The Learning Organization. An introduction to key ideas

1. The Learning Organization

An introduction to key ideas

2. An idea or theory

A learning organization is an idea pioneered
by many and perhaps most significantly by
Peter Senge
In the book: The Fifth Discipline: The art and
Practice of the Learning Organization (1990),
Senge suggests certain principles or practices
that involve everyone in achieving the work
of the learning organization

3. What is a Learning Organization?

According to Senge
(1990)…”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.”

4. Systems thinking

Beyond and more sophisticated than cause
and effect relationships
Many short term decisions create long term
impact that is undesirable due to lack of
seeing the system
Learning to see the whole rather than just
the parts
The understanding of systems thinking ties
together the practices of a learning
organization

5. Practices

Personal Mastery
Mental Models
Shared vision
Team Learning

6. Personal Mastery

A discipline to practice:
#1 “continually clarifying what is important to
us” We get so busy solving problems we may
lose sight of our original purpose
#2 “Continually learning to how to see
current reality more clearly.” Those in the
organization that prefer to pretend everything
is ok when a look at reality would provide the
need for adaptation

7. Mental models

New ideas will never get put into practice
because we cling deeply to held assumptions.
Mental models powerfully effect how we
understand the world or even what we see
They are like a lens we use to translate
information into something we can make
sense of—perhaps in micro-seconds

8. Shared vision

Shared vision is significant because it joins us
together to deeply care about how we get
our work accomplished.
According to Senge (2006), vision answers
the question “what do we want to create?”
(p.192)
This vision is something people truly have
worked through to find both individual and
collective meaning—not a statement imposed
in a top down form.

9. Team learning

“The process of aligning and developing the
capacity of a team to create the results
its members truly desire” (Senge, 2006,p. 218).
Note: it’s the results that the collective desire’s
because they understand and have meaning
in the organization’s purpose—not en edict
from top down which motivates compliance—
but not collective desire.

10. A tool to create A LEARNING ORGANIZATION

Dialogue
According to (Senge, 2006) “In dialogue, a
group explores complex difficult issues from
many points of view. Individuals suspend
their assumptions but individuals
communicate their assumptions freely.”
(p.224)

11. Why important

Leadership involves understanding
something—a phenomena or event with
consideration of the greater system in order
to create an effective intervention.
Knowing how to create a learning
organization makes for effective leadership
and the ability to release talent in people.
Understanding the practices of learning
organization requires understanding of
organizational culture and leadership as
learning