsatisfied with the current situation that one is driven to change it. (Senge, 1990) Another aspect of personal mastery is that one has a clear concept of current reality. Emphasis is placed on the word �clear� here. One must be able to see reality as it truly is without biases or misconceptions. If one has an accurate view of reality, one will see constraints that are present. The creative individual knows that life involves working within constraints and will not waver in trying to achieve the vision. Creativity may involve using the constraints to one's advantage. (Senge, 1990)

Handy has a similar concept in his � wheel of learning .� The wheel consists of four quadrants: questions, ideas, tests, and reflection. The metaphor of the wheel makes one think of something moving. What keeps the wheel moving is:

Subsidiarity: Giving away power to those closest to the action,
Clubs and Congresses: Places and opportunities for meeting and talking,
Horizontal Fast-Tracks: Horizontal Career-Tracks that rotate people through a variety of different jobs in the new, flattened organization,
Self-enlightenment: Individual responsibility for his own learning,
Incidental Learning: Treat every incident as a case study from which learning can occur.
The driver of the wheel should be the leader of the organization who sets the example for others to follow. (Handy, 1995.)

Individuals who practice personal mastery experience other changes in their thinking. They learn to use both reason and intuition to create. They become systems thinkers who see the interconnectedness of everything around them and, as a result, they feel more connected to the whole. It is exactly this type of individual that one needs at every level of an organization for the organization to learn. (Senge, 1990) Traditional managers have always thought that they had to have all the answers for their organization. The managers of the learning organization know that their staff has the answers. The job of the manager in the learning organization is to be the teacher or coach who helps unleash the creative energy in each individual. Organizations learn through the synergy of the individual learners. (Senge, �The Leader�s New Work,� 1990)

M ental M odels

Mental models are the second of Senge's five disciplines for the learning organization.(Senge, The Leader�s New Work, 1990) Much of the work involving mental models comes from Chris Argyris and his colleagues at Harvard University. A mental model is one's way of looking at the world. It is a framework for the cognitive processes of our mind. In other words, it determines how we think and act. A simple example of a mental model comes from an exercise described in The Fifth Discipline Fieldbook . In this exercise, pairs of conference participants are asked to arm wrestle. They are told that winning in arm wrestling means the act of lowering their partner's arm to the table. Most people struggle against their partner to win. Their mental model is that there can be only one winner in arm wrestling and that this is done by lowering their partner's arm more times than their partner can do the same thing to them. Argyris contends that these people have a flawed mental model.

An alternative model would present a framework where both partners could win. If they stop resisting each other, they can work together flipping their arms back and forth. The end result is that they can both win and they can win many more times than if they were working against each other. (Senge, 1994) Argyris says that most of our mental models are flawed. He says that everyone has �theories of action� which are a set of rules that we use for our own behaviors as well as to understand the behaviors of others. However, people don't usually follow their stated action theories. The way they really behave can be called their �theory-in-use.� It is usual:

To remain in unilateral control,
To maximize winning and minimize losing,
To suppress negative feelings, and
To be as rational as possible by which people mean defining clear objectives and evaluating their behavior in terms of whether or not they have achieved them. (Argyris, 1991)

People act this way to avoid embarrassment or threat. (Argyris, 1991) Argyris says that most people practice defensive reasoning, and because people make up organizations, those organizations also do the same thing. So at the same time the organization is avoiding embarrassment or threat, it is also avoiding learning. Learning only comes from seeing the world the way it really is. (Argyris, 1993) Argyris believes that we arrive at our actions through what he calls the �ladder of inference.� First, one observes something i.e., a behavior, a conversation, etc., and that becomes the bottom rung of a ladder. One then applies his or her own theories to the observation. That results in the next rung on the ladder. Subsequent rungs on the ladder are assumptions we make, conclusions we draw, beliefs we come to have about the world, and finally the action we decide to take. As we climb farther up the ladder, we are becoming more abstract in our thoughts. Unfortunately, our flawed mental models usually cause us to make mistakes in this process of abstraction, and we end up with inappropriate actions. This entire process becomes a loop. We generalize our beliefs and assumptions to the next situation we encounter and use them to filter the data we are willing to consider. Hence, every time we start up the ladder for a new situation, we are handicapped from the beginning. (Argyris, 1993; Senge, Fieldbook , 1994)

Argyris believes that people can be taught to see the flaws in their mental models. One way to do this is to practice the left-hand column technique. In this exercise, one takes some dialogue that occurred during a conversation and writes it in the form of a play script on the right-hand side of a sheet of paper. In the corresponding left-hand column, one records what he or she was really thinking during the conversation. An example is as follows:

Professor Sue Faerman at the University at Albany suggests that there could be two left-hand columns: one for what each partner to the conversation might be thinking: (Faerman, 1996)

Argyris maintains that true learning occurs when the left-hand and right-hand columns begin to match. Once one has been trained in this technique, one can do it mentally during a conversation to assess what is being said. As a culture, we have to learn to say what we think and to take criticism without being on the defensive. People and organizations learn by recognizing mistakes and correcting them. No progress can be made if we pretend that the mistakes never happened.

What an organization needs is �actionable knowledge.� This is Argyris� phrase for a new set of mental models. These models would be validated through research and would be a series of if-then statements that would say something like: �..if you act in such and such a way, the following will likely occur.� (Argyris, 1993, p. 2-3) These models are also referred to as system archetypes and will be discussed later in this paper.

W HAT IS A T EAM AND W HY ARE T HEY I MPORTANT?

A team, say Robbins and Finley, is �people doing something together.� It could be a baseball team or a research team or a rescue team. It isn�t what a team does that makes it a team; it is a fact that they do it �together.� (Robbins and Finley, 1995, p. 10) �Teams and teamwork are the �hottest� thing happening in organizations today...� according to French and Bell. (1995, p. 97) A workplace team is more than a work group, �a number of persons, usually reporting to a common superior and having some facetoface interaction, who have some degree of interdependence in carrying out tasks for the purpose of achieving organizational goals.� (French and Bell, 1995, p. 169)

A workplace team is closer to what is called a selfdirected work team or SDWT, which can be defined as follows: �A selfdirected work team is a natural work group of interdependent employees who share most, if not all, the roles of a traditional supervisor.� (Hitchcock and Willard, 1995, p. 4) Since teams usually have team leaders, sometimes called coaches, the definition used by Katzenbach and Smith in French and Bell seems the most widely applicable: �A team is a small number of people with complementary skills who are committed to a common purpose, set of performance goals, and approach for which they hold themselves mutually accountable.� (1995, p. 112)

Organization development (OD) focuses on the human side of organizations. It is believed that individuals who have some control over how their work is done will be more satisfied and perform better. This is called empowerment in OD. Put these empowered individuals together into teams and the results will be extraordinary, we are told. French and Bell put it this way:

A fundamental belief in organization development is that work teams are the building blocks of organizations. A second fundamental belief is that teams must manage their culture, processes, systems, and relationships, if they are to be effective. Theory, research, and practice attest to the central role teams play in organizational success. Teams and teamwork are part of the foundation of organization development. (French and Bell, 1995, p. 87)

C HARACTERISTICS OF S UCCESSFUL T EAMS

OD interventions are divided into two basic groups: diagnosis and action or process. Team building is one type of process intervention. In fact, French and Bell consider teams and work groups to be the �fundamental unitsof organizations� and the �key leverage points for improving the functioning of the organization.� (1995, p. 171)

A number of writers have studied teams, looking for the characteristics that make some successful. Larson and LaFasto looked at highperformance groups as diverse as a championship football team and a heart transplant team and found eight characteristics that are always present. They are listed below:

A clear, elevating goal
A resultsdriven structure
Competent team members
Unified commitment
A collaborative climate
Standards of excellence
External support and recognition
Principled leadership (Larson and LaFasto, 1989, in French and Bell, 1995, p. 98)

How does a group become a highperformance team? Lippitt maintains that groups operate on four levels: organizational expectations, group tasks, group maintenance, and individual needs. Maintenancelevel activities include encouraging by showing regard for others, expressing and exploring group feelings, compromising and admitting error, gatekeeping to facilitate the participation of others, and setting standards for evaluating group functioning and production. (Lippett, 1982, p. 9)

Lippitt defines teamwork as the way a group is able to solve its problems. Teamwork is demonstrated in groups by: (a)�...the group�s ability to examine its process to constantly improve itself as a team,� and (b) �the requirement for trust and openness in communication and relationships.� The former is characterized by group interaction, interpersonal relations, group goals, and communication. The latter is characterized by a high tolerance for differing opinions and personalities. (Lippett, 1982, p. 207-208)

T EAM B UILDING AND T EAM L EARNING

A recent concept in OD is that of the learning organization. Peter Senge considers the team to be a key learning unit in the organization. According to Senge, the definition of team learning is:

...the process of aligning and developing the capacity of a team to create the results its members truly desire. It builds on the discipline of developing shared vision. It also builds on personal mastery, for talented teams are made up of talented individuals. (1990, p. 236)

Senge describes a number of components of team learning . The first is dialogue. Drawing on conversations with physicist, David Bohm, he identifies three conditions that are necessary for dialogue to occur: All participants must �suspend their assumptions;� all participants must �regard one another as colleagues;� and there must be a facilitator (at least until teams develop these skills) �who holds the context of the dialogue.� Bohm asserts that �hierarchy is antithetical to dialogue, and it is difficult to escape hierarchy in organizations.� (Senge, 1990, p. 245) Suspending all assumptions is also difficult, but is necessary to reshape thinking about reality.

