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Chapter 10 ■ The learning organization
Skills in new systems, procedures, etc are developed and practised. The learn-
ing vehicles include change workshops, staff training, surveys, etc. Here aware-
ness of the process is high and the level of personal risk taking at its highest.
Management support for risk taking is vital, as is an understanding that the
most important process here may well be experimentation. Early attempts to
use a new approach enable us to identify the modifications usually needed to
make it work effectively. This is the process within which individual learning is
at its highest and is therefore the time during which organizational learning
should be maximized. Yet how often do we seek to capture the lessons from
early change trials and change workshops in order to transfer systematically the
emerging best practice?
The final process is that of developing excellence through long practice. Here
the learning vehicle is performance management systems and includes attention
to personal development and organizational learning. Now the competence
becomes so practised that we no longer think about it. It becomes embedded in
the organization, part of the background. Thus it is that further learning
demands the specific attention that performance management systems (use of a
balanced scorecard, value-added approaches, performance appraisal, etc.) can
provide. Here, as excellence in performance is achieved, the rate of learning
declines.
Overall then there is an obvious dilemma. Compare this model with the
coping cycle model. In the middle of the change process, just as learning is
at its fastest, self-esteem is at its lowest. Thus it is that people need encour-
agement, support, role models (the superuser concept) and the security which
comes from being able to go through the learning process in clear and incre-
mental steps and at their own pace. Do things fast by moving slowly becomes
the watchword!

Conclusion

Some argue that we learn too little from history. A.J.P. Taylor, the famous histo-

rian, argued that we learn too much – always seeking to adapt structures which
earned us past success rather than adapt to changes. The dilemma is that cus-
tomer service requires consistency, reliability, efficiency and stability while
change and learning is necessarily a volatile, questioning process. Thus we seek
means of combining certainty and stability with adaptability and the ability to
‘flex’ to changing needs.
While many argue that the key to developing a learning culture is concern for
people, this seems not to be obviously true – even though this does not make
concern for people undesirable nor vitiate the notion that you may need it for
other reasons. As has been argued, learning appears not to be an issue of moti-
vation as such. Rather it may be one of removing constraint in order that a nat-
ural tendency to development and learning can be harnessed by the
organization. Does this leave us with the thought that learning, both a cognitive
experiential and social process, is nevertheless a process largely the preserve of a
cognitive elite?

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