What is a Learning Organisation Comparing models of organisational learning and development

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What is a Learning Organisation?Comparing models
of organisational learning and development
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Training policy programmes
What's wrong with the Strategy Training Model?
Mission
Know-how for competitive advantage performance
Staffing plan
Skill gaps filled by
Demand for skills

• recruitment,
• redundancies
• redeployment

Skills audit
Data for audit
Performance review
Development needs
Data to integrate individual organisational
needs
Current performance
Development action
Training, seminars, delegation, coaching, private
study, day release, learning company, IIP
Improved capability, competence motivation
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Employee development approaches?

• Laissez-faire - little or no training
  interest/activity
• Training for workforce maintenance induction,
  product, SoPs
• Technical (know-how) training
• Recognising, valuing accrediting
  competencies (NVQs)
• Systematic staff devel appraisal, resourcing,
  coaching mentoring
• Empowerment through know
• Supported self-organised learning, L3 CPD
• Management development
• Off-the-job vs. on-the-job
• Central training vs. devolved and out-sourced
• ICT supported learning
• Voluntarism and Investors in People
• Learning Company model (abstraction). What is the
  concrete form?

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Investors in People National voluntarism
accreditation to promote Er-led, quality,
effective staff development

• written plan business goals/targets, how
  employees will contribute, assess needs etc.
  Identify TD resources
• agree TD needs with each employee. Link to NVQ
  if poss. Action train new recruits improve
  skills of existing staff
• Review investment, competence commitment of
  employees skills learnt against business plan
  at all levels
• TD effectiveness reviewed by top level è renewed
  commitment targets

• top level, commitment to develop all employees to
  achieve business objectives
• regular review of TD needs of all staff
• action to train develop individuals on
  recruitment throughout employment
• evaluate TD to assess achievement improve
  future effectiveness

Why do it?
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What is a Learning Organisation?

• "The essence of organisational learning is the
  organisation's ability to use the amazing mental
  capacity of all its members to create the kind of
  processes that will improve its own" Nancy Dixon,
  1994
• "Organisations 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 learn together"
• Senge P. 1990 The Fifth Discipline The art and
  practice of the learning organization, Century
  Business/Doubleday.

• an abstraction
• pundits concepts
• introduced into imperative language
• Contingency viewresponsiveness to forces
  environment developments otherwise we atrophy
  die
• supply-chain learning
• be excellent, bright successful

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Rowden on Learning Organisation

• a model of strategic change in which everyone is
  engaged in identifying and solving problems so
  that the organisation is continuously changing,
  experimenting and improving, thus increasing its
  capacity to grow and achieve its purpose.
• Rowden R.W. 2001, The Learning Organisation
  Strategic Change, S.A.M. Advanced Management
  Journal, Summer 2001, Vol 66, Issue 3 pg 117p

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Organisation Development - definitions

• Richard Beckhard Sloan School of Mgt 1969
• an approach to bring about..
• planned change (a programme) using behavioural
  science knowledge.
• organisation-wide, managed from the top
• increase organisational effectiveness through ..
  planned, systematic interventions in the
  organisation's behavioural processes

Ralph Stacey 1993 Strategic Management ".a
long-term programme of interventions in the
social, psychological and cultural belief systems
of an organisation. These interventions are based
on certain principles practices which are
assumed to lead to greater organisational
effectiveness" Soft versus Hard?
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Kolb Experiential Learning Cycle
A model for personal awareness development
D Kolb, Rubin McIntyre Organisational
Psychology, Addison Wesley
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LO systems, mechanisms and processes

• Learning organisations are those that
• have systems, mechanisms processes in place,
• are used to continually enhance their
  capabilities and those who work with it or for
  it, to achieve sustainable objectives - for
  themselves and the communities in which they
  participate.
• What systems, mechanisms and processes?

• Requires
• Trust, consistency, attitude of inquiry
• High levels of communication
• Concern for interdependencies interrelationships

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M. Pedler al The Learning Company - 11
characteristics

• Adopt a learning approach to strategy
• Participative policy making
• Informating (Information Systems)
• Formative accounting valuing,
  self-responsibility, appraisal, targeting,
  resourcing and review
• Internal exchange (client-server relationships)
• Reward flexibility
• Roles and flexible, matrix structures
• Boundary workers as intelligence agents
• Company-to-company learning
• Learning climate
• Self-development opportunities for all

http//sol.brunel.ac.uk/bola/culture/learnco.html
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Pedler stresses that

• the model is
• a simplification, symbolic rather than concrete,
  not complete or rigid, not sequential
• So what is it then
• a paradigm of discourse?
• A state of being?
• starts with strategy, ends with creation of
  learning opportunities bubbling.
• Flowery, metaphorical talk of ecological flows,
  energies, life forces balances"vertical
  horizontal loop energy flows providing linkages
  between individual collective activity/change
  dynamics between vision action".