Before a team can learn, it must become a team. In the 1970s, psychologist B. W. Tuckman identified four stages that teams had to go through to be successful. They are:

Forming : When a group is just learning to deal with one another; a time when minimal work gets accomplished.
Storming : A time of stressful negotiation of the terms under which the team will work together; a trial by fire.
Norming : A time in which roles are accepted, team feeling develops, and information is freely shared.
Performing : When optimal levels are finally realized�in productivity, quality, decision making, allocation of resources, and interpersonal interdependence.

Tuckman asserts that no team goes straight from forming to performing.�Struggle and adaptation are critical, difficult, but very necessary parts of team development.� (Robbins and Finley, 1995, p. 187)

Senge�s characterization of dealing with conflict draws on Chris Argyris. Argyris writes about how even professionals avoid learning, using entrenched habits to protect themselves from the embarrassment and threat that comes with exposing their thinking. The act of encouraging more open discussion is seen as intimidating, and they feel vulnerable. (Argyris, 1994, p. 346-7)) The missing link for Senge is practice. Team learning is a team skill that can be learned. Practice is gained through dialogue sessions, learning laboratories, and microworlds. (Senge, 1990, p. 245) Microworlds are computerbased microcosms of reality, in which one learns by experimentation . Examples are Logo, in which children learn the principles of geometry, and SimCity, in which one literally builds a city, making all the decisions and learning the consequences of those decisions. Simulation, Senge believes, is a tool for learning �How do things work?� and just as important, �How might they work differently?� (Senge, 1990, p. 338)

T EAM P RACTICES

Contributors to The Fifth Discipline Fieldbook declare that team learning is not team building, describing the latter as creating courteous behaviors, improving communication, becoming better able to perform work tasks together, and building strong relationships. (Senge, 1990, p. 355) Just as teams pool their knowledge and then examine it from many different angles, so have the practitioners of OD shared their different perspectives and experiences. One such OD �strategist� is Juanita Brown, who has coached organizations toward innovative ways to involve employees. Looking back on groups with which she has worked, she recounts those experiences where team building turned into team learning. She draws inspiration from the community development movement and from the study of voluntary organizations. Roots of this are found in the work of Miles Horton, Paulo Freire, the Scandinavian study circles, Saul Alinsky, M. Scott Peck, and Marvin Weisbord. (Senge, Fieldbook , p. 508-9)

Of particular interest is her description of the San Francisco Foundation, a funder of worthy causes throughout the Bay area, which she counseled through a period of extraordinary growth, change, and pressure. Foundations may promote innovative projects, yet they are seldom organized progressively themselves. The executive director, Martin Paley, wanted to shift the role of the Distribution Committee from administrative decisions to policy making, involve the community in a dialogue on project directions, and then for the first time publish explicit grant guidelines in a newsletter. He also faced the delightful problem of an extremely large bequest. Approaching it as an adventure, he hired Juanita Brown as a long range planning consultant. In addition, he attended a systems dynamics training session led by Peter Senge at M.I.T. (Sibbert and Brown, 1986)

Six �Commitment to the Community� input sessions were held to open the foundation to new ideas. What they heard was that this foundation didn�t belong to the Distribution Committee or to the staff; it belonged to the community and community members wanted �damn good care� taken of it. They came to think of the foundation as a kind of community development bank. They learned that every meeting agenda is subject to change; that they had too much structure; and that people can learn from each other. (Sibbert and Brown, 1986)

Brown expressed her belief in the importance of dialogue as follows: �Strategic dialogue is built on the operating principle that the stakeholders in any system already have within them the wisdom and creativity to confront even the most difficult challenges.� The �community of inquiry� can extend beyond employees to include unions, customers, suppliers, and other stakeholders, becoming a �dynamic and reinforcing process which helps create and strengthen the �communities of commitment� which Fred Kofman and Peter Senge emphasize lie at the heart of learning organizations capable of leading the way towarda sustainable future.� (Bennet and Brown, 1995, p. 167)

E VALUATION

While much anecdotal evidence exists, there remains a lack of a clear understanding of how to really describe and measure team learning. As Senge stated:

Until we can describe the phenomenon better, it [team learning] will remain mysterious. Until we have some theory of what happens when teams learn (as opposed to individuals in teams learning), we will be unable to distinguish group intelligence from �group think,� when individuals succumb to group pressures for conformity. Until there are reliable methods for building teams that can learn together, its occurrence will remain a product of happenstance. (1990, p. 228)

What usually is measured is productivity, because high or low productivity has a direct effect on wages, the cost of products, the consumption of resources to produce goods, the quality of work life, and the survival and competitiveness of industries and of individual firms. However, these studies only evaluate productivity at the individual level. (Pritchard, 1990, p. 254) Goodman et al suggest that "if we want to understand how to design more productive groups, we need to move to finer-grained models that link group design and productivity changes." They suggest that the Hackman model (below) provides a good start. (Goodman et al., 1988, p. 317)

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S hared V ision

What does it mean to have a shared vision? A shared vision begins with the individual, and an individual vision is something that one person holds as a truth. Throughout history there are many examples of people who have had a strong vision, some of these people are remembered even today. One example is John Brown with his vision of a holy war to free the slaves, which culminated in his attack on Harpers Ferry, Virginia, in 1859. According to Carl Jung, "Your vision will become clear only when you can look into your own heart.... Who looks outside, dreams; who looks inside, awakes." (Mindscape, 1995)

What is this vision that is found within our hearts? According to WordNet, 3 a vision is a vivid mental image. In this context, vivid means graphic and lifelike. Based on this, it can be concluded that a vision is a graphic and lifelike mental image that is very important to us, i.e., held within our hearts. The vision is often a goal that the individual wants to reach. In systems thinking that goal is most often a long term goal, something that can be a leading star for the individual.

The shared vision of an organization must be built of the individual visions of its members. What this means for the leader in the Learning Organization is that the organizational vision must not be created by the leader, rather, the vision must be created through interaction with the individuals in the organization. Only by compromising between the individual visions and the development of these visions in a common direction can the shared vision be created. The leader's role in creating a shared vision is to share her own vision with the employees. This should not be done to force that vision on others, but rather to encourage others to share their vision too. Based on these visions, the organization's vision should evolve.

It would be naive to expect that the organization can change overnight from having a vision that is communicated from the top to an organization where the vision evolves from the visions of all the people in the organization. The organization will have to go through major change for this to happen, and this is where OD can play a role. In the development of a learning organization, the OD-consultant would use the same tools as before, just on a much broader scale.

What is a shared vision? To come up with a classification for shared visions would be close to impossible. Going back to the definition of a vision as a graphic and lifelike mental image that is very important to us, Melinda Dekker's drawing [see p. 2] is as good as any other representation of shared vision. The drawing will probably be interpreted differently by people, but still there is something powerful about the imagery that most people can see.

Reflection on shared vision brings the question of whether each individual in the organization must share the rest of the organization's vision. The answer is no, but the individuals who do not share the vision might not contribute as much to the organization. How can someone start to share the rest of the organization's vision? Senge (1990) stresses that visions can not be sold. For a shared vision to develop, members of the organization must enroll in the vision. The difference between these two is that through enrollment the members of the organization choose to participate.

When an organization has a shared vision, the driving force for change comes from what Senge calls " creative tension ." Creative tension is the difference between the shared vision and the current reality. With truly committed members the creative tension will drive the organization toward its goals.

John Brown, mentioned earlier, had a vision of freeing the slaves. Obviously, this was not a vision that came out of his own mind. He must have taken the slaves� vision and shared it with them. Clearly, if the slaves had truly preferred to stay enslaved, John Brown's vision could not have existed. The slaves� sense of shared vision made it possible for them to die by Brown's side, but they did not die for Brown, they died for a shared vision.

S ystems T hinking

In the October 17, 1994 issue of Fortune magazine, Brian Dumaine named Peter M. Senge: "MR. LEARNING ORGANIZATION.� (Dumaine, 1992) Why is it that in a field with so many distinguished contributors, Peter Senge was referred to as the "intellectual and spiritual champion?" (Dumaine, 1992, p. 147) The reason is probably because Senge injected into this field an original and powerful paradigm called �systems thinking,� a paradigm premised upon the primacy of the whole --the antithesis of the traditional evolution of the concept of learning in western cultures.

Humankind has succeeded over time in conquering the physical world and in developing scientific knowledge by adopting an analytical method to understand problems. This method involves breaking a problem into components, studying each part in isolation, and then drawing conclusions about the whole. According to Senge, this sort of linear and mechanistic thinking is becoming increasingly ineffective to address modern problems. (Kofman and Senge, 1993, p. 18) This is because, today, most important issues are interrelated in ways that defy linear causation.

