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Assi Lo

The document discusses five main characteristics of a learning organization: 1) Systems thinking - Viewing the organization holistically and using information systems to measure performance across the organization. 2) Personal mastery - Individual commitment to lifelong learning through training and developing a culture that supports learning. 3) Mental models - Challenging assumptions through an open culture that promotes inquiry and trust to replace old behaviors with new learning.

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82 views1 page

Assi Lo

The document discusses five main characteristics of a learning organization: 1) Systems thinking - Viewing the organization holistically and using information systems to measure performance across the organization. 2) Personal mastery - Individual commitment to lifelong learning through training and developing a culture that supports learning. 3) Mental models - Challenging assumptions through an open culture that promotes inquiry and trust to replace old behaviors with new learning.

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m_4_maina9376
Copyright
© Attribution Non-Commercial (BY-NC)
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LEARNING ORGANIZATION

A learning organization exhibits five main characteristics: Systems thinking, Personal mastery, Mental models, A shared vision, and A team learning.

Systems thinking: The idea of the learning organization developed from a body of work called systems thinking. This is a conceptual framework that allows people to study businesses as bounded objects. Learning organizations use this method of thinking when assessing their company and have information systems that measure the performance of the organization as a whole and of its various components. Systems thinking state that all the characteristics must be apparent at once in an organization for it to be a learning organization. If some of these characteristics are missing then the organization will fall short of its goal. However OKeeffe believes that the characteristics of a learning organization are factors that are gradually acquired, rather than developed simultaneously.

Personal mastery: The commitment by an individual to the process of learning is known as personal mastery. There is a competitive advantage for an organization whose workforce can learn more quickly than the workforce of other organizations. Individual learning is acquired through staff training and development; however learning cannot be forced upon an individual who is not receptive to learning. Research shows that most learning in the workplace is incidental, rather than the product of formal training; therefore it is important to develop a culture where personal mastery is practiced in daily life. A learning organization has been described as the sum of individual learning, but there must be mechanisms for individual learning to be transferred into organizational learning.

Mental models: The assumptions held by individuals and organizations are called mental models. To become a learning organization, these models must be challenged. Individuals tend to espouse theories, which are what they intend to follow, and theories-in-use, which are what they actually do. Similarly, organizations tend to have memories which preserve certain behaviors, norms and values. In creating a learning environment it is important to replace confrontational attitudes with an open culture that promotes inquiry and trust. To achieve this, the learning organization needs mechanisms for locating and assessing organizational theories of action. Unwanted values need to be discarded in a process called unlearning. Wang and Ahmed refer to this as triple loop learning.

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