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18 The Learning Organization and Knowledge Management
THE LEARNING ORGANIZATION A learning organization is one which facilitates the learning of all its members and continuously transforms itself. Some organizations have explored what strategies they need to survive or more positively to influence the direction of change through their capacity to learn. They have learned to scan the environment attentively, to adapt and change quickly and intelligently and to generate new ideas which question established values and icons. They have a capacity to learn and to unlearn. Poor performance often results from persisting with failing strategies despite evidence of the failure of these polices. Individuals learn by a process of experience and reflection; groups learn by a process of sharing of individual experiences; organizations learn by a process of sharing individual and group experiences Schools like other organizations differ profoundly in their capacity to learn, change and improve. Educational leaders need to identify the current everyday routines, structures and system barriers to organizational learning. Effective strategic human resource management ensures that internally – through structures and processes aligned to current strategies – and externally – with strategies adapted to the environment, the strategic ‘fit’ ensures organizational learning. Organizational learning is about learning, responsiveness, flexibility, commitment and quality. The external pressures for change that require learning are the cultural dimension – at the level of public ideas and values, and policy, that is, the received wisdom; and the institutional dimension – when these ideas have become embodied in sets of institutionalised practices, such as Investors in People and the business excellence model. How well does your school learn, change and improve? How do you learn, change and improve? SENGE Senge (1990) defined the learning organization as a model of how organizations should be structured if they are to achieve maximum learning. The concept emerged in the late 1980s in the USA though much of the thinking is built on earlier systems theory. The learning processes are growth, development, adaptation 185