Alternatively, circular causation�where a variable is both the cause and effect of another�has become the norm, rather than the exception. Truly exogenous forces are rare. For example, the state of the economy affects unemployment, which in turn affects the economy. The world has become increasingly interconnected, and endogenous feedback causal loops now dominate the behavior of the important variables in our social and economic systems.

Thus, fragmentation is now a distinctive cultural dysfunction of society. 4 (Kofman and Senge, p. 17) In order to understand the source and the solutions to modern problems, linear and mechanistic thinking must give way to non-linear and organic thinking, more commonly referred to as systems thinking�a way of thinking where the primacy of the whole is acknowledged.

T HE P RIMACY OF THE W HOLE

David Bohm compares the attempt to understand the whole by putting the pieces together with trying to assemble the fragments of a shattered mirror. It is simply not possible. Kofman & Senge add:

The defining characteristic of a system is that it cannot be understood as a function of its isolated components. First, the behavior of the system doesn't depend on what each part is doing but on how each part is interacting with the rest ... Second, to understand a system we need to understand how it fits into the larger system of which it is a part ... Third, and most important, what we call the parts need not be taken as primary. In fact, how we define the parts is fundamentally a matter of perspective and purpose, not intrinsic in the nature of the 'real thing' we are looking at. (Kofman and Senge, 1993, p. 27)

In his prominent book, The Fifth Discipline , Senge identified some learning disabilities associated with the failure to think systemically. He classified them under the following headings:

"I am my position"
"The enemy is out there"
"The illusion of taking charge"
"The fixation on events"
"The parable of the boiled frog"
"The delusion of learning from experience" (1990, pp. 17 - 26)

Although each of these contains a distinct message, illustrated how traditional thinking can undermine real learning by following up on one example: "the fixation on events."

According to Senge, fragmentation has forced people to focus on snapshots to distinguish patterns of behavior in order to explain past phenomena or to predict future behavior. This is essentially the treatment used in statistical analysis and econometrics, when trying to decipher patterns of relationship and behavior. However, this is not how the world really works: events do not dictate behavior; instead, they are the product of behavior. What really causes behavior are the interactions between the elements of the system. In diagrammatic form:

systems (patterns of relationships) ---> patterns of behavior ---> events (snapshots)

It is commonly recognized that the power of statistical models is limited to explaining past behavior, or to predict future trends (as long as there is no significant change in the pattern of behavior observed in the past). These models have little to say about changes made in a system until new data can be collected and a new model is constructed. Thus, basing problem-solving upon past events is, at best, a reactive effort.

On the other hand, systems modeling is fundamentally different. Oncethe behavior of a system is understood to be a function of the structure and of the relationships between the elements of the system, the system can be artificially modified and, through simulation, we can observe whether the changes made result in the desired behaviors. Therefore, systems thinking, coupled with modeling, constitutes a generative --rather than adaptive -- learning instrument. 5

Thus, according to Senge:

Generative learning cannot be sustained in an organization if people's thinking is dominated by short-term events. If we focus on events, the best we can ever do is predict an event before it happens so that we can react optimally. But we cannot learn to create . (1990, p. 22) [emphasis added]

L EARNING IN O RGANIZATIONS

Once we embrace the idea that systems thinking can improve individual learning by inducing people to focus on the whole system, and by providing individuals with skills and tools to enable them to derive observable patterns of behavior from the systems they see at work, the next step is to justify why systems thinking is even more important to organizations of people. Here, the discipline of systems thinking is most clearly interrelated with the other disciplines, especially with mental models, shared vision, and team learning .

Patterns of relationships (or systems) are derived from people's mental models --their perceptions about how the relevant parts of a system interact with one another. Naturally, different people have different perceptions about what the relevant parts of any one system are, and how they interact with one another. In order for organizational learning to occur, individuals in the organization must be willing and prepared to reveal their individual mental models, contrast them to one another, discuss the differences, and come to a unified perception of what that system really is.

This alignment of mental models can be referred to as developing a shared vision, as is discussed in the first part of this paper. It is possible that mere discussion among individuals may lead them to a shared vision but, because problems are often too complex, usually this exercise requires the aid of some skills and tools developed by systems thinkers. Whether simple or complex frameworks are used (such as word-and-arrow diagrams or computer simulation), they are essential instruments to developing a shared vision.

When groups of individuals who share a system also share a vision about how the components of that system interact with one another, then team learning (or organizational learning) is possible. First, they learn from one another in the process of sharing their different perspectives. There are many organizational problems that can be solved simply by creating alignment. For example, cooperation is a lesson that is often learned by people who recognize that they belong to different interdependent parts of the same system.

Second, people learn together by submitting their shared vision to testing. When complex dynamics exist, a robust shared vision allows organizational members to examine assumptions, search for leverage points, and test different policy alternatives. This level of learning often requires simulation, which is a much more specialized systems technique. However, if the problems faced by the organization are among commonly observed patterns which have been previously studied, archetypal solutions may be available to deal with them. Later in this paper, we will discuss an example using an archetype commonly referred to as "growth and under-investment."

T HE F IFTH D ISCIPLINE, A M ETANOIA

Systems thinking represents a major leap in the way people are used to thinking. It requires the adoption of a new paradigm. Although there is no such a thing as a learning organization, we can articulate a view of what it would stand for. In this sense, a learning organization would be an entity which individuals "would truly like to work within and which can thrive in a world of increasing interdependency and change." (Kofman and Senge, 1993, p. 32)

And according to Senge, systems thinking is critical to the learning organization, because it represents a new perception of the individual and his/her world:

At the heart of a learning organization is a shift of mind --from seeing ourselves as separate from the world to connected to the world, from seeing problems as caused by someone or something 'out there' to seeing how our own actions create the problems we experience. A learning organization is a place where people are continually discovering how they create their reality. And how they can change it. (1990, pp. 12-13)

But, as we shall see next, systems thinking requires skills and tools which can only be developed through lifelong commitment. Plus, it requires that not just one, but many organizational members acquire them. Thus, some of the authors refer to learning organizations as �communities of commitment.�

S YSTEMS T HINKING S KILLS AND T OOLS

At the foundation of systems thinking is the identification of circles of causality or feedback loops. These can be reinforcing or balancing, and they may contain delays. But before we "close" the loops to distinguish among these terms, let�s examine two examples of flawed (or incomplete) thinking which take into account only partial relationships between elements of systems.

The first example is an unilateral perception of the arms race. The word-and-arrow diagram below illustrates, from the point of view of an American, the logic behind building U.S. armaments:

Foreign arms ---> Threat to the U.S. ---> Need to build U.S. arms 6

The diagram can be read as follows: The more foreign arms, the greater the threat to the United States and, thus, the greater the need to build U.S. arms to defend the country from these potential aggressors. This non-systemic view suggests that U.S. arms are a defensive response to the threat posed by other nations: "If only the other nations would reduce their armaments, then so would the United States."

The second example illustrates a simple view of the mechanism involved with adjusting the temperature in a room during a hot summer:

Current temp. too hot ---> Turning on the air-conditioner ---> Results in lower temperature

For all of us who know about the developments of the cold war, or who have experienced first-hand the extremely cold temperatures inside movie theaters in mid-July, it is no surprise that these two diagrams tell only part of the story. Yet, if asked to tell the whole story, many of us would draw alternative diagrams, instead of complementing these. Over time, systems thinkers developed conventions to illustrate relationships, and to capture the whole story in just one diagram. Moreover, they found it useful to distinguish between stories such as the ones told above.

R EINFORCING F EEDBACK

The arms race is an example of reinforcing (or positive or amplifying) feedback . Not only do more foreign arms increase U.S. arms, but more U.S. arms also tend to provoke increases in foreign arms. One reinforces the other:

" WIDTH=583 HEIGHT=300>

Although reinforcing feedback is commonly labeled as "positive" or "amplifying," this does not carry any value judgment. It simply means that a change in one part of the system causes a change in another part of the system which, in turn, amplifies the change in the first. Things do not always have to grow either. For example, a reduction in foreign arms will reduce the threat to Americans, which will probably cause a reduction in U.S. arms, which is likely to lead to further reductions in foreign arms (since U.S. threat to foreign nations is reduced.)

By itself, reinforcing feedback leads to either exponential growth or decay.

" WIDTH=391 HEIGHT=243>

B ALANCING F EEDBACK

Controlling room temperature is an example of balancing (or negative or controlling) feedback . In this case, a change in one part of the system causes a change in another part of the system which, in turn, counteracts the change in the first:

" WIDTH=464 HEIGHT=318>

If the Perceived Gap is positive, i.e., Current Room Temperature is greater than Desired Room Temperature , the A/C is adjusted upwards increasing the flow of colder air, thus reducing the gap. This is a balancing system because more adjustment means less gap, not more (unless, obviously, the adjustment is made in the wrong direction!). The leverage point in this system is desired room temperature. If it is set too low, as seems to be the case in shopping malls and movie theaters, the resulting room temperature may be too low for the casual wear people tend to use during the summer.

