A Learning Organization

01/20/2022 Collected and organized by Valmeek Kudesia

Definition

An organization that has tapped and advances people's commitment and capacity to learn at all levels ⟹ high performing teams

• Implements structures that are conducive to reflection and engagement (see recurrent questions for data in healthcare)

• [[learning-requires-metacognition]] (and [[mental-models]]); to overcome [[occluded-thinking]]

• avoids [[greatest-waste]]

• enables [[personal-mastery]]

• provides tools and guiding ideas to make sense of situations

• shifts mindset to continually expand capability to [[invent-the-future]]

• leaders are stewards of vision, compelled to manifest the vision, not owner of the vision, [[stewards-of-the-future]]

Enduring Characteristics

In situations of rapid change only organizations that are flexible, adaptive and productive will excel i.e. learning organizations. Mastery of certain basic disciplines or ‘component technologies’ are foundational for a learning organization:

• [[systems-thinking]]

• [[personal-mastery]]

• mental-models]]

• [[building-shared-vision]]

• [[team-learning]]

…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.

...[organizations that] encourage adaptive and generative learning, encouraging their employees to think outside the box and work in conjunction with other employees to find the best answer to any problem

...for a ‘learning organization it is not enough to survive. ‘”Survival learning” or what is more often termed “adaptive learning” is important – indeed it is necessary. adaptive learning” must be joined by “generative learning; learning that enhances our capacity to create

We learn best from our experience, but we never directly experience the consequences of many of our most important decisions.

...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

Organizations learn only through individuals who learn. Individual learning does not guarantee organizational learning. But without it no organizational learning occurs"

- Peter Senege

https://infed.org/mobi/peter-senge-and-the-learning-organization/