Building a learning organisation

by Sandro Azzopardi on 8th January 2008

Mental Models. These are 'deeply ingrained assumptions, generalisations, or even pictures and images that influence how we understand the world and how we take action. '
The discipline of mental models starts with turning the mirror inward; learning to unearth our internal pictures of the world, to bring them to the surface and hold them rigorously to scrutiny.

Every individual has his own perception of the things around him. This happens consciously and unconsciously and therefore, if team members can, through positive, constructive criticism, challenge each others' ideas and assumptions, they can begin to perceive their mental models, and to change these to create a shared mental model for the team. This is important as the individual's mental model will control what can or cannot be done.

Building Shared Vision. Senge sees this as 'the capacity to hold a shared picture of the future we seek to create. 'When there is a genuine vision (as opposed to the all-to-familiar 'vision statement'), people excel and learn. To create a shared vision, large numbers of people within the organisation must draft it, empowering them to create a single image of the future. With a shared vision, people will do things because they want to, not because they have to.

Team Learning. Such learning is viewed as 'the process of aligning and developing the capacities of a team to create the results its members truly desire. '

It builds on personal mastery and shared vision, but these are not enough. People need to be able to act together, as virtually all important decisions occur in groups. Adults learn best from each other and with team learning, the learning ability of the group becomes greater than the learning ability of any individual in the group.

Systems Thinking. The cornerstone of any learning organisation is this fifth discipline. This is the ability to see the bigger picture, to look at the interrelationships of a system as opposed to simple cause-effect chains.

Systems thinking shows us that the essential properties of a system are not determined by the sum of its parts but by the process of interactions between those parts. This is the discipline used to implement the other disciplines. Without it each of the disciplines would be isolated and would fail to achieve its objective.

How to build a learning organisation

The challenges facing managers in applying these five disciplines at the workplace are the following:

Building a sound base
Apply the Golden Rules

BUILDING A SOUND BASE

Before a Learning Organisation can be achieved, a solid foundation has to be in place. This can be implemented by taking into account the following points: