The Learning Organization and Leadership

Organizations keep talking about the importance of being a "learning organization". But what is a learning organization and are the ones that trumpet themselves as such, really learning organizations.

Let's start with a couple of definitions. Peter Senge defined a learning organization as "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 learn together."

Pedler, Burgoyne and Boydell gave this definition: "an organization that facilitates the learning of all its members and consciously transforms itself and its context".

But in many cases in the public sector in Canada, people have a very narrow view of what a learning organization is. To them it is merely an organization that provides learning opportunities to its employees. But that is not what a learning organization is. A true learning organization is able to learn from experience and adapt its behaviour to take into account these experiences. But too many times organizations do not learn and end up repeating the same dysfunctional behaviours over and over again. For example, how many times have organizations restructured or reorganized and when they do not achieve the outcomes that were anticipated, they do it all over again, time after time! How many of you have been a part of an organization that keeps reorganizing every 18 - 24 months. All organizational effort is focused on the reorganization which does not accomplish anything, other than angst. And yet, 18 months later the organization begins the same merry-go-round.

Learning organizations have 5 basic characteristics according to Senge. These are:

1. Systems Thinking;
2. Personal Mastery;
3. Mental Models;
4. Shared Vision; and
5. Team Learning

It takes real leadership to develop a learning organization, but organizations that have been able to implement this have seen significant and sustained improvements in productivity, staff morale and outcomes.