The Society for Organizational Learning

1. The Society for Organizational Learning Founded April 1997

2. SoL A global, enabling network where dialogue, research, collaborative action, and learning can take place

3. SoL Purposes Who We Are: Practitioners, Researchers, Capacity Builders • An intentional learning community composed of organizations, individuals, and local SoL communities around the world. We are a not-for-profit, member-governed corporation. • SoL connects corporations and organizations, researchers and consultants to generate knowledge about and capacity for fundamental innovation and change through collaborative action inquiry projects

4. SoL Goals • More than simple collaboration -- we strive to develop the researcher, capacity builder and practitioner in each of us! • As an action learning community, we generate real business and social system results • new intellectual capital and • on-going personal and professional networks • Purpose: discover (research), integrate (capacity development) and implement (practice) theories/practices of organizational learning for the interdependent development of people and their institutions and communities to continuously increase capacity to collectively realize our highest aspirations and productively resolve our differences

5. It is through these goals: that organizations are truly worthy of the commitment of their employees and communities

6. The Dilemma • Pressures created by issues tend to keep leaders in a continual doing rather than reflecting mode. • Tools and methods and, as important, the quality of relationships and common concerns within the SoL community, can create unique opportunities for leaders to meet and genuinely think together, the real meaning of dialogue. • Sustaining this opportunity may be vital in developing new capacities for shared understanding and coordinated action.

7. Topics of Concern • The social (and economic) divide • The system seeing itself • Redefining growth • Variety and inclusiveness • Attracting talented people and realizing their potential • The role of the corporation

8. The Social (and Economic) Divide • Existence of an ever-widening gap between those participating in the increasingly interdependent global economy and those not, both between and within different countries • “Digital Divide" is one dimension of this. • However, framing the problem this way invokes technological responses, not deeper inquiries into the forces behind and consequences of globalization

9. The Social/Economic Divide - 2 • Anti-globalization movement is growing not because people lack access to the Internet but because they feel a profound sense of dislocation and threat. • Moreover, collaborative inquiry possibilities are diminishing as fear and distrust grows. • What are leading corporations doing today to address these issues, and how are they making it part of their business?

10. The Social/Economic Divide - 3 • What are the ranges of innovations that must be considered for the future? • in market growth • human resources • ownership and governance • What new relationships are developing among: • corporations • NGOs • Local governments

11. Mirroring - The System Seeing Itself • Challenges for coordination and coherence in social systems, be they global corporations, industries, or still larger systems • Organizations traditionally oscillate between decentralization when business is good • Yielding: lack of clarity, waste, unnecessary internal conflicts, confusion and frustration for customers, and inability to work productively for the common good, both the firm's and society's • and centralization when it is not • central control is inevitably limited in diverse, geographically distributed enterprises

12. Mirroring -2 • Consider alternatives to central control in achieving high levels of coordinated action • What sorts of capabilities, technologies, and infrastructures need to be developed to help people better see how local actions impact extended, interdependent systems that are invisible locally, as well as the overall performance of the enterprise? • How do we balance autonomy with health of the whole

13. Redefining growth: • Economic growth based on ever-increasing material use and discard is inconsistent with a finite world, and finite capacity to dissipate waste • Business and financial models depend on growth • if a company fails to grow in revenues and profits, it is out of the game and others who embrace growth will take its place • Rethink bringing growth into harmony with the natural environment. • Reconceive growth and success • Base healthy economies on continuing increase in value created rather than on continuing increase in material throughput • What are the implications of such a shift, for business, financial markets, customers, and investors?

14. Variety and inclusiveness: • Develop inclusion as a core competence in increasingly multi-cultural and diverse organizations • Organizations that learn to learn better across cultural, gender, and ethnic boundaries and learn to make differences in how people think and learn an asset rather than a liability will have unique advantages in today's world • Corporations must reflect better the world's people in their composition

15. Attracting talented people and realizing their potential • Develop commitment in a world of "free agents" and "volunteer" talent. • The very concept of "employee" may be an Industrial Age notion that is becoming increasingly irrelevant and even counter-productive • Organizational boundaries are more ambiguous as mergers, acquisitions, strategic alliances and diverse forms of partnership continually reconfigure businesses. This makes people's organizational affiliations also more ambiguous

16. Attracting talented people and realizing their potential -2 • Against this backdrop of flux and uncertainty rest unchanging personal desires for friendship and identity with meaningful work • How can we rethink the equation for loyal and generative partnership between the individual and organization?

17. The role of the corporation • Extend the traditional role of the corporation, especially the global corporation, to be more commensurate with its impact • If national governments are weakening in an era of growing globalization, will global corporations become more exposed? • How do global corporations act responsibly in situations where the rule of law is deteriorating and economic power effectively supersedes political power?

18. The role of the corporation -2 • What can be learned from efforts such as The UN's Global Compact about the feasibility and impact of initial moves in this direction? • How can global corporations better understand what determines their "license to operate" and their "license to grow"? • How can they use their visibility to be a more positive force in a complex world?

19. The SoL Driving Force • Peter Senge – Founding Chair of the Council • Thomas J. Cummings, Unilever, Rotterdam, Netherlands • Gary Mayo, Visteon Corporation, Dearborn, MI • Valerie Micklus, AT&T, Bedminster, NJ • Tony Reese, Harley Davidson Motor Company, Milwaukee, WI • Jim Tebbe, Shell People Services, London, United Kingdom

20. Primary Global Forum Team • Australia • Austria • Denmark • Finland • France • Germany • USA

21. AT&T CommunityDTE Energy CommunityFedEx CommunityFord CommunityFounding SoLFujitsu CommunityGlobal Leadership InitiativeHP CommunityHarley-Davidson CommunityIntel CommunityKnowledge and Innovation NetworkNSA CommunityPetrotrin CommunityPublic Sector CommunitySanofi CommunitySaudi Aramco CommunityShell CommunitySoL Asthma FractalSoL AustraliaSoL AustriaSoL BrazilSoL Chile-Santiago SoL PeruSoL PolandSo ScotlandSoL SingaporeSoL SpainSoL SwedenSoL Sweden-WestSoL TasmaniaSoL ThailandSoL TurkeySoL US MidwestSoL USWestSoL VenezuelaSoL-UK (London)Sustainability ConsortiumUnilever CommunityVisteon CommunityWorld Bank CommunityYouth and Education Network Where SoL Happens SoL ChinaSoL ColombiaSoL DenmarkSoL EgyptSoL EuropeSoL FinlandSoL FranceSoL GermanySoL HungarySoL IndiaSoL IranSoL IsraelSoL JapanSoL MalaysiaSoL MexicoSoL NetherlandsSoL NorwaySoL Oregon SoL Palestine