PAPER ON EXPERTISE AND LEADERSHIP THE KEY FOR LEARNING ORGANIZATION

Abstract:
This paper is exploring about the learning of organization for the knowledge management of the company. Learning organization is a group of people who are continually enhancing their capabilities to create what they want to create has been deeply influential. We discuss the five disciplines he sees as central to learning organizations and some issues and questions concerning the theory and practice of learning organizations. Knowledge management (KM) comprises a range of strategies and practices used in an organization to identify, create, represent, distribute, and enable adoption of insights and experiences. Such insights and experiences comprise knowledge, either embodied in individuals or embedded in organizations as processes or practices. A learning organization combines the essential elements of strategy development and personal development. It creates a space for people to achieve tremendous business and personal results. It values the scientific method of hypothesis development, testing and validation, as well as the personal development pathway found in the concepts of "personal mastery."

Significance: Why do we need Learning Organization?

Because we want superior performance and competitive advantage For customer relations To avoid decline To improve quality To understand risks and diversity more deeply For innovation For our personal and spiritual well being To increase our ability to manage change For understanding For energized committed work force To expand boundaries To engage in community For independence and liberty For awareness of the critical nature of interdependence Because the times demand it

Because we need a different way of viewing the process of conducting activity in a business environment and of achieving change within that environment. Our existing views and ways of understanding are not keeping up with the realities of that environment or with our own belief system which defines that environment. Answer is?

Its more fun to go to work in learning organizations. Learning organizations give people hope that things can be better Learning orgs provide a playground for creative ideas Learning orgs provide a safe place to take risks with new ideas and behaviors and the challenge needed to stretch beyond perceived limits In learning organizations everyone's opinions are valued and amount that people can contribute is not determined by position in the organization

Because it's 'in touch' with a fundamental part of our humanity -- to learn, to improve our environment, to be active actors, not passive recipients.

Learning Organization A Learning Organization is an organization that learns and encourages learning among its people in an effort to create a more knowledgeable and flexible workforce capable to adapt to cultural changes.

Definition "Organizations 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" (Peter Senge, 1990).

Learning Organizations Characteristics The following are some common characteristics found in Learning Organizations:

Are adaptive to the external environment Continually enhance their capability to change and adaptation Develop collective as well as individual learning Embrace creative tension as a source of energy and renewal Foster inquiry and dialogue, making it safe for people to share openly and take risks Link individual performance with organizational performance Provide continuous learning opportunities Use the results of learning to achieve better results Use learning to reach their goals

The basic rationale for such organizations is that in situations of rapid change only those that are flexible, adaptive and productive will excel. For this to happen, it is

argued that organizations need to discover how to tap peoples commitment and capacity to learn at all levels and that the pressure of change in the external environments of organizations... is such that they need to learn more consciously, more systematically, and more quickly than they did in the past... they must learn not only in order to survive but also to thrive in a world of ever increasing change

Learning Organization Concepts

Focus
1.

The concept of Learning Organization Practices The adoption of Total Quality Management practices

Continuous A learning organization should Development consciously and intentionally devote to the facilitation of individual learning in order to continuously transform the entire organization and its context Culture A learning organisation should be viewed as a metaphor rather than a distinct type of structure, whose employees learn conscious communal processes for continually generating, retaining and leveraging individual and collective learning to improve performance of the organizational system in ways important to all stakeholders and by monitoring and improving performance

2.

Creation and maintenance of learning culture: adopting to cultural change, collaborative team working, employee empowerment and involvement, etc.

3.

Innovation & Organization learning is the process Creativity by which the organization constantly questions existing product, process and system, identify strategic position, apply various modes of learning, and achieve sustained competitive advantage

Facilitation of learning and knowledge creation; focus on creative quality and value innovation

ORGANIZATION LEARNING VS LEARNING ORGANIZATION

There is a difference between Organizational Learning and Learning Organization. Argyris (1977) defines Organizational Learning as the process of "detection and correction of errors" while Senge (1990) defines Learning Organization as "a group of people continually enhancing their capacity to create what they want to create". He further remarks that "the rate at which organizations learn may become the only sustainable source of competitive advantage". Ang & Joseph (1996) contrast Organizational Learning and Learning Organization in terms of process versus structure.