By itself, balancing feedback leads to goal-seeking behavior.

" WIDTH=392 HEIGHT=241>

The time dimension is another factor which tricks people who fail to think systemically. For example, because it takes time to build up foreign arms, an American may not perceive that action as resulting from a response to increases in U.S. arms, but rather as an independent aggressive initiative. Thus a more accurate representation of the arms race would be:

Sound systems thinking requires the utilization of a combination of reinforcing and balancing feedback loops, and the accurate identification of delays. Complex systems are composed of multiple feedback loops laid upon one another. Often, the behavior of the variables in these systems can only be understood through simulation. But, before we discuss simulation, let�s recognize the existence of certain archetypal structures which are commonly found, and for which behaviors are already well understood.

S YSTEM A RCHETYPES

A number of system structures or patterns of relationships are commonly found in a variety of settings. Some of these have been carefully studied, and their patterns of behavior and leverage points have been identified. Senge discusses them in The Fifth Discipline, Appendix 2 (pp. 378-390):

"Balancing process with delay"
"Limits to growth"
"Shifting the burden"
"Eroding goals"
"Escalation"
"Success to the successful"
"Tragedy of the commons"
"Fixes that fail"
"Growth and under-investment"

The arms race discussed previously could be used as an example of the "Escalation" archetype if we told the story using two balancing feedback loops, instead of just one large reinforcing feedback loop:

" WIDTH=521 HEIGHT=319>

The management principle derived from it is to look for a way for both sides to win, since their continued competition will lead to great costs and inefficiencies. Cooperation or mutual understanding is called for.

A practical application of a combination of the "Growth and under-investment" and "Eroding goals" archetypes was recently applied in a strategic planning effort for the Office of Disabled Student Services (DSS) of the University at Albany, State University of New York. Appendix A contains a copy of the analysis that was done for DSS. In this study, the authors suggested that the only way to respond effectively to the increased demand for services for disabled students at the University at Albany would be by increasing work capacity. Although this insight was not particularly dazzling by itself, when coupled with an evaluation that in the absence of resources to increase capacity, there would be slow but unequivocal tendencies to allow for the erosion of the quality of services traditionally offered by the Office, DSS� leadership recognized that this process was already in place, but no one had really noticed it. This is because there are delays in the system.

When system archetypes apply, it becomes easy to focus on high leverage points, and to identify and avoid symptomatic solutions to real problems. This is because the analysis which serves as the foundation for the archetypes has already been done. On the other hand, when the systems under study are more complex because they are composed of a combination of structures, it becomes important to build models and to simulate to confirm assumptions about behavior.

M ODELING & S IMULATION

Model building involves the conceptual formalization of mental models about the interrelationships between important elements in a complex system, for the purpose of examining the behavior of the variables of interest. Unfortunately, a great deal of modeling training, and experience is required to build good models, even simple ones. For this reason, so far, the literature in systems thinking for learning organizations has only traced a few steps in this arena. Usually, when modeling work is required, professional modelers are involved in the analysis to serve as the interface between those who know the system (the clients), and the mathematical formalization of the model.

The distinction between qualitative and quantitative systems thinking is commonly made by referring to the former as soft and the latter as hard system dynamics. At present, the contribution made by Senge to the field of organizational learning has relied primarily upon soft system dynamics. However, it is important to emphasize that the knowledge available today in the form of general principles, archetypes , etc., is the product of 30 years of hard system dynamics research and development. Thus, in general, the development of knowledge in systems thinking is highly dependent upon the latter, while its application has been very successful in the former.

Yet, system dynamics technology has progressed tremendously in the last few years. The availability of low-priced, user-friendly software for PCs (such as Stella II , produced by High Performance Systems) is extending the realm of quantitative analysis to amateur modelers. Moreover, the skills and tools needed are becoming available in a variety of settings, including K-12 education. Still, only a handful of people qualify as professional modelers, a fact which should serve as an alert with respect to the quality of the modeling being done in the field.

M ICRO- W ORLDS AND G AMES

Where formal models do exist, they serve the function of a learning laboratory for managers. Some of the commonly used micro-worlds are:

The People Express simulator
The Boom & Bust game
The Beer Distribution game

Each of these captures the dynamics of different systems, with different behaviors, leverage points, principles, etc. For example, the Boom & Bust and Beer Distribution games deal with different dynamics of the business cycle. Fish Banks, on the other hand, is modeled after the tragedy of the commons problem. In Stratagem, players make decisions about investment and consumption practices which carry short- versus long-term tradeoffs.

In each of these games, the objective is to understand the nature of the system at hand, and to extract some lessons about how to improve the conditions of the system or how to avoid problems inherently associated with the systems because of the nature of their structures. The underlying message is that structure determines behavior, and people can generally learn to identify what has to be done to deal with problematic behavior by "playing" with the system until they "understand" how it behaves.

C onclusion

The concept of the learning organization arises out of ideas long held by leaders in organizational development and systems dynamics. One of the specific contributions of organizational development is its focus on the humanistic side of organizations. The disciplines described in this paper �differ from more familiar management disciplines in that they are �personal� disciplines. Each has to do with how we think, what we truly want, and how we interact and learn with one another.� (Senge, 1990, p. 11) The authors of this paper see learning organizations as part of the evolving field of OD. To our knowledge, there are no true learning organizations at this point. However, some of today�s most successful organizations are embracing these ideas to meet the demands of a global economy where the value of the individual is increasingly recognized as our most important resource.

E ndnotes Click on numbers to get back.

1 This definition is an adaptation of the definition offered by French and Bell (1995, p. 28). It was developed by the Spring 1996 section of PAD633 Organization Development and Analysis course at the University at Albany, taught by Dr. Sue Faerman.

2 Because Peter Senge is so influential in the field of learning organnizations, his book The Fifth Discipline is cited here freqently. All references to The Fifth Discipline are indicated in parentheses as his 1990 work. All other references to works by Peter Senge in this paper are listed by title in parentheses.

3 On-line Lexical Database by researchers at Princeton, builds on the Oxford English Dictionary (1928).

4 Kofman and Senge argue that fragmentation is a cultural dysfunction of society because it is a byproduct of its past success.

5 Systems modeling and simulation are the foundation of systems thinking. This larger field is known as �System Dynamics,� founded by Jay Forrester of MIT in the 1960s.

6 Example extracted from Senge, 1990, pp. 69-73.

A ppendix A

A Systems Thinking Analysis Using a combination of archetypes for the Office of Disabled Student Services DSS), University at Albany, State University of New York

We draw upon Senge's systemic theory of what happened at People Express to help highlight the consequences of failure to address the issues identified in this strategic planning effort for DSS. ( The Fifth Discipline , pp. 130-135) The word and arrow diagram below is an adaptation from the one on p. 133. In it we will find three systems archetypes : (1) growth and under-investment (2) balancing process with delay, and (3) eroding goals. In the analysis, we highlight "the size of DSS� budget," but any other measure intended to improve the work capacity of the organization would also be appropriate, such as for example "using DSS� resources more efficiently" (by spending resources according to pre-defined priorities).

" WIDTH=610 HEIGHT=400>

Word-and-Arrow Diagram for DSS� Budget Problem

The positive feedback loop on the top-left of the diagram represents the growth in demand for services for disabled students (DS). This loop indicates that demand for and availability of services reinforce each other : the greater the demand, the more services are provided, which satisfies the needs of disabled students and leads to new demands. The growth in demand which triggered this process was caused by the passage of the Americans with Disabilities Act (ADA) of 1990. As previously mentioned, ADA defined disability more broadly and opened the doors of higher education to a much larger group.

The negative feedback loop on the top-right is a balancing loop which prevents the growth in services for disabled students to continue forever . It causes this growth to level-off when the work capacity of DSS has been met. Thus, the limiting factor in this system is the organization's work capacity . This is how it works: As demand grows, perceived performance (measured in terms of work capacity divided by demand) begins to fall. The reduced performance (in a given task) causes the quality of the work of the organization to fall, which consequently drives disabled students' satisfaction down. Eventually , reduced satisfaction will also cause demand to fall.

The work capacity of the organization does not stay fixed, however. This is captured in the third feedback loop, in the bottom of the diagram. This is also a balancing loop (negative), and it serves to balance the organization's perceived performance with its performance standard. This is how it works: Suppose DSS has a performance standard of one ( i.e., it wants its work capacity always to meet --or be equal to-- DS� demand). Then, as performance falls because of higher demand, this causes a perceived need to invest in the organization's capacity. If this investment occurs, eventually, it will serve to increase DSS� work capacity until perceived performance is finally equal to one. In other words, DSS� work capacity will be adjusted up or down depending upon its perceived performance and its performance standard .

