Transcript Slide 1

The making of the
By
Dr. Sam Saker
• What “Learning Organization” means?
• The five disciplines (brief overview)
• What are the main Characteristics of the Learning
Organization?
• Why become a “Learning Organization”?
• How can we evolve into a “Learning Organization”?
• Its building blocks
• Example of success
• First (baby) steps
What does “Learning Organization”
mean?
A learning organization is "an
organization that is continually
expanding its capacity to create its
future"
"an organization skilled at creating,
acquiring, and transferring knowledge,
and at modifying its behavior to reflect
new knowledge and insights.”
Senge
-1990
Garvin
-1993
Peter Senge [1994] proposed the framework of
the learning organization:
Personal mastery (learning individual).
Mental models (learning individual).
Shared vision (learning team).
Team learning (learning team).
 Systems thinking (learning
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organization).
Personal Mastery
Individual learning as prerequisite to OL
True individual learner never arrives – Life-long!
It is a process – one can never possess it as an end!
Personal mastery people are aware of their
ignorance, their competence, their growth areas.
 They are deeply self-confident!
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Creative Tension
Back
Mental Models
 Assumptions, generalizations, pictures and images that
influence how we see the world an take actions.
 We are often unaware of their impact.
 To do, we need to look inward Discover our mental
models, bring them to surface, and question them.
 Ability to hold meaningful conversations with others
exposing own thinking effectively to others’ influence
 Free of internal politics & ‘games’  fostering
openness.
Building Shared Vision
 Genuine vision results in people excelling and learning
because they want to.
 The lack exists in failure to translate vision into shared
vision.
 How? By unearthing shared ‘Pictures of the future’
causing genuine commitment and enrolment rather than
compliance.
 Dictating a vision is counter-productive.
Team Learning
 The process of aligning and developing the capacities of
team to create the results its members truly desire’
 It builds on personal mastery and shared vision.
 Also needs people to act together (learning together 
growing together  rapid organizational success)
 It starts with ‘dialogue’  Suspended assumptions 
entering into thinking together  results not attainable
individually!
 Learning how not to interact in teams (avoiding the
negative)
Systems thinking
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The cornerstone of the learning organization
Organizations must be viewed as complex systems.
We must see organizations as dynamic processes
Result in more appropriate actions
Cause and effect are far apart – Long range…
Resist focusing on close solutions (usually having near
relief but long range costs)
System blindness  ‘cycles of blaming and selfdefense’
The Laws of the Fifth Discipline
• Today’s problems come from yesterday’s
“solutions”
• The harder you push, the harder the system
pushes back
• Behavior grows better before it grows worse
• The easy way out usually leads back in
• The cure can be worse than the disease
• Faster is slower
The Laws of the Fifth Discipline
• Cause & effect are not closely related in time
and space
• Small changes can produce big results – but
the areas of highest leverage are often the
least obvious
• You can have your cake and eat it too – but not
at once
• Dividing an elephant in half does not produce
two small elephants
• There is no blame
What are some characteristics of
a true “Learning Organization”?
• It has a culture where the company regards changing as
learning and learning as the cornerstone
• It’s actions are proactive rather than reactive or adaptive
• Learning is integrated with business objectives and
strategies
• Learning is regarded as an ongoing process
What are some characteristics of
a true “Learning Organization”?
• Learning focuses values and competencies development through risk
taking & shared experience while maintaining damage limitation
through developmental support systems (individuals are encouraged to
take risks and learn what they themselves find necessary for achieving
organization’s goals while being trusted and made responsible)
• Experience is regarded as the ultimate stage of learning
• Learning utilizes the idea of "The Learning Wheel"
Understand
&
Question
What is the “Learning
Wheel” concept?
• Replicate
• Fulfill shared vision of
Organization mission in
a community like
environment
• Follow the Formula
• Mass Production
• Create profits
• Innovate for
Customer
Satisfaction
Bureaucracy
• Rising Share Value (For
investors)
• Hierarchy-Vertical
The
• Versatile
• Cross-trained
Learning Org
7-Points
Skills
Difference
• Chain of Command
Structure
• Narrowly specialized
• Big Picture at Top
• Network-Horizontal
• Many Project Teams
• Big Picture with All
• Flexible Job Boundaries
• Standardized
Style
• Passion about their
work
• Coordinated by Rules
•Standard OPs
• Role clarity
• Informal
• Dispassionate
• Coordinated by Mutual
• Creativity - Learning
• Conformity
• Participation dialogue
• Please the boss
• Politics: priorities/strategies
• Everything is in Place
Adjustments
Why become a Learning
Organization?
