Create A Learning Organisation School Development #1 Dr Brian Metters - 13 July 2015
Summary: Learning is about MORE than just accumulating knowledge, or acquiring a new skill. But unfortunately in the professional world this is often as far as it goes with a common definition of an expert being “someone who KNOWS more and more about less and less!” Or, it’s someone with lots of certificates! If you eat something that disagrees with you would you still eat it the next day? If you touched a plant that gave you a rash on your hand would you continue to touch it? If you walked down a street where you were attacked would you go there again? The answer to all of these questions is, “NO”. Why? Because you have truly learned and then changed your behaviour. You have gone beyond the knowledge of what not to eat, or touch, or a street to avoid, you have acted upon it. This is a Darwinian approach to learning, adapt or die, and is necessary for all organisations to survive and flourish. But how can it be done as a whole organisation?
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Introduction I have been very fortunate in the past 7 years to have had the opportunity to build an organisation from scratch. The creation of Nepal Education Leadership Foundation is a matter of great pride, pride in the people involved, pride in the final outcome, and also a pride in the way our vision was achieved by following a clear and focused process. As an organisational psychologist I had worked for many years in organisation development around the world, earning my living from advising and consulting on changing many different types of organisation into being "something else". But I had never had the chance to create a new organisation following a set of principles about what a specific type of organisation should look like. I wanted to create a learning organisation, one that would meet all of the known criteria for what such an organisation should comprise. This article outlines the theoretical concepts used, how they were implemented, and specifically why such an organisation is unique and necessary in the development of schools, especially in developing countries.
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What is a learning organisation? To begin, we need some clear definition of what a Learning Organisation actually is, so here are three possibilities. Also, try to think about schools as you read each one: 1. “Learning organisations are organisations 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.” (Senge 1990) 2. “The Learning Company is a vision of what might be possible. It is not brought about simply by training individuals; it can only happen as a result of learning at the whole organisation level. A Learning Company is an organisation that facilitates the learning of all its members and continuously transforms itself.” (Pedler et. al. 1991) 3. “Learning organisations are characterised by total employee involvement in a process of collaboratively conducted, collectively accountable change directed towards shared values or principles.” (Watkins and Marsick 1992) Personally I like all of them, they each add something to the others with an emerging list of features of such an organisation: •
New thinking, collective aspiration, continuous learning, expanding capacity
•
Learning
at
organisational
level,
individuals
and
organisation
continuously
transforming themselves •
Total employee involvement, collectively accountable change, collaborative, shared values
So, I would like to offer my own definition of a learning organisation as follows:
“A learning organisation is one which is founded on a set of shared values, with individuals collaborating in learning and continuous transformation towards a shared vision.”
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Components of a Learning Organisation According to Peter Senge a learning organisation has 5 components and these are: 1. Personal Mastery: Every member of the organisation must be constantly striving to learn, to improve, to get better. In fact personal mastery goes beyond this, needing each person to be a MASTER of their profession or a particular skill. 2. Mental Models: A learning organisation has a set of mental models that define and describe it's work. An example of a general mental model is a map! Think of a map of Nepal, you can see it on paper and also visualise it inside your heads, where is Kathmandu, Pokhara, Chitwan, Humla. The map of the London Underground is a mental model too, not an actual "direct map", but extremely useful for planning journeys, getting from A to B, identifying stations close to offices, shops, restaurants etc. The constructivism pyramid is a mental model to guide the learning process of students, the 5 step consulting process is a mental model to advise clients within a particular profession. 3. Shared Vision: Every member of a learning organisation has a clear vision of where the organisation is trying to get to, how it is trying to grow and develop itself. This is the purpose of Vision which is also an important element of leadership! 4. Team Learning: This is the same concept as Professor Fullan's "social learning" which means learn, grow, develop together as a whole group. The "togetherness" is a powerful accelerator especially if individual learning is shared, discussed then assimilated into the whole team. 5. Systems Thinking: This is a BIG subject on it's own, and one that the Ministry of Education and the Department of Education in Nepal just do not understand, possibly because it is a complex part of organisational psychology. We use the expression "education SYSTEM" but what does that mean? As an example, think of a forest, it is an "eco SYSTEM" with trees, soil, grasses, plants, fungus, birds, animals, insects, mosses, ferns, lichens, algae ..... The forest needs ALL of these components to survive, they are all interconnected, they are all dependent on each other ...... they are CONNECTED. Think of the cardiovascular system, your heart, lungs, arteries, blood, all serving the brain. If anything goes wrong with ONE of these components, the others fail too. So, in summary, 5 critical components necessary to be a Learning Organisation. The question is, "can an organisation such as this be created from the ground up?"