So far, we have discussed (1) growth and under-investment and (2) balancing process with delay. The following observations should serve to underscore the conclusions from this exercise in modeling:

once demand for services for disabled students is triggered, there is a "snow-ball" effect which causes it to grow even more as a result of an increased level of availability of services;
demand grows until the work capacity of the organization has been met;
this causes performance to fall, raises DS� dis satisfaction, and, eventually, reduces demand;
the organization can respond by increasing investments to raise work capacity, however, there is a delay between making the investments and collecting payoffs from them;
in the mean time, DSS�performance and DS� satisfaction will fall;
the organization may over or under-estimate the amount of investment needed to meet demand;
if it over estimates demand, work capacity will build up beyond necessary causing performance to rise above the standard;
if it under estimates demand, work capacity will fall short of demand and performance will remain below standard;
the delay between making the investment and attaining a higher work capacity causes work capacity to always fall short of demand if demand is continuously growing ; and
the delay between increasing DSS' dis satisfaction and a fall in demand causes demand to grow much above what the organization's work capacity can handle.

The last two observations lead us into the last archetype in the diagram: eroding goals . There is reason to believe that under a scenario of increasing demand --because of the delay involved in building up the organization's work capacity and because of the gap in time between growing DS� dis satisfaction and fall in demand-- there will be a permanent gap in the organization's performance (between perceived and standard). If the organization allows its performance standard to slip because of this on-going experience with a lower performance level (positive link between perceived performance and performance standard), then the problems the organization is experiencing will be magnified. This is because performance standard will be allowed to fall below one, relieving the pressure to invest, lowering actual investment levels, and, ultimately and definitely, keeping work capacity from growing sufficiently to meet demand --indeed, helping increase the gap between DS� demand and DSS� work capacity.

This is probably the most important insight offered by this model. It says that an organization which has been suffering for some time with falling performance may never be able to return to previous performance levels simply because it lowered its standards . If this happens, the organization locks itself in a situation of low performance and high dis satisfaction. Naturally, the long-term result will be lowered motivation and morale within the organization. The solution to this problem is to bring the performance standard back up to adequate levels, and making sure that it stays fixed up there.

The above exercise underscores the significance of establishing and keeping track of performance measurements. It also clarifies why it is so important to focus services and establish priorities. Under a condition of increasing demand, it is very easy for one to fall into the trap of trying to do everything and unwillingly allow quality standards to fall. Keeping standards fixed and monitoring performance closely are key concepts not only to identifying much needed increases in work capacity, but also to help advocate increased budget allocations.

The model also suggests that the only way DSS will be able to meet its increasing demand is with increased investments in work capacity. Whether those resources should be raised internally, through federal, state and local agencies, through grant-writing and/or fund-raising initiatives will depend upon the evolving characteristics of the environment. Right now, grant-writing and fund-raising initiatives appear to be the most viable alternatives. If DSS wants to maintain its proactive standing in the region, then it must find ways to implement those alternatives .

A ppendix B - Definitions

ADAPTIVE v. GENERATIVE LEARNING (PROACTIVE v. REACTIVE) According to Fortune magazine, "the most successful corporation ... will be something called a learning organization , a consummately adaptive enterprise." [emphasis added] But Senge argues that increasing adaptiveness is only the first stage in moving toward learning organizations. The impulse to learn in children goes deeper than desires to respond and adapt more effectively to environmental change. The impulse to learn, at its heart, is an impulse to be generative, to expand our capability. This is why leading corporations are focusing on generative learning, which is about creating , as well as adaptive learning, which is about coping .

But generative learning, unlike adaptive learning, requires new ways of looking at the world. Generative learning requires seeing the systems that control events . When we fail to grasp the systemic source of problems, we are left to "push on" symptoms rather than eliminate underlying causes. Without systemic thinking, the best we can ever do is adaptive learning.

COMMUNITY DEVELOPMENT Those who believe in the need for shared vision have looked to groups that have this quality, and found them to be best characterized as communities. Companies redifined as communities see all employees as citizens, sharing in the decision-making and dedicated to a higher purpose.

CREATIVE TENSION The difference between where we are now and where we want to be results in a feeling that we need to change. This feeling is known as creative tension.

DEFENSIVE REASONING This is a barrier to learning for both the individual and the organization. We are afraid of embarrassment or perceived threats and that prevents us from having an open mind.

DETAIL v. DYNAMIC COMPLEXITY Detail complexity is simply when a problem involves several variables. D ynamic complexity are situations where cause and effect are subtle, and where the effects over time of interventions are not obvious.

Senge highlights that when the same action has dramatically different effects in the short-run and in the long-run, there is dynamic complexity. When an action has one set of consequences locally and a very different set of consequences in another part of the system, there is dynamic complexity. When obvious interventions produce non-obvious consequences, there is dynamic complexity.

Senge also argues that conventional forecasting, planning, and analysis methods are not equipped to deal with dynamic complexity.

FEEDBACK Any reciprocal flow of influence. In systems thinking it is an axiom that every influence is both cause and effect. Nothing is ever influenced in just one direction.

LEARNING LABS Computer simulations of "microworlds" that allow us to speed up time and see the results of actions that might be taken by an organization.

LEVERAGE Rather than use of a tool, it is through creative ideas, often from unexpected sources, applied to our work activities that gives leverage. A team working with a shared vision can through experimentation develop that extra edge, leverage.

METANOIA - A SHIFT OF MIND Systems thinking needs the disciplines of building shared vision, mental models, team learning , and personal mastery to realize its potential. Building a shared vision fosters commitment to the long-term. Mental models focus on the openness needed to unearth shortcomings in our present ways of seeing the world. Team learning develops the skills of groups of people to look for the larger picture that lies beyond individual perspectives. And personal mastery fosters the personal motivation to continually learn how our actions affect our world.

But systems thinking makes understandable the subtlest aspect of the learning organization --the new way individuals perceive themselves and their world. At the heart of a learning organization is a shift of mind --from seeing ourselves as separate from the world to connected to the world, from seeing problems as caused by someone or something "out there" to seeing how our own actions create the problems we experience. A learning organization is a place where people are continually discovering how they create their reality. And how they can change it.

SINGLE LOOP VS DOUBLE LOOP LEARNING Single loop learning is linear. It is trying to find a better way to do a process. It is comparable to continuous quality improvement. Double loop learning goes a step further and asks why we are doing the process in the first place. Should we be doing something else?

SYSTEM ARCHETYPES Systems Archetypes are generic structures which embody the key to learning to see structures in our personal and organizational lives. They are types of systemic structures that recur again and again. Their knowledge helps us to identify and understand the underlying causes of problems, possible leverage points, and so forth. Some examples of systems archetypes are:

balancing process with delay
limits to growth
shifting the burden
eroding goals
tragedy of the commons
growth and under-investment

The archetype template is a specific tool that is helping managers identify archetypes operating in their own strategic areas. The template shows the basic structural form of the archetype but lets managers fill in the variables of their own situation.

SYSTEMS ---> PATTERNS OF BEHAVIOR ---> EVENTS There are three distinct levels to view reality: events , patterns of behavior , and systemic structure . According to Senge, contemporary society focuses predominantly on events, less so in patterns of behavior, and very rarely on systemic structure. Leaders in learning organizations must reverse this trend, and focus their organization's attention on systemic structure. This is because event explanations --who did what to whom-- doom their holders to a reactive stance toward change; pattern-of-behavior explanations are limited to identifying long-term trends and assessing their implications --they suggest how, over time, we can respond to shifting conditions (adaptive learning); structural explanations are the most powerful --only they address the underlying causes of behavior at a level such that patterns of behavior can be changed (generative learning).

TEAM LEARNING A discipline that starts with "dialogue," the capacity of members of a team to suspend assumptions and enter into a genuine "thinking together." Team learning is vital because teams, not individuals, are the fundamental learning unit in modern organizations.

TRIPLE LOOP LEARNING Learning about learning. Understanding why we make the choices we do. What predisposes us to act in certain ways?

WHEEL OF LEARNING This model of learning is based upon observation of animals functioning in the wild. They wait, they focus, they strike, and then they wait again. People also alternate between activity and repose; to make effective change, this pattern must be tapped. The "wheel of learning" has four parts of its cycle--reflecting (thinking and feeling), connecting (looking for links or hypotheses), deciding (choosing an action), and doing. There are both individual and team versions of the cycle. David Kolb and Charles Handy are associated with this concept and Stephanie Spear developed a team variation.

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Building a Learning Organization

By ELM Learning

September 14, 2022

To practice a discipline is to be a lifelong learner. You never “arrive.” The more you learn, the more acutely aware you become of your ignorance. – Peter Senge

According to the World Economic Forum , the average lifespan of a Fortune 500 company is 40 to 50 years. While many of them are bought, sold, split, or merged, many simply cease to exist—ending years of blood, sweat and tears for a beloved product or cause.

Many succumb because they cling to the status quo; operating using outdated corporate models such as top-down force-feeding of company ideology and practices; doing what’s comfortable or familiar instead of taking risks and challenging the status quo. In fact, there’s a term for this practice: William Samuelson and Richard Zeckhauser introduced “status quo bias” to describe how most of us prefer to stick with what’s familiar.

Companies who shift from the familiar top-down corporate structure to a learning organization model have a better chance of creating an environment of continual growth, risk-taking, continual learning, collaboration—and a better chance of surviving in a very competitive environment.