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Peter Senges Five Disciplines
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Five Disciplines - expanded

• Systems thinking
• mind shift understanding change processes.
• feedback to reinforce/counteract action.
• recognise recurring structures
• remove root causes/problems
• Personal Mastery
• personal competence and vision
• developing patience to look at reality
  objectively
• Mental Models
• changing ingrained assumptions about influencing
  factors.
• Shared Vision
• use instincts, intuition by sharing personal
  vision
• pictures of the future
• Team Learning
• dialogue, discussion, group relationships
• accelerate org. learning thru. Synergy 225

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Reality and Problems? Personal Mastery

• Making It Work
• Managers must
• redefine their job 
• provide the right conditions for employees to be
  proactive 
• Generating a sense of purpose

How can this be operationalised? Evidence of
it happening well?

• The Tricky Part
• Resistance to PM due to difficulty in quantifying
  results 
• Ideas behind PM have been heard before  
• People forced to develop PM - may do more harm
  than good

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Reality and Problems? Mental Models
How can this be operationalised? Evidence of
it happening well?

• Making It Work
• Skills learnt must be
• put into regular practice 
• continually challenged 
• Strong role of manager to integrate mental
  modelling and systems-thinking skills 

• The Tricky Part
• Managers not always very skilled in implementing
  new ideas 
• People find it difficult to challenge assumptions
  they believe to be the case 
• Some people act in routinised ways when they are
  at work

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Reality and Problems? Shared Vision
How can this be operationalised? Evidence of
it happening well?

• Making It Work
• the focus and energy for learning 
• put together by many not a few 
• better when considered intrinsically at the
  organisational level.

• The Tricky Part
• Compliance not commitment 
• Extrinsic visions are usually personally held and
  are defensive 
• Vision is usually top-down - do not have as good
  an affect as they should.

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Reality and Problems? Team Learning
How can this be operationalised? Evidence of
it happening well?

• Making It Work
• Everyone must pull in the same direction 
• Teams must master the art of dialogue and
  discussion 
• Conflict can still appear in good team learning
• BUT essentially a unitary frame of reference

• The Tricky Part
• practice, and consistency, no quick fixes
• boredom sets in  
• open minded with ones own views and the views of
  others

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Reality and Problems? Systems Thinking
How can this be operationalised? Evidence of
it happening well?

• Making It Work
• Management must
• understand concepts to put into place
• look at the whole picture, not snap shots in
  time
• provide the right workplace conditions

• The Tricky Part
• People find it hard to see the whole pattern of
  change
• takes time to see newly initiated ideas work
• easier to learn at an early stage rather than
  uncouple tangled messes

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Inhibitors to Becoming a Learning Organisation

• Operational / Fire-fighting
• Short term fixes rather than long-term solutions
• How to focus on embedded systems and processes
• Reluctance to train (or invest in training)
• Too many hidden personal agendas
• Tension between top-down order and bottom up
  anarchy
• Management exasperation?
• The knee-jerk reaction to Theory Y failure?

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Hot air, recursive polemic?

• The LO characteristics become
• an energetic, normative, persuasive device for
  those wishing to manage change.
• a professional "change agents'" model?
  Independent of the context or analysis of change
  processes?
• prescriptions - commitments to flexible,
  self-managing, incremental, experimental,
  participative activities ?
• ethically correct, personal values model?

How well does down-sizing and asset stripping fit
in?
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Training

• Training by its nature pre-specifies outcomes.
  
• A planned process to modify attitude,
  knowledge, or skill behaviour through learning
  experience to achieve effective performance in an
  activity or range of activities. Its purpose, in
  the work situation, is to develop the abilities
  of the individual and to satisfy the current
  future
• Manpower Services Commission, 1981

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London Borough of Dickens

• Achieved IiP status early 2001
• Appraisals
• Programme of Training Courses
• Dept-wide Training Initiatives
• Modern Apprenticeship, NVQs
• Valuing Diversity
• Lets Talk, Talk Back

• Still creaky, bureaucratic
• Training budget agreed
• 1/3 held back for mgt development training!
• Mgt visibility - MbWA - not obvious!

How would you research the evidence for L.B.
Dickens being a learning organisation?
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Training Courses - LB of Dickens

• 1 5 days e.g.
• Corporate induction
• Health Safety Intro. to customer care
  Managing absence
• Recruitment selection Leadership for Team
  Coordinators
• Staff appraisal recruitment skills equal
  opportunities
• Using Windows XP
• Often external trainer - out-sourced. Problems of
  on-the-job follow-up integration into job
  performance
• Longer then a week e.g.
• Two weeks Database Developer
• Day-release for Postgrad (MBA/MSc)
• Professional training e.g. ACCA, CIMA, RICS
• Diploma in Social Work
• NVQs and Modern Apprenticeship

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LB of Dickens Action on Internal training

• Corporate training at LBD put higher on agenda
• Corporate aims adopted at dept level.
• focus on ensuring that staff attend certain
  compulsory courses.
• Non-compliance means staff will be unable to
  undertake key elements of work which may cause
  serious effects on department operations.