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Creating Nepal Education Leadership Foundation
In his book The Fifth Discipline, Peter Senge asserted that Systemic Thinking was the conceptual cornerstone needed to create a Learning Organisation. He said "It is the discipline that integrates the others, fusing them into a coherent body of theory and practice. Systems theory’s ability to comprehend and address the whole, and to examine the interrelationship between the parts, provides both the incentive and the means to integrate the disciplines. Three things need noting here:" "First, systems theory looks to connections and to the whole. In this respect it allows people to look beyond the immediate context and to appreciate the impact of their actions upon others (and vice versa)." "Second, while the building blocks of systems theory are relatively simple, they can grow into a rather more sophisticated model than are current in many organisations. One of the key problems with much that is written about, and done in the name of management, is that rather simplistic frameworks are applied to what are actually complex systems. When we add these two points together it is possible to move beyond a focus on the parts, to begin to see the whole, and to appreciate organisation as a dynamic process. Thus, the argument runs, a better appreciation of systems will lead to more appropriate action." "Third, systemic thinking, allows us to realise the significance of feedback mechanisms in organisations." He concludes: "The systems viewpoint is generally oriented toward the long-term view. That’s why delays and feedback loops are so important. In the short term, you can often ignore them; they’re inconsequential. They only come back to haunt you in the long term." Therefore, following Senge's three elements of connections, complexity and feedback, we decided on taking a long term view to build an NGO in Nepal spread over a number of
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years and using a series of stages which would constantly address the issues associated with Systemic Thinking: 1. We began with a clear, SHARED VISION and a mission of “Quality Education for the children of Nepal”. The vision was of a nation growing it's education system towards being a modern system via the Ministry of Education. Our role was to develop the model and hand it over to them once we had proved it worked in the capital city. Our strategic plan was in 6 stages: Create a service, establish a presence, build a team, build a reputation, build an organisation, withdraw. This was shared and discussed with all UK trustees plus senior staff in Kathmandu. 2. To develop NELF it had to be done SYSTEMICALLY (not systematically, which is different). This is the systems thinking strategy of organisational psychology and it must be planned by understanding The System and all of the connections within it. The NELF system is made up of 4 components, the Strategy, Structure/Processes, the People, and the Culture. Strategy I have already described above. Structure is concerned with course programme structure, school development processes etc etc. People is mostly about the embedded skills within the staff of training, coaching, consulting. Culture is our shared and common values within a learning environment and helping each other to grow. 3. MENTAL MODELS are now essential, we need them for our programmes such as a quality education model, constructivist model, facilitation model, coaching model etc. Each model is the classic "map" or process that is used to describe and implement specific skills. 4. PERSONAL MASTERY simply means that everyone strives to develop personally and to be an expert at something. One staff member is a master of Phonics, another is a master of Accelerated Maths. Both are masters of facilitation. Every NELF team member has a personal learning project which is developed via an action learning process. 5. TEAM LEARNING is at the heart of NELF. Courses run, in-school coaching, project progress are all discussed by all team members every Friday. The whole day is run using the Kolb Learning Cycle with each team member given air-time to share their experiences of the week, their personal learning from it, before a team discussion is carried out on what can be further implemented or embedded based on that member's experience. So, is NELF a true Learning Organisation and why is this so essential for Nepal's education system?