What is a learning organization?

A learning organization can be defined as any organization that prioritizes personal and professional growth through knowledge transfer. These organizations encourage learning as part of their fundamental culture and overall vision for long-term success.

Peter Senge, author of The Fifth Discipline: The Art & Practice of The Learning Organization , popularized the term “learning organization” in the early 90s.

Senge is an advocate for decentralized leadership, a model in which all people in an organization can work toward a common goal. His Five Disciplines of a learning organization outline how that can happen:

Personal Mastery: In an interview , Senge called personal mastery the “cornerstone” of a learning organization. Personal mastery is the development of the capacity to accomplish personal goals; learning organizations make this possible by creating an environment where employees can, through reflection, develop their own sense of vision—how they look at the world, what matters to them, and what they are passionate about contributing to. Said Senge: “Personal vision is the soil in which shared vision can be grown.”
Shared Vision: A shared vision is only possible in an environment of trust and collaboration instead of compliance to directives from on high. Corporate leadership works together with employees toward a common vision—creating an environment where employees feel heard and are encouraged to take risks.
Mental Models : With a mental model, we understand how our deeply ingrained assumptions and generalizations affect our interactions and decisions. To paraphrase Senge: Understanding the difference between hearing what someone said, and truly understanding what they said, and understanding the gap between what actually happened and what we perceived happening requires reflection. “In a nonreflective environment, we take what we see as truth,” said Senge.
Team learning : Senge says that team learning can only happen when team members are “humble,” when they are willing to reflect and take into account other people’s views, suspending personal biases in order to work as a whole in a collaborative environment.
Systems Thinking: Systems thinking is the idea that we’re part of an interrelated system—not a disjointed set of personal silos; systems thinking addresses the whole and creates an understanding of how parts are interconnected. Senge said, “Systems thinking is a sensibility—for the subtle interconnectedness that gives living systems their unique character” (The Fifth Discipline, p. 69).

What does a learning organization look like?

So how are these disciplines actually reflected in a learning organization? Mike Pedler, John Burgoyne and Tom Boydell mirror Senge’s System Thinking discipline, stating that a learning organization (which they call a “learning company”) “is an organization that facilitates the learning of all its members and continuously transforms itself ( The Learning Company. A Strategy for Sustainable Development , page 1). “Learning of all its members” means that learning organizations must embrace learning at all levels, which means that management and executive-level employees have to embrace learning and foster creative thinking from the corner office to the production floor.

Digital Learning Manager and Leadership Development Associate Tami Zacharias describes three key aspects of a learning organization: 1) Learning Environment, 2) Learning Process & Practices, and 3) Leadership. In a learning organization’s learning environment, she says, “People need to feel safe to express their opinions, take risks, examine failure and challenge dominant ideologies. Differences are appreciated, and there is an openness to new ideas because it disrupts inertia and encourages innovation.”

Learning organizations also have a deep commitment to learning processes and practices. Zacharias says, “They collect all kinds of information from a variety of sources, both internal and external, analyzing and interpreting it to solve problems and identify trends.” Learning organizations also share their knowledge through training using a variety of methods. And they also use assessments to foster continual improvement.

“First and foremost,” says Zacharias, “leaders in a learning organization are learners themselves. They set the example for others and facilitate the learning environment, as well as learning processes and practices.”

Another aspect of a learning organization is that learning is happening all the time; learning never stops. In an environment with a strong shared vision, employees and executives alike are curious and emboldened to learn what they need to be their best. Learning organizations also learn from their mistakes and actively engage in problem solving to quickly pivot to better solutions.

How do learning organizations facilitate learning?

So now that we know what a learning organization looks like, how do they make learning happen? Organizations must develop a learning culture in which learning is continuous—in the form of online classes, tuition reimbursement, mentorships, on-the-job training, webinars, eLearning, in-person classes—the method depends on the learning goal.

Whatever the method, corporations need to meet learners where they are, which means providing learners with what they need to know to be successful and to grow in their jobs. If learners believe that what they’re learning will help them, they are very likely to be motivated to learn more, and be more engaged in their jobs.

To figure out what learners need, you have to ask them. Talk to managers and employees. Conduct surveys and focus groups. Take a trip to the production floor and conduct on-the-spot interviews. Talk to your HR Department. Shadow a few employees to identify areas of frustration and gaps in knowledge. All of these methods are not only good ways to determine what learners need, they create that all-important feeling that management cares about what they think, and wants to invest in their learning.

While training methods is the focus of another ELM article, learning organizations need to make sure that employee training is targeted—and convenient. Consider microlearning, which provides quick answers to targeted questions; gamification, which provides employees rewards such as badges and points; or mobile learning or mLearning , which is content written to be displayed on mobile devices—making it accessible whenever the learner needs it—wherever they are.

Want to learn more on different training methods ?

Benefits of a learning organization

Shifting from the traditional top-down corporate learning structure has a lot of benefits beyond fostering a healthy learning environment:

Happy employees means less turn-over. Employee buy-in and collaboration leads to happier employees, which leads to less turnover, and better news for the bottom line, as hiring then rehiring leads to higher training costs and more hours spent on training than performing the job.
A sense of community. When companies show employees that they care about their opinions, employees care more about the company, making them more invested and willing to work hard toward the company’s success.
New ideas and solutions. As Senge says, “creating an environment where employees feel heard and are encouraged to take risks” to challenge the status quo creates openness to innovative ideas and creative solutions.
Success based on knowledge sharing. With more people contributing to shared goals, there’s a better chance of success: sometimes, less is not more. When executives, managers, and employees aren’t working alone in their silos and instead depend upon each other, decisions are better-informed, as they are based on multiple opinions from the bottom to the top rungs of the corporate ladder.
Smarter employees! Companies who invest in their employees—giving them the tools they need to do their jobs better—makes employees more efficient and confident, and leads to innovation, more productivity, and better customer service when they apply what they’ve learned.

Where to start

Want to become a learning organization? The first step is to take a hard look at your organization. Are you open to change? What’s your current learning culture? Where are the learning gaps? Is senior leadership on board? If so, are they willing to talk the talk and walk the walk, showing all executives, managers, and employees that continuous learning at all levels is the new norm?

Assemble a team from all levels of your organization to identify shared values around company culture, learning and engagement. Remember: communicating company culture and telling employees what they must learn from the ivory tower is old school; collaboration from the bottom up creates accountability and buy-in.

Be prepared to make learning a habit, and make sure you are also prepared to allocate time for everyone to learn.

It’s worth taking risks and challenging the status quo: companies that embrace learning organization ideals are more likely to surpass that 40-50 year average life span.

Unleashing Employee Potential: 6 Strategies for Successful Talent Development

Why Videos and Mobile Learning Are the Perfect Match

Empowering Organizations: The Role of Enterprise Learning Management

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Defining Critical Thinking

A Brief History of the Idea of Critical Thinking
Critical Thinking: Basic Questions & Answers
Our Conception of Critical Thinking
Sumner’s Definition of Critical Thinking
Research in Critical Thinking
Critical Societies: Thoughts from the Past

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Creating a Corporate Social Responsibility Program with Real Impact

Emilio Marti,
David Risi,
Eva Schlindwein,
Andromachi Athanasopoulou

Lessons from multinational companies that adapted their CSR practices based on local feedback and knowledge.

Exploring the critical role of experimentation in Corporate Social Responsibility (CSR), research on four multinational companies reveals a stark difference in CSR effectiveness. Successful companies integrate an experimental approach, constantly adapting their CSR practices based on local feedback and knowledge. This strategy fosters genuine community engagement and responsive initiatives, as seen in a mining company’s impactful HIV/AIDS program. Conversely, companies that rely on standardized, inflexible CSR methods often fail to achieve their goals, demonstrated by a failed partnership due to local corruption in another mining company. The study recommends encouraging broad employee participation in CSR and fostering a culture that values CSR’s long-term business benefits. It also suggests that sustainable investors and ESG rating agencies should focus on assessing companies’ experimental approaches to CSR, going beyond current practices to examine the involvement of diverse employees in both developing and adapting CSR initiatives. Overall, embracing a dynamic, data-driven approach to CSR is essential for meaningful social and environmental impact.

By now, almost all large companies are engaged in corporate social responsibility (CSR): they have CSR policies, employ CSR staff, engage in activities that aim to have a positive impact on the environment and society, and write CSR reports. However, the evolution of CSR has brought forth new challenges. A stark contrast to two decades ago, when the primary concern was the sheer neglect of CSR, the current issue lies in the ineffective execution of these practices. Why do some companies implement CSR in ways that create a positive impact on the environment and society, while others fail to do so? Our research reveals that experimentation is critical for impactful CSR, which has implications for both companies that implement CSR and companies that externally monitor these CSR activities, such as sustainable investors and ESG rating agencies.