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LO and Transformational Leadership?

• Assertion
• Managers and senior executives who are successful
  leaders will not only respond to change
  positively but also actively create change.
• Characteristics
• Leaders with a particular drive, a desire to
  bring order out of chaos, or, if something is too
  cosy, to create chaos in order to bring change.
• projecting a particular ethos and culture
• powerful vision of where their companies or their
  societies are heading.

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Transformational leadership theory

• Context? late-20thC national global pol-econ.
  change
• Contributors Downton (1973), Burns (1978), Bass
  (1985), Bennis Nanus (1985), Tichy Devanna
  (1986)
• Bass surveyed 70 execs"In your careers, who
  transformed you in Burns' terms (raised
  awareness, move up Maslow hierarchy . to
  transcend self-interest).
• Answer usually an organisational superior.

• fresh thinking?
• transformational leader creates conditions for
  followers to want to achieve results and to
  fulfil themselves.
• bridges small group studies leadership by
  movers shakers who transform organisations

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From Laissez faire to Transactional

• Laissez-faire not really leaders at all, avoid
  intervention, weak follow up, passivity,
  potential for confusion
• Transactional leaders
• Management by exception
• Passive set standards/objectives, wait for,
  react to, reluctant intervention. Status quo
• Active standards/objectives, monitor, correct,
  look for error,
• enforce rules/procedures. Low initiative and
  risk-taking
• Constructive transactions, contingent rewards
• agree standards/objectives, feedback, rewards
  for achievement.
• outcome performance that meets expectations.
• simplified in One-Minute Manager (Blanchard
  Johnson 1982)
• Airport business library

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Transactional leadership in perspective

• Mixed evidence - it may be desirable, even
  necessary. Contingent rewards underpin PRP
• laissez-faire transactional in directive,
  consultative, participative delegative styles
• Directive 'These are the rules and this is how
  you've broken them'.
• Participative 'Let's work out together the rules
  to identify mistakes'
• Weaknesses
• Carrot/stick rewards, emphasis on plans, targets,
  systems, controls
• management gt leadership
• Assertion fails to develop, motivate, bring to
  full potential (Bass)

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Transformational leader (Basss four 'I's)

• promotes
• follower desire for achievement
  self-development.
• teams, esprit de corps, autonomy, synergy,
  belief, value
• Four 'I's.
• lndividualised consideration (IC)
• Intellectual stimulation (IS)
• Inspirational motivation (IM)
• ldealised influence (charisma) (II)

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Individualised consideration Intellectual
stimulation

• IC
• identifying individuals' needs abilities,
  opportunities to learn, delegating, coaching and
  giving developmental feedback. Spend time with
  individuals e.g. mentoring.
• IS
• question status quo, encourage imagination,
  creativity, logical thinking and intuition.
• unorthodoxy in character, symbolise innovation.
• compare UK motorcycles Swiss watch market to
  Sony

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Inspirational motivation ldealised influence

• Inspirational motivation
• clear vision, problems as opportunities, language
  symbols
• I had a dream ...
• Ask not what America can do for you. Ask what
  you can do..
• go the extra mile. Iacocca at Chrysler.
• ldealised influence
• Confident in communicating a virtuous vision
• the buck stops here'. Purpose, persistence,
  trust, accomplishment over failure. Respected for
  personal ability

• Leadership .. the priceless gift you earn from
  those who work for you. I have to earn the right
  to that gift, and continuously re-earn (it).
• John Harvey-Jones (ICI)

• Gandhi, Luther King, Thatcher, Blair
• Hitler, Jim Jones

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Bass's model
II
effective
IM

• Learn TL!!
• Avolio-Bass training package

IS
IC
CR
MbEx-A
passive
active
MbEx-P

• Encouraging TL will
• project confidence, commitment competence
• attract quality staff to the mission challenge
• develop people more fully to respond better to
  competition change

Laissez Faire
ineffective
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Motorola's six-Sigma programme.
6

• Transformational leadership application
• defect-free parts within six standard deviations
• concepts, symbols and vision for world-class
  quality
• IS, IM, IC in promoting awareness,
  responsibility and self-monitoring

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Is transformational leadership cross-cultural?

• exporting participative management or Theory Y
  from the USA to authoritarian cultures is like
  'preaching Jeffersonian democracy to managers who
  believe in the divine right of kings'.
• Haire, Ghiselli and Porter 1966
• Leadership - a universal phenomenon?
• context and culture influences
• Bass presents evidence from studies in Italy,
  Sweden, Canada, New Zealand, India, Japan and
  Singapore
• suggests that the notion needs only fine-tuning
  across cultures

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Examination Questions

• Training is obviously necessary and Development
  is fashionable
• Discuss.
• It is glib to talk of a learning organisation.
  The concept is gloss and elusive. Demonstrating
  it in action is more difficult . Almost anything
  could be presented to say that a L-organisation
  exists and operates yet many could also present
  instances to refute the proposition.
• Discuss.