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Change approaches & management tools SeCtion tWo
ORGANISATIONAL LEARNING Description
Organisational Learning approaches emphasise the organisational structures and social processes which enable individual employees and teams to learn and to share their knowledge. Learning is organisational to the extent that it:
• Aims to achieve organisational goals;
• Is distributed among organisational members; and
• Outcomes are embedded in systems, structures and culture(s)
Much of the Organisational Learning literature offers concrete advice on how organisations should be designed and managed to promote organisational learning. Most agree on five key characteristics:
1. Structure: flat hierarchies with few organisational layers, good relationships between different services and functions, and networking across internal and external organisational boundaries. These features promote information sharing, system thinking and involvement in decision-making
2. Information systems: these are required to provide an infrastructure for the collection, processing and rapid sharing of complex information
3. Human resources practices: appraisal, training and rewards are designed to encourage the acquisition and dissemination of skills and knowledge
4. Organisational culture: the values of the organisation promote creativity and openness, nurture innovation, encourage staff to risk failure, seek to learn from mistakes and to share information
5. Leadership: leaders are required to model the openness and risk taking required of employees and so provide the required empathy and support
Organisational Learning is seen as a transformational process, and the characteristics above enable members to carry out organisational learning processes related to discovery, invention, production and generalisation.
Use
The intervention process is designed to help shift organisational members’ thinking from Mode I to Mode II learning. Mode I is concerned with defending self and others from hurtful information, and results in defensive behaviours such as withholding evidence, rivalry and blaming others. It is strongly related to single-loop learning, in which existing understandings are uncritically
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