Building Learning Organization

1. Building Learning Organization A training session presentation

2. Session outline • Learning: Organizational perspectives • Learning organization and its elements • Practices and imperatives to build learning organization

3. Forethought Real learning gets to the heart of what it means to be human. Through learning we re-create ourselves.  - Peter M. Senge

4. Learning Organization Picture exercise • What comes in our mind when we talk about learning organization? Please express in picture or diagram. • Time: 5 minutes

6. Learning Organization • Learning organisation is one that manages its own learning processes to its advantage Where, • people continually expand their capacity to create the results they truly desire • new and expansive patterns of thinking are nurtured • collective aspiration is set free

7. Learning Organization • The learning organisation is not a defined end state. It is the journey, not the destination, a ‘process of becoming’. • People are continually learning how to learn together. In a learning organization, when one of us gets smarter, we all can get smarter.

8. Why learning organization?- 3Cs • Complexity • Situations that are difficult to understand, have considerable ambiguity and uncertainty, and often have no “solutions,” only options and tradeoffs • Chaos • Seemingly random events that have an underlying pattern (which is difficult to discern) • Change • turbulent environments in which the future is difficult to predict or control

9. Elements of Learning Organization Personal Mastery Shared vision Mental models System Thinking Team Learning

10. Personal Mastery

11. Personal Mastery • Organizations learn only through individuals who learn • Never “arrive”; in continual learning mode • Strive to clarify and deepen personal vision • Deeply aware of growth areas and tension between vision and reality

12. Personal mastery

13. Reflect upon your vision • State how you want to see yourself in your life in …years down the road • State your career goals • State a significant effort you are making to reach each goal

14. Mental Models

15. What’s the Problem? • Many of the best ideas never get put into practice • Why??? • Because they conflict with deeply held internal images of how the world works • These images limit us to familiar ways of thinking and acting • We keep making the same mistakes over and over again--we’re not learning

16. Mental Models • The images (attitudes and assumptions) we carry in our minds about ourselves, other people, institutions, and every aspect of the world which guide our interpretations, actions, decisions and behavior.

17. Exercise: Video • Watch the video • Note the points you value in your notebook • List some of your own mental models about the clip

19. Shared Vision

20. Shared Vision • Building a sense of commitment in a group, by developing shared images of the future we seek to create, and the principles and guiding practices by which we hope to get there. • With shared vision, people excel and learn not because they are told to do, but because they want to • The driving force, ‘creative tension’ for change

21. Team learning

22. Team Learning • Transforming conversational and collective thinking skills, so that groups of people can reliably develop intelligence and ability greater than the sum of individual members’ talents. • Basis of organizational learning and change

23. System Thinking

24. System thinking • Interdependency and change • Focus on whole not individual parts • Long-term goals vs. Short-term benefits • Better appreciation of systems leads to more appropriate action

25. “Maybe pushing on that wall to the right will give some space.”

26. “Oops!”

27. The six learning disabilities • I am my position • The enemy is out there • Illusion of taking charge • Fixation of events • Delusion of learning from experiences • Myth of the management team

28. Exercise

29. Assessment Result

30. Building Learning Organizaiton

31. Building Blocks • Supportive learning environment • Psychological safety • Appreciation of differences • Openness to new ideas • Time for reflection

32. Building Blocks • Concrete learning processes and practices • Experimentation • Information collection • Analysis • Education and training • Information transfer • Leadership that reinforces learning

33. Imperatives • Understand and communicate the “main thing” that is central to success • Create alignment around the main thing by giving everyone a “line of sight” • Utilize multiple perspectives to gain a systems understanding • Maintain fluid communications across permeable boundaries • Support continual training, learning and practice • After Action Review (AAR)

34. Leadership skills to foster learning • Developing intellectual curiosity • Asking open questions • Maintaining non-defensive reactions • Examining assumptions • Slow down the game

35. KM System: The foundation

36. Final thought • An organization’s ability to learn, and translate that learning into action rapidly is the ultimate competitive advantage. - Jack Welch

37. Further Readings Hughes, M.(1995), Propagating the Learning Organization, Financial Training Review Pedler, M., Burgoyne. & Boydell, T.(1991), The Learning Company, McGraw Hill Senge, P., The Fifth Discipline, Centuary Mayo, A., & Lank, E. (1995), Changing the Soil Spurs New Growth, Personnel Management David A. Garvin, Amy C. Edmondson, and Francesca Gino (2008). Is Yours a Learning]Organization? Harvard Business Review, March: 109-116.

38. It’s time for Feedback Basanta Raj Sigdel Nepal Administrative Staff College Cell 9841310840 Email: brsigdel@nasc.org.np