EM Emilio Marti is an assistant professor at the Rotterdam School of Management (RSM) at Erasmus University Rotterdam.
DR David Risi is a professor at the Bern University of Applied Sciences and a habilitated lecturer at the University of St. Gallen. His research focuses on how companies organize CSR and sustainability.
ES Eva Schlindwein is a professor at the Bern University of Applied Sciences and a postdoctoral fellow at the University of Oxford. Her research focuses on how organizations navigate tensions between business and society.
AA Andromachi Athanasopoulou is an associate professor at Queen Mary University of London and an associate fellow at the University of Oxford. Her research focuses on how individuals manage their leadership careers and make ethically charged decisions.

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Parent Resources for Learning > Critical Thinking > 5 Fun Critical Thinking Games to Play with Your Child

5 Fun Critical Thinking Games to Play with Your Child

by Dr. Jody LeVos | Mar 27, 2024 | Critical Thinking

Playing games is a great way for your child to develop their critical thinking skills—and the metaphor of a game is a great way to think about these important life skills!

Every time your child works through a problem they need to solve, a sequence they need to memorize, or a decision they need to make, they’re making their way toward the goal of improving their critical thinking.

It’s like a game where the reward at the end is better decision-making, stronger reasoning skills, and academic and professional success!

Kids will keep playing this game over the course of their lives, connecting new ideas to old ones and discarding one opinion for another. Each time, they’ll get better.

Ready to start? We’ve got some fun and easy game ideas for you!

The Short Cut

Critical thinking is one of the 5 C’s that help kids thrive in school and life (an essential part of the Begin Approach to learning)
The ability to think critically—as opposed to being intelligent—has been linked to wellness and fewer “negative life events”
Good critical thinking activities often involve following rules, breaking tasks into sequences, asking questions, and understanding multiple perspectives
Games (like this memory game ) are a fantastic way to develop critical thinking with kids because you can slip in challenges with the fun!

Why Is Critical Thinking Important?

Critical thinking is a necessary skill for understanding the world.

Through weighing options, studying different perspectives, and making good choices, our children can lead their lives in a positive and healthy way.

Critical thinking allows our kids to:

Analyze information and make decisions
Recall short sequences of information and simple instructions
Ignore distractions to focus on a task
Grasp the differences between sources of information
Reason using logic
Make connections between things

It’s one of the most important contributors to their overall well-being!

Fun Critical Thinking Games to Play with Your Child

6 Critical Thinking Exercises for Everyday Life

Games aren’t the only critical thinking exercises that work well for kids. They also encounter many opportunities to build their skills on any given day.

How can you tap into those chances? Try these techniques.

1. Explain Things

No doubt you often find yourself on the receiving end of your child’s questions. Try to answer all of them. Daunting as that might sound (we know!), this helps your child learn how to formulate the questions they need to ask to make good judgments.

2. Back Up Rules with Good Reasons

Help your child understand the reasons behind rules. (A typical Q&A volley: “Please find a quiet activity to do after dinner.” “Why?” “Because your brother is asleep and we don’t want to wake him up.”)

This kind of exchange allows your child to understand why you’re asking them to do something, which fosters critical thinking.

3. Play Real-Life Problem-Solving Games

Playing strategy games—even simple ones designed for kids—develops analytical skills. You can also have fun turning household tasks into problem-solving games, like figuring out which socks go to which person when you’re folding laundry.

4. Cultivate Curiosity

Encourage your child to ask questions and dig deep to find answers. Curiosity leads to challenging assumptions and gaining new information. Ultimately it helps your child develop complex thinking skills.

5. Encourage Open-Mindedness

Help your child learn to be flexible in their thinking by giving them time to gather information before they make decisions. Considering various solutions helps kids learn that more than one way to do things can be correct.

6. Model Analytical Thinking

Our kids are always watching us. One of the best ways to influence your child’s critical thinking skills is by talking through decisions as you make them. (“I want to walk to the store. I can take a shortcut, but it’s on that dirt path and I’m wearing new sneakers. I want to keep them clean, so I’ll walk on the road instead.”)

5 Games to Guide Your Child’s Critical Thinking

There are many educational critical thinking games you can play at home that help kids improve their skills! We’ve gathered a few we love:

This classic guessing game encourages analytical thinking and problem-solving skills (like deduction) as your child searches for specific objects based on clues.

Plus, it‘s highly portable! Play it in the car, on a walk, or even at the grocery store!

What You Need

Nothing except space!
Explain you’ll take turns identifying an object in your space.
Model the game by going first. Choose an object that both of you can see.
Then share one detail about it. (“I spy something purple.”)
Ask your child to guess what you’ve chosen.
If your child is stumped or getting frustrated, add more clues (“The purple thing is a food, and it’s over by the apples.”)
Trade roles so that your child chooses something for you to guess.

More Ways to Play

Choose different rules, such as “the object has to start with a specific sound or letter of the alphabet,” or “share three adjectives that describe the object,” or “make up one phrase this object might say”

2. Once Upon a Time

Storytelling is a great way to work on critical thinking skills like understanding cause and effect, choice-making, and sequencing. This game also taps into kids’ creativity (another one of the 5 C’s) through making up stories.

Nothing but your imagination!
Explain you’re going to build a story together by taking turns, one sentence at a time. You can give an example by reciting a story that your child already knows.
Give an exciting first sentence that jumps into action, such as, “Once upon a time, a kid was on a rocket ship headed to Mars, when a meteor hit and fuel began to leak.”
Ask your child to continue the story. If they get stuck, try asking them questions like “What did the rocket ship do next?” or “What did the kid do first to fix the problem?” or “How did the kid feel?”
Continue taking turns until you come to a natural ending.
Write down the story as you tell it, then read it out loud
Create a book out of the story, using paper, markers, and a stapler or tape (art projects use many critical thinking skills)
Use a prop to center the story around, like a toy or a stuffed animal
Go outside and tell a story based on what you imagine you see in the clouds

3. Bet You Can Build It!

Designing a structure takes curiosity, planning, trial and error, and problem-solving. You can turn this activity into a game by laying out rules to follow.

Marshmallows
Craft sticks
Cardboard tubes
Anything else you’ve got at home!
Gather your materials.
Give your child the rules for the building challenge. (“Create the tallest building you can without it tipping over” or “Use all the marshmallows and toothpicks.”)
Work on the structure together or each do your own.
Celebrate when you’ve finished!
Use a timer to add urgency to the game
Bring the game to the floor and use bigger building materials, like blocks or plastic bricks
Bring it outside and use objects found in nature

Get your child moving their whole body as they use planning, organization, and problem-solving skills to find their way through a maze.

A surface to draw on, like a sidewalk, driveway, or playground blacktop
Objects to use as obstacles
A finish-line treasure (a favorite toy, a treat, etc.)
Draw a maze with chalk. Try making a path by drawing borders on each side or a “tightrope” by only drawing one line your child will need to balance on as they walk.
Add dead ends to make the maze more challenging.
Use objects to create obstacles for your child to problem-solve a way past.
Add a treasure at the finish to engage their imagination.
Have your child start at one end and try to find their way through!
Hone in on the treasure component of the maze by creating a scavenger hunt .
Ask your child to draw a map of the maze when they’ve finished.

5. Obstacle Course

An obstacle course builds real-life skills. To get through their days, kids need to be able to remember lots of information (just think about all the rules at school!).

They also encounter problem-solving based on sequencing and memorizing shortcuts, directions, and solutions.

Think about learning how to write. Letters have to be in a specific order to make a word. That’s sequencing.

Or you may allow your child to walk to school or the bus stop on their own. That’s all about memorizing directions.

Obstacle courses can help them practice these skills!

Masking tape or chalk
Jump rope or broom
Big bouncy ball
Play tunnel, table, or chair
Board or pool noodle
Log and plank
Pillows, bean bag chairs, or large stuffed animal
Any other objects you want!
Gather your objects—you can play this game inside or outside.
Design a path for your child by placing interactive objects along it. For instance, they can jump over the broom, crawl under the table, and balance on the log and plank.
Show your child the sequence. You can demonstrate it or have them do a trial run.
Let them start!
Try asking your child to do the course backwards or blindfolded—with a partner!
On a hot day (and outdoors!), add water components like carrying a bucket of water or running through a sprinkler
Draw a map and instead of telling your child how to move through the course, give them the map to follow
Add a fun time component and challenge your child to finish the course faster each time they do it

Cultivating Critical Thinking Skills with Begin

Because critical thinking is such an essential skill set, at Begin we build it into our age- and stage-matched learning membership . Kids can learn sequencing, make their own games, do science experiments, and more with award-winning activity kits from Little Passports , the codeSpark coding app , and more!

Take our online quiz today to discover which stage of the Begin membership is best for your family!

As our Chief Learning Officer, Jody leads a highly knowledgeable team of early learning experts at Begin. She has a Ph.D. in Developmental Science, focused on children’s mathematical and cognitive development.

