From a very early age, we are taught to break
apart problems, to fragment the world. This apparently makes complex tasks and
subjects more manageable, but we pay a hidden, enormous price. We can no longer
see the consequences of our actions; we lose our intrinsic sense of connection
to a larger whole. When we then try to "see the big picture," we try
to reassemble the fragments in our minds, to list and organize all the pieces.
But, as physicist David Bohm says, the task is futile—similar to trying to reassemble
the fragments of a broken mirror to see a true reflection. Thus, after a while we give up trying to see the whole altogether.
The tools and ideas presented in this book are for
destroying the illusion that the world is created of separate, unrelated
forces. When we give up this illusion—we can then build "learning
organizations," 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 how to learn together.
As Fortune magazine recently said, "Forget your tired old ideas about
leadership. The most successful corporation of the 1990s will be something
called a learning organization." "The ability to learn faster than
your competitors," said Arie De Geus, head of planning for Royal
Dutch/Shell, "may be the only sustainable competitive advantage." As
the world becomes more interconnected and business becomes more complex and
dynamic, work must become more "learningful." It is no longer
sufficient to have one person learning for the organization, a Ford or a Sloan
or a Watson. It's just not possible any longer to "figure it out"
from the top, and have everyone else following the orders of the "grand
strategist." The organizations that will truly excel in the future will be
the organizations that discover how to tap people's commitment and capacity to learn
at all levels in an organization.
Learning organizations are possible because,
deep down, we are all learners. No one has to teach an infant to learn. In
fact, no one has to teach infants anything. They are intrinsically inquisitive,
masterful learners who learn to walk, speak, and pretty much run their
households all on their own. Learning organizations are possible because not only
is it our nature to learn but we love to learn. Most of us at one time or
another have been part of a great "team," a group of people who
functioned together in an extraordinary way— who trusted one another, who
complemented each others' strengths and compensated for each others'
limitations, who had common goals that were larger than individual goals, and
who produced extraordinary results. I have met many people who have experienced
this sort of profound teamwork—in sports, or in the performing arts, or in
business. Many say that they have spent much of their life looking for that
experience again. What they experienced was a learning organization The team
that became great didn't start off great—it learned how to produce extraordinary
results.
One could argue that the entire global business
community is learning to learn together, becoming a learning community. Whereas
once many industries were dominated by a single, undisputed leader —one IBM,
one Kodak, one Procter & Gamble, one Xerox—today industries, especially in
manufacturing, have dozens of excellent companies. American and European
corporations are pulled forward by the example of the Japanese; the Japanese,
in turn, are pulled by the Koreans and Europeans. Dramatic improvements take
place in corporations in Italy, Australia, Singapore—and quickly become
influential around the world.
There is also another, in some ways deeper,
movement toward learning organizations, part of the evolution of industrial
society. Material affluence for the majority has gradually shifted people's
orientation toward work—from what Daniel Yankelovich called an
"instrumental" view of work, where work was a means to an end, to a
more "sacred" view, where people seek the "intrinsic"
benefits of work.1 "Our grandfathers worked six days a week to earn what
most of us now earn by Tuesday afternoon," says Bill O'Brien, CEO of
Hanover Insurance. "The ferment in management will continue until we build
organizations that are more consistent with man's higher aspirations beyond
food, shelter and belonging." Moreover, many who share these values are
now in leadership positions. I find a growing number of organizational leaders
who, while still a minority, feel they are part of a profound evolution in the
nature of work as a social institution. "Why can't we do good works at
work?" asked Edward Simon, president of Herman Miller, recently.
"Business is the only institution that has
a chance, as far as I can see, to fundamentally improve the injustice that
exists in the world. But first, we will have to move through the barriers that
are keeping us from being truly vision-led and capable of learning." Perhaps
the most salient reason for building learning organizations is that we are only
now starting to understand the capabilities such organizations must possess.
For a long time, efforts to build learning organizations were like groping in
the dark until the skills, areas of knowledge, and paths for development of
such organizations became known. What fundamentally will distinguish learning
organizations from traditional authoritarian "controlling
organizations" will be the mastery of certain basic disciplines.
That is why the "disciplines of the
learning organization" are vital.
No comments:
Post a Comment