TOPIC FOR DISCUSSION

Promote and reward expertise. Todays workforce is more specialized than ever. Your most talented people in sales, manufacturing, engineering, and design are not in management they are doing their jobs. High-impact learning organizations unleash these experts and put in place programs to promote and reward even greater levels of expertise. You should also reward such expertise. Give engineers career progression in their discipline; give people time to study and improve their own skills; publicize and

promote the success of experts. Such programs tell the organization that expertise matters and we are willing to invest in your own skills. Remember that corporate learning is informal and HR doesnt own it. If you ask any business leader how people learn, their most common answer is on the job. And this is correct sales people learn by making sales calls, engineers learn by doing design, customer service people learn by solving problems. The key to success then is not to provide a lot of formal training, but rather create an environment that supports rapid on-the-job learning. Unleash the power of experts. And remember that experts are everywhere, so let people share what theyve learned easily. A great example of such knowledge sharing is the Cheesecake Factorys video learning portal. The head of corporate training for this fast-growing food chain put in place a YouTube-like learning portal which lets any employee upload a video of themselves doing their job well. Employees can share how to make a hamburger or how to best clean the floor and share it in any way they wish. Within only a few weeks of building this system people rapidly started using their cell phones to create instructional videos and share hilarious stories about how they solve problems on the job. The system went viral in a few weeks.

Demonstrate the value of formal training Formal training has not gone away, and it still plays a huge role in career development and professional networking. If you have lots of formal training available, managers should be incented to promote such opportunities and help people make time to learn. Yes, it might take them away from their jobs for a few days, but ultimately the return is much greater productivity and satisfaction. Allow people to make mistakes. The best organizational learning (and individual learning) occurs right after you make a huge mistake. These are the most important learning opportunities your company has.

What happens in your organization when someone fails or makes a mistake? Do you punish the participants? Or do you take the time to diagnose what happened and put formal programs in place to improve? One of the tenets of six-sigma is continuous improvement and the foundation of continuous improvement is a culture of learning from mistakes. In a learning organization, leaders are designers, stewards and teachers. They are responsible for building organizations were people continually expand their capabilities to understand complexity, clarify vision, and improve shared mental models that is they are responsible for learning. Learning organizations will remain a good idea until people take a stand for building such organizations. Taking this stand is the first leadership act, the start of inspiring (literally to breathe life into) the vision of the learning organization. Leader as designer The functions of design are rarely visible, yet no one has a more sweeping influence than the designer The organizations policies, strategies and systems are key area of design, but leadership goes beyond this. Integrating the five component technologies is fundamental. However, the first task entails designing the governing ideas the purpose, vision and core values by which people should live. Building a shared vision is crucial early on as it fosters a long-term orientation and an imperative for learning Leader as steward One of the important things to grasp here is that stewardship involves a commitment to, and responsibility for the vision, but it does not mean that the leader owns it. It is not their possession. Leaders are stewards of the vision, their task is to manage it for the benefit of others Leaders have to learn to listen to other peoples vision and to change their own where necessary. Telling the story in this way allows others to be involved and to help develop a vision that is both individual and shared. Leader as teacher Leader as teacher is not about teaching people how to achieve their vision. It is about fostering learning, for everyone. Such leaders help people throughout the

organization develop systemic understandings. Accepting this responsibility is the antidote to one of the most common downfalls of otherwise gifted teachers losing their commitment to the truth. Leaders have to create and manage creative tension especially around the gap between vision and reality. Mastery of such tension allows for a fundamental shift. It enables the leader to see the truth in changing situations.

Politics and Vision To think through and define the specific purpose and mission of the institution, whether business enterprise, hospital, or university. To make work productive and the worker achieving. To manage social impacts and social responsibilities. (op. cit.) He continues: None of our institutions exists by itself and as an end in itself. Everyone is an organ of society and exists for the sake of society. Business is not exception. Free enterprise cannot be justified as being good for business. It can only be justified as being good for society. (Drucker 1977: 40)

CONCLUSION We could say that while there are some issues and problems with his conceptualization, at least it does carry within it some questions around what might make for human flourishing. The emphases on building a shared vision, team working, personal mastery and the development of more sophisticated mental models and the way he runs the notion of dialogue through these does have the potential of allowing workplaces to be more convivial and creative. The drawing together of the elements via the Fifth Discipline of systemic thinking, while not being to everyones taste, also allows us to approach a more holistic understanding of organizational life If you build a culture which gives people time to reflect, develop and share expertise, stay close to customers, and learn from mistakes you will outdistance your competition and thrive in the face of huge market change. Take a lesson from companies like Apple, IBM, and Google: build expertise and promote organizational learning, it will pay off big time.

REFERENCE:

PETER SEGE BILIOGRAPY WORLD STARDARDS FORBES.COM AMBN AMBRO PROJECT DONE http://www.infed.org/thinkers/senge.htm HOME LINE THINKERS READERS