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The concept of the 'learning organization' is that the successful organization must — and does — continually adapt and learn in order to respond to changes in environment and to grow. This raises a range of scholarly and theoretical questions relating to what it means for an organization to learn, and practical questions around what organizations need to do in order to learn and adapt.
The idea of a learning organization suggests that there is some learning in organizations that takes place over and above the learning undertaken by different individuals as part of their work and experience in organizations. This has been contested by different authors, but has proven an interesting idea. Is it possible, for example, for certain aspects of learning to remain in an organization, even if the participants responsible for it leave? It has been proposed that certain organizational artifacts, such as stories, records, system of doing work, tools, recipes, et cetera, function in a way that detaches the learning from individuals and makes it a property of organizations themselves.

Contents

Peter Senge and the learning organization

See also

Notes

Books

External links

Peter Senge and the learning organization

In his book ''The Fifth Discipline: The Art and Practice of the Learning Organization'', Peter Senge defined a learning organization as human beings cooperating in dynamical systems that are in a state of continuous adaptation and improvement. According to Senge:

Real learning gets to the heart of what it means to be human. Through learning we re-create ourselves. Through learning we become able to do something we never were able to do. Through learning we reperceive the world and our relationship to it. Through learning we extend our capacity to create, to be part of the generative process of life. There is within each of us a deep hunger for this type of learning.

The reality each of us sees and understands depend on what we believe is there. By learning the principles of the five disciplines, teams begin to understand how they can ''think and inquire'' that reality, so that they can ''collaborate in discussions and in working together'' create the results that matter (to them).
Often the practitioner has seen the work as a vital yet viable means of developing a cadre of high performance leaders able to mobilize peoples' commitment towards results and change in organizations with ease.

★ Feedback: Organizations that are adapted for maximum organizational learning build feedback loops deliberately to maximize their own learning.

★ Taxonomy: A learning organization may create a specific enterprise taxonomy - a common and agreed upon understanding of terms, concepts, categories and keywords that apply within that organization.

★ Challenging assumptions: Once it has established what they are, learning organization must constantly challenge its processes, instructions, assumptions and even its basic structure. The true learning organization is redesigning itself constantly.

See also

★ Knowledge management

★ Knowledge organization

★ Organization story

★ Organizational learning

★ Organizational storytelling

★ Social engineering

Notes

Books

''The Fifth Discipline'', by Peter Senge, Doubleday, 2006 [1]
''Learning Organizations'', eds. Sarita Chawla and John Renesch, Productivity Press, 1995 [2]

External links

★ Society for Organizational Learning

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★ About Peter Senge

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★ Organizational Learning milestones

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★ The core of Learning Organization

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★ The language of Learning Organization

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★ Recommended Reading

★ Learning Organization Practitioners' Network (LOPN/Singapore)

★ Learning Organization Rapid Diagnostic, LEONARDO Tool, University of Colorado