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6 Main Types of Critical Thinking Skills (With Examples)
Critical Thinking Skills
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Critical Thinking Definition, Skills, and Examples
How to promote Critical Thinking Skills
Critical thinking: an essential skill for every student

VIDEO

Reflective Writing & Critical Thinking||Unit-1||Part-1||TLP||Bsn 5th semester||In Urdu/English
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COMMENTS

Is Yours a Learning Organization?
Summary. Reprint: R0803H. An organization with a strong learning culture faces the unpredictable deftly. However, a concrete method for understanding precisely how an institution learns and
The learning organization: principles, theory and practice
Exhibit 1: Three definitions of a learning organization. Learning organizations [are] 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.
The Link between Critical Thinking and Organizational Performance
Critical thinking is generally defined as skillful analysis, assessment, evaluation and synthesizing of information. It requires objectivity, logic, openness, and a willingness to challenge your own and others' biases, beliefs, and conclusions. Critical thinking goes beyond learning and remembering information.
What Is a Learning Organization? +Benefits, Core Principles
Learning organizations encourage critical thinking, creativity, and collaboration, which lead to improved problem-solving and decision-making capabilities. Employees are empowered to think innovatively, explore multiple perspectives, and apply their knowledge and skills to address complex challenges.
Peter Senge and the learning organization
Leading the learning organization. Peter Senge argues that learning organizations require a new view of leadership. He sees the traditional view of leaders (as special people who set the direction, make key decisions and energize the troops as deriving from a deeply individualistic and non-systemic worldview (1990: 340).
Bridging critical thinking and transformative learning: The role of
In recent decades, approaches to critical thinking have generally taken a practical turn, pivoting away from more abstract accounts - such as emphasizing the logical relations that hold between statements (Ennis, 1964) - and moving toward an emphasis on belief and action.According to the definition that Robert Ennis (2018) has been advocating for the last few decades, critical thinking is ...
Approaches for Organizational Learning: A Literature Review
Abstract. Organizational learning (OL) enables organizations to transform individual knowledge into organizational knowledge. Organizations struggle to implement practical approaches due to the lack of concrete prescriptions. We performed a literature review to identify OL approaches and linked these approaches to OL theories.
Learning Organizations: From Invention to Innovation
Senge, the director of the Systems Thinking and Organizational Learning Program at MIT's Sloan School of Management, describes The Fifth Discipline as a compilation of the work of many people in the systems thinking field. ... Team learning consists of three critical dimensions: the need to think insightfully about complex issues; the need ...
The Learning Organization: Critical Analysis and Future Directions
This chapter contains a critical analysis of the learning organization (LO). As part of this agenda, the possibilities for a more positive agenda for LO are also explored. The chapter introduces a political perspective in which LO is seen as part of power relations that produce particular types of learning.
What Is A Learning Organization? The Learning ...
In the book, Senge defined a learning organization as one: "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. In an increasingly innovative and transformative world, only those ...
5 Key Traits Of Learning Organizations
4. Forward-Thinking Leadership (Shared Vision) The fourth way to identify a learning organization is to look for forward-thinking leaders. The enthusiasm and dedication starts from the top. Managers, supervisors, and trainers must be committed to the process and have a "shared vision".
Learning Organization: What Is It And How To Build One
Learning organizations advocating for critical thinking, creative endeavors, and collaboration pave the way for refined problem-solving and decision-making capabilities. Employees are encouraged to think outside the box, explore diverse viewpoints, and employ their expertise and abilities to navigate intricate challenges.
Senge's Five Disciplines of Learning Organizations
The five disciplines of learning organizations are as follows: Building a Shared vision. Systems Thinking. Mental Models. Team Learning. Personal Mastery. In the next paragraphs we'll further explain each of these disciplines. Figure 1 - the Senge five disciplines of learning organization. 1.
The Practices That Set Learning Organizations Apart
Organizations are struggling to keep pace with the new skills needed in their workforces, thanks to large-scale trends such as the shift to digital business models and the increased adoption of workplace automation, AI, and advanced analytics. The pandemic accelerated those trends, putting an increased premium on learning and development (L&D ...
Learning Organizations
Organizational learning involves individual learning, and those who make the shift from traditional organization thinking to learning organizations develop the ability to think critically and creatively. These skills transfer nicely to the values and assumptions inherent in Organization Development (OD).
Learning Organization
Overall, systems thinking is a critical component of a learning organization, and it requires a commitment from both the individual and the organization. By fostering a culture of systems thinking, organizations can develop a more holistic understanding of their operations, identify areas for improvement, and achieve better results. Personal ...
Critical Thinking
Join Us Online! The Foundation is a non-profit organization that seeks to promote essential change in education and society through the cultivation of fairminded critical thinking--thinking which embodies intellectual empathy, intellectual humility, intellectual perseverance, intellectual integrity and intellectual responsibility.
What Are Critical Thinking Skills and Why Are They Important?
It makes you a well-rounded individual, one who has looked at all of their options and possible solutions before making a choice. According to the University of the People in California, having critical thinking skills is important because they are [ 1 ]: Universal. Crucial for the economy. Essential for improving language and presentation skills.
Building a Learning Organization
Digital Learning Manager and Leadership Development Associate Tami Zacharias describes three key aspects of a learning organization: 1) Learning Environment, 2) Learning Process & Practices, and 3) Leadership. In a learning organization's learning environment, she says, "People need to feel safe to express their opinions, take risks ...
Defining Critical Thinking
Critical thinking is, in short, self-directed, self-disciplined, self-monitored, and self-corrective thinking. It presupposes assent to rigorous standards of excellence and mindful command of their use. It entails effective communication and problem solving abilities and a commitment to overcome our native egocentrism and sociocentrism.
Organisational Learning—A Critical Systems Thinking Discipline
Discipline. This pa per dea ls with the applicatio n of critical system s thinking in the domain of organisational. learning and knowledge management. Its viewpoint is that deep organisational lea ...
PDF Organizational Learning Culture and its Effects on Critical Thinking
organizational learning culture on critical thinking skills of female teachers in higher education sector in Punjab. Hypothesis of Study Based on the above discussion following hypothesis is derived There is a positive and significant relationship between organizational learning culture and critical thinking skills of female teachers.
Creating a Corporate Social Responsibility Program with Real Impact
Exploring the critical role of experimentation in Corporate Social Responsibility (CSR), research on four multinational companies reveals a stark difference in CSR effectiveness. Successful ...
Critical Thinking Games: 5 Engaging Activities for Children
Cultivating Critical Thinking Skills with Begin Because critical thinking is such an essential skill set, at Begin we build it into our age- and stage-matched learning membership . Kids can learn sequencing, make their own games, do science experiments, and more with award-winning activity kits from Little Passports , the codeSpark coding app ...

Peter Senge and the learning organization

Peter Senge

The learning organization

Systems thinking – the cornerstone of the learning organization

The core disciplines

Leading the learning organization

Issues and problems

Further reading and references

30 The Learning Organization: Critical Analysis and Future Directions

Introduction

A Political Perspective on Lo

The Production of Learning

Practices of the Self

Reflective and Reflexive Practices

1st, 2nd, and 3rd Generation LO

1st Generation LO

2nd Generation LO

3rd Generation LO: LO as an Emancipatory Space

Moving Towards Reflexive Dialogical Practices in 3rd Generation LO

Concluding Remarks

This Feature Is Available To Subscribers Only

What Is A Learning Organization? The Learning Organization In A Nutshell

Understanding a learning organization

Senge’s five disciplines of a learning organization

Systems thinking

Personal mastery

Mental models

Knowledge sharing

Shared vision

Drawbacks of Learning Organizations

Cultural Challenges:

Implementation Difficulties:

Potential for Misalignment:

When to Use the Learning Organization Model

Strategic Application:

How to Use the Learning Organization Model

Implementing Learning Structures:

Integrating Learning with Operations:

Evaluating and Adapting:

What to Expect from Implementing the Learning Organization Model

Increased Employee Engagement and Innovation:

Challenges in Implementation:

Long-Term Organizational Benefits:

Key takeaways

Key Highlights

Connected Learning Frameworks

More Resources

About The Author

Gennaro Cuofano

What Is A Learning Organization And How To Become One

What Is A Learning Organization?

What Are The Five Characteristics Of A Learning Organization?

Building a shared vision

Personal mastery

Mental models

Team learning

Systems thinking

How Can You Identify A Learning Organization?

Benefits Of A Learning Organization

Empowering Employees for Enhanced Productivity

Boosting Employee Engagement and Drive

Mitigating Employee Attrition

Facilitating Knowledge Sharing

Amplifying Innovation and Creativity

Enhancing Problem-Solving and Decision-Making Proficiency

What Are Some Examples Of A Learning Organization?

Amazon: Championing Self-Initiated Growth

Pixar: Cultivating Team Learning and Discarding Presumptions

12 Ways To Build A Learning Organization

Establishing Vision and Securing Commitment

Analyzing the Present State

Formulating a Learning Strategy

Constructing an L&D Team

Investing in L&D Infrastructure

Utilizing Diverse Learning Techniques and Styles

Enabling Effortless Knowledge Access and Just-in-time Learning

Encouraging a Culture of Experimentation and Learning from Failures

Supporting Learning Advocates

Implementing Feedback and Evaluation Systems

Ensuring Continuous Improvement and Adaptability