How do you define a Learning Organization?

A learning organization is one that seeks to create its own future; that assumes learning is an ongoing and creative process for its members; and one that develops, adapts, and transforms itself in response to the needs and aspirations of people, both inside and outside itself (Navran Associates Newsletter 1993).

What is the first thing that pops into your head when you hear the words learning organization? For me, the words school, a company, development, planning and education come to mind straight away. As well as being interesting, the definition from the Navran Associates Newsletter highlights how the organization reaches success. It is characterised by a recognition where individual and collective learning are both key.

Many consultants have or are starting to recognize the significance of organizational learning. “We could argue that organizational learning is the ‘activity and the process by which organizations eventually reach the ideal of a learning organization’” (Finger and Brand 1999:136).

Peter Senge, writer and founder of the Society for Organizational Learning, introduces many aspects that could increase the organizational effectiveness and could also be personally developmental. “Learning organizations are 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 see the whole together. (Senge 1990:3). For me, after reading this, the spectrum of what you could define to be a learning organization was expanded. The characteristics of a learning organization, (Or disciplines as Senge refers to them), is what encourages managers and employees by providing them tools to learn and work together and adapt to change. Peter Senge has written works that describe the 5 Disciplines that must be mastered when introducing learning into an organization.

1.  System Thinking – This provides a framework for you to see patterns of systemic activity. A pattern where there is a problem and people focus on a quick fix solution, rather than getting to the deeper source to the problem. This type of thinking focuses on looking beyond the immediate concerns and looking at the issue as a part of a whole system.     2.  Personal Mastery - There are three components essential for obtaining this mastery. First you must obtain personal vision, the picture of the future you desire. Secondly, you must use creative tension. Make reality reach your vision. And thirdly, you must have a commitment to truth. You must not deceive yourself no matter how comforting or convenient this self-deception may be.
3. Mental Models- These are simplified frameworks we use to understand the world that affects our behaviour, and this is what needs to be changed.
4. Building Shared Vision - Providing the answer to the question; 'What do we want to accomplish?' It's important to remember to think of a leaning organization as people working together at their best. A shared vision facilitates learning.
5. Team Learning - This happens when teams start to 'think together'. They share knowledge, experiences, ideas, and skills with each other and how to do them better. As a team you develop reflection, inquiry and discussion skills which can also apply to you individually. Conducting skilled conversations forms the basis of building a shared vision of change. 

The youtube link connects to Peter Senge himself talking about what makes a learning organization.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vc2ruCErTok

To sum up the video, Senge basically defines a learning organization simply as the continual relentless process to keep learning together at our best. It is about becoming and staying disciplined, distinguishing fact from assumption. He also mentions the 3 things that always matter in practise, which are;

1. Do you have the tools?
2. Do you have guiding ideas that help people orient?
3. Do you have time? (As well as having a learning infrastructure – the resources to study and learn so you can help people learn from each other and bring people together).

He says, “You need tools, philosophy and Infrastructure to make it all real’. According to Senge there are only 2 mindsets that can infiltrate an organization; control or learning. ‘The question is, which one is dominate? If learning dominates you’ll create all the different aspects of what we call a learning organization”.

Finger, M. and Brand, S. B. (1999) ‘The concept of the “learning organization” applied to the transformation of the public sector’ in M. Easterby-Smith, L. Araujo and J. Burgoyne (eds.) Organizational Learning and the Learning Organization, London: Sage.

Senge, P. M. (1990) The Fifth Discipline. The art and practice of the learning organization, London: Random House