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Lecture Outline (1) Organisational Learning

(2) The Learning Organisation

(3) Organisational Development

(4) Organisational Development

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Learning Objectives

Understand the importance of organizational learning

Explain the terms organizational learning and organizational development

Discuss the concepts of knowledge management and the learning organization

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Organisational Learning

Organisational learning is how organisations learn

and adapt to changes in the environment. Similar to

individual learning, this concept tries to apply learning

principles to ensure that the organisation improves its

productivity. Three concepts that are related to

organisational learning will be discussed in this

chapter. They are:

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Organisational Learning

1. The learning organisation

2. Knowledge Management

3. Organisational development

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The Learning Organisation To understand the learning organisation concept, as

developed by Peter Senge (1990), it is important to

know the concepts of single and double loop learning.

In order to understand the concept, refer to the

diagram below:

1) Single Loop

Learning

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The Learning Organisation (cont..)

Single loop learning is the more common type of

learning where we use techniques and goals to acquire

new knowledge, skills and attitudes to achieve results

within the existing system.

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The Learning Organisation (cont..)

2) Double-loop learning

Double-loop learning goes beyond this simple concept to

question the underlying assumptions and perhaps result in

a change in these underlying assumptions.

The learning organisation concept is based on this premise

of challenging the underlying assumptions. The

organisation as an entity learns to learn and adapt to the

continuously changing environment that it exists in.

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The Learning Organisation (cont..)

Peter Senge’s learning organisation focuses on 5

disciplines that have to be applied for the organisation

to learn effectively. This is shown diagrammatically

below.

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The Learning Organisation (cont..) Personal mastery: refers to the individual growth

and learning in the organisation. The learning

organisation has to value the pursuit of learning

among all members. Individuals with a high level

of personal mastery will tend to continuously learn

and improve themselves, thereby contributing to

the learning organisation.

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The Learning Organisation (cont..) Team Mastery Building on to the concept of

synergy, team mastery establishes a bridge

between personal mastery and the learning

organisation. It is not enough for individuals to

learn and pursue mastery in the jobs, they also

need to be able to exploit the potential for team

learning in order create the learning organisation.

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The Learning Organisation (cont..) Mental Models: Mental models or the assumptions and

generalizations that form the basis of our view of the world

need to be explicitly discussed and challenged to achieve

organisational learning. Looking at mental models will

facilitate double-loop learning.

Shared vision: Shared visions unify the members of the

organisation and engagement is a motivating shared vision

contributes to the learning organisation.

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The Learning Organisation (cont..) Systems thinking: built on systems theory,

systems thinking links the other four concepts

together to contribute to organisational learning.

Peter Senge states that the organisation needs to

look at the bigger picture, or the whole system in

order to facilitate and achieve the learning

organisation.

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Knowledge Management

The concept of knowledge management is important to

understand as we study about learning organisations.

As organisations are increasingly depended on knowledge

workers (workers who are hired for their mental ability)

and in an age where information is power, organisations are

forced to ‘manage’ the knowledge that they have in order to

create organisational learning.

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Knowledge Management

Organisations process the data that they get into

information which is then converted into

knowledge that would contribute to effective

decision making in organisations. This is done by a

process of collecting, organizing, summarizing,

analyzing and synthesizing the data that they get

each and every day.

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Knowledge Management (cont..)

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Knowledge Management (cont..)

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The concepts of explicit and tacit knowledge can be

explained through the knowledge iceberg metaphor. As the

above diagram shows, explicit knowledge is the knowledge

that is explicitly stated or seen in the organisation. This

includes data and information collected; various

documents and records that are kept in the organisation.

According to the iceberg metaphor 95% of knowledge in

the organisation is tacit knowledge.

Knowledge Management (cont..)

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If this knowledge can be made explicit or

documented in some way, organisations can create

and develop more knowledge, thereby

contributing to organisational learning.

The following diagram outlines ways in which tacit

knowledge can be made explicit.

Knowledge Management (cont..)

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The following diagram outlines ways in which tacit knowledge can be

made explicit.

Knowledge Management (cont..)

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The above diagram shows two dimensions of how

knowledge is processed in the organisation. The

first dimension is how knowledge is transferred or

converted from one form to another. The second is

the cyclical process of knowledge transformation.

Knowledge Management (cont..)

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Firstly, a natural phenomenon in all organisations, tacit knowledge

remains tacit and is transferred among employees through the

socialisation process. Tacit knowledge is transformed into explicit

knowledge through externalisation or documenting knowledge that is

tacit. This can be done through the creation of documents such as

procedure manuals. Explicit knowledge can become tacit knowledge

through internalising or adapting stated organisational policies and

procedures to the individual’s own way of thinking. Explicit knowledge

can be widely shared and expanded through combining the different

sources that exist in the workplace.

Knowledge Management (cont..)

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Secondly the knowledge management process can

be an ongoing process that starts from

socialisation and moves on to externalisation.

Knowledge is that combined to increase it and

then internalised as people learn the explicit

knowledge and make it their own. The process is

then repeated through the socialisation process.

Organisational Development

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Organisational development is discussed both in performance

management and learning. Organisational development (OD) is

defined as planned initiatives that focus on improving organisational

performance.

The practice of OD involves a change in behaviour of employees of the

organisation and transfer of knowledge and skill to make people more

capable. Most often used in conjunction with change efforts such as the

implementation of performance management or introduction of new

technology, the practice of implementing OD has an interest of

creating organisational learning in order to be successful.

Organisational Development

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The OD practitioner’s efforts usually include a

learning program to involve employees and ensure

that they are equipped with the knowledge and

skills required to sustain the change effort.

Q & A

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