Learning Organizations

Think of an Organization Where: You can experiment It was ok to make (and admit) a mistake Furthering your education / development was not just encouraged, but expected Leadership has open door policies Leadership openly seek critiques of the organization Enjoy going to workplace

Daniel Pink - Drive Three Principles Autonomy: Power to choose your direction Mastery: Support for Professional Development Purpose: Having a sense of meaning to your job and feeling valued

Google as an Example Employees’ ideas are considered as important as executives’ ideas 20% Project New Parent Benefits $500 Take out benefit first 6 weeks at home 18 weeks paid leave for mothers 7 weeks paid leave for fathers Free gourmet, healthy meals on site TGIF sessions with leaders where any question can be asked

Other Qualities Active efforts to identify and solve organizational problems Failure is Rewarded / Encouraged Encourages new approaches Encourages experimentation Lessons Learned Sharing failures / successes Looking beyond your organization Pathways to transfer knowledge

Other Qualities Cont. Time Experiment Education / Professional Development Create a Desire for Change & Improvement Collaborative Efforts Does not necessarily equate to more meetings! Make “Work” a place employees want to come to

Are There Other Qualities Systems Thinking Process Improvement Networks, relationships, team-centric approaches Self-Organizing (trust in mid-level management and employees) What Else?

Systems 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

Personal Mastery  organizations learn only through individuals who learn  never reach destination; should be in continuous learning mode  Work to clarify and deepen personal vision  deeply aware of growth areas and gaps between vision and reality

Shared Vision  A genuine vision leads to people wanting to excel and learn  Leaders must translate personal visions into shared visions  Unearthing shared ‘pictures of the future’ that foster genuine commitment rather than compliance  Leaders learn the counter-productiveness of trying to dictate a vision, no matter how heartfelt. (Senge 1990: 9)

Team Learning  Team learning starts with ‘dialogue’= the capacity of members of a team to suspend assumptions and enter genuine ‘thinking together’  Allows the group to discover insights not attainable individually  Shows group how to recognize the patterns of interaction that undermine learning (Senge 1990: 10)

A Learning Organization Is... Where people continually expand their capacity to create the results they truly desire Where new patterns of thinking are nurtured Where collective aspiration is set free Where people are continually learning to see the whole together “When you ask people about what it is like being part of a great team, what is most striking is the meaningfulness of the experience. People talk about being part of something larger than themselves, of being connected, of being generative.” (Senge 1990: 13)