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Why is this important for Nepal’s education system? The journey to create NELF was a long 7 years "battle" which cannot be fully or adequately described in these writings. We began with a blank sheet of paper with no money, no understanding of Nepal primary education, no staff, no services. But the blank sheet allowed us complete freedom to draw, consider, conceptualise and create anything we wanted in pursuit of our goal. Even then, once the plan was in place, there were the constant battles involving funding, finding quality staff, training the staff in UK practices, finding affordable premises, Nepali bureaucracy, a lifeless Ministry of Education, an intransigent and uncooperative DFID, and worst of all unprofessional and uncommitted teachers and principals in schools. So why bother? If you care about something strongly enough you will fight to achieve it, no matter what the odds. But you cannot do it alone, and this was the real key ..... finding people of likeminded commitment, tenacity, and a real rage concerning the shameful abandonment of Nepali children and their education. Personal values have been the strongest driving force of all amongst the Trustees in the UK and the staff in Nepal. We recruited Lions, not Mice! Competence can be developed, but only if the right values, beliefs, and attitudes exist. So why is this so important for Nepal's education system? We believe that there are four good reasons: 1. The programmes provided by NELF were world class; this is not an idle boast, they have been carefully constructed over several years taking "best practice" from the UK teaching profession mostly, but also from Canada and other developed countries. 2. All of the programmes, and the skills to deliver them across all Nepal have been constantly and freely offered to the Ministry of Education. It is a simple matter to scale up the operation and provide focused school development programmes using MoE, DoE staff. 3. The systemic thinking approach used to build NELF is completely transferable to developing a whole school or even the WHOLE of Nepal's education system. Peter Senge's principles equally apply provided the right drivers and process are put in place at the right time, in the right way, and by the right people. 4. However, remember we began with a blank sheet of paper? Unfortunately, Nepal MUST begin this transformation in a similar way, by creating the blank sheet. How? By initially firing every teacher, every principal, in every primary school! Then re-recruit only those with the right values, beliefs and attitudes. Competence can be easily grown, but the rest can NOT!
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Developing A School as a Learning Organisation Now you have read some of the theoretical background on Learning Organisations together with the practical example of creating Nepal Education Leadership Foundation, do you think it could be applied to a school, any school, YOUR school? It is very easy to say “yes” but then do nothing about it. But if you want to try it there are a few things that must be understood and fully committed to: 1. Your school is an organisation and reacts in the same way as any other such as a bank, a factory, an NGO. 2. Development will only occur if you act upon all 5 of the Learning Organisation components at once. 3. Every member of the organisation must be committed to the process or removed, physically or psychologically. 4. Everyone is a leader, but the school principal must be the role model for others to emulate. 5. Begin with the whole team creating a shared VISION with the final goal described, and your core VALUES agreed. Your greatest enemy is a combination of complacency and indifference. The principal who doesn’t think change is necessary, the teacher who won’t implement better methods, the SMC Chairman who doesn’t support the principal, the teachers who have no professional pride, and everyone believing that the world is standing still! But there is no choice, adapt or go the way of the dinosaurs!
The Author Brian Metters, BA (Psychol.), MSc., PhD, is the Chairman of Nepal Schools Aid, a UK registered charity working to develop the quality of education in Kathmandu primary schools. Now retired from business, Brian is an organisational psychologist and specialised in change management mostly within the financial services industry of the UK. He has been involved in charitable fundraising for Cancer Research, The Big Issue (for the homeless) and disadvantaged children in Nepal. {www.nepalschoolsaid.org}. His latest venture is in releasing all the materials used in education development in Nepal online at www.qualityeducationglobal.org where you can use the contact form if required. (A Note About NELF) In January 2016 the Nepal Education Leadership NGO ceased functioning, although it still exists as a registered NGO. The team had become a group of some of the best researchers and trainers in education in Nepal, but were sadly unrecognised or unused by Nepal’s Ministry of Education. You can only imagine the “negative grinding effect” of this on a group of young Nepali women who had worked so hard and committed to developing programmes for the benefit of Nepal’s children. The majority have given up altogether!
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