Why become
A Learning
Organization
Why become
A Learning
Organization
“The real competitive advantage for
organizations is their ability to learn faster
than the competition, to generate and share
knowledge and to continuously improve.”
-Peter Senge
How can we become a true
“Learning Organization?”
It starts with
leaders
 Leaders set the necessary conditions for
developing an effective learning
capability.
 Leaders take strategic action and make
specific interventions to ensure that
learning can occur.
How
1. They develop a widely shared vision supported
by employees to influence the learning
capability of the organization.
2. They introduce and maintain mechanisms to
facilitate the transfer of knowledge between
work teams…
What are the Building Blocks of a
true “Learning Organization”?
1. CLARITY AND SUPPORT FOR
MISSION AND VISION
2. SHARED LEADERSHIP AND INVOLVEMENT
Nortel has frequent training sessions
and workshops that include all
employees, where some seniors and a
manager are always part of.
3. A CULTURE THAT ENCOURAGES
EXPERIMENTATION
At 3M, experimentation is built into work activities!!!
At Hewlett-Packard  time-activated obsolescence !!!
4. ABILITY TO TRANSFER KNOWLEDGE
ACROSS ORGANIZATIONAL BOUNDARIES
Xerox and AT&T have programs that benchmark
the managerial practices of the best companies in
an industry and their competitors!!!
5. TEAMWORK AND COOPERATION
Honda is the best example of a
learning company with a strong focus
on teamwork and cooperation.
SUPPORTING FOUNDATIONS
EFFECTIVE ORGANIZATIONAL DESIGN
EMPLOYEE SKILLS AND COMPETENCIES
 A Detroit (USA) luxury car manufacturer embarked on a
new car program, Epsilon – 3-years tight deadline.
Challenges:
-Meeting many quality standards
- Staying within Budget
- Delivering before deadline
The Journey of Success
- Teamed up with a consulting-research team from MIT.
-A "core learning team" was formed with ten Epsilon managers
and several staff from MIT
-Began learning and practicing the basic concepts and tools of
learning organization
- Leadership group first engaged themselves in some very
serious learning and change
- Began to teach and coach the rest of the Epsilon staff with
the help of internal consultants
- Training agenda and content wad developed by the Core
Learning Team.
-Investigate the biggest challenges and strengths!
- Main focus
“Why are our parts always late?”
- Began to teach and coach the rest of the Epsilon staff with
the help of internal consultants
-Working together  system map (casual loops)  Root Cause &
Point of Leverage were discovered!!!
Root cause/leverage point
Engineers not reporting problems until very late 
causing other dependent elements delays  compounding
the problem!!!
Why this happened consistently?
"engineering culture" (don't report any problem until you know
the solution)… plus …
“company culture” (reporting problems would be held against
persons)
 Repairing the Root Cause
-Establishing greater trust "bearing bad tidings is safe".
- No one has all the answers (even managers).
- The good of the whole program was more important than some
individuals fears
 Chief Aim: Create a culture very different from the one
they have experienced many years at their company!
 Repairing the Root Cause
- Engineers make their own decisions  cross-functional
collaboration was expected and rewarded.
- These insights were developed first among the core learning
team, over eight months of regular meetings.
- “Learning labs” were held, firstly involving one quarter of
entire staff, with many briefings and discussions held with all of
them. (focusing on changing the norm of communication)!!!
 Repairing the Root Cause
-The learning labs included various experiential methods.
- Employees saw senior Epsilon managers actually change their
own behavior  Less authoritarian, more open to other view
points, and collaborating on solutions instead of punishing
against reported serious problems and punishing honesty)
 SUCCESS
 Launch of the new model went smoothly, on-time (as
intended) instead of the usual last-minute panic and
pandemonium
 The project was also well under budget, saving some $60
million in re-tooling costs
 Customer reaction and various quality measures on the new
vehicle were also well above previous levels.
“It is the nature of man to rise to greatness if
greatness is expected of him.”
--John Steinbeck
Eliminate barriers that impede learning
First
Steps
" Organization-wide learning involves change in culture
and change in the most basic managerial practices, not
just within a company, but within a whole system
of management. ... I guarantee that when you start to
create a learning environment, people will not feel as
though they are in control."
--Peter Senge
A one time improvement does not equal
Learning Organization…
Shell Oil planning director Arie de
Geus, says that over the long run,
superior performance depends on
superior learning.
“The person who figures out how to
harness the collective genius of the
people in his or her organization is going
to blow the competition away.”
Walter Wriston -- Citibank CEO
“The most successful corporation of the
1990s will be something called a
learning organization, a consummately
(perfectly) adaptive enterprise.”
Fortune Magazine
By
Dr. Sam Saker
Thank you very much