Dr' Sam Saker

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The making of the
Learning Organization
By Dr. Sam Saker
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O u r Le a r n i n g
O b j e c t i v e s T o d a
y

• What Learning Organization means?
• The five disciplines (brief overview)
• What are the main Characteristics of the Learning
  Organization?
• Why become a Learning Organization?
• How can we evolve into a Learning Organization?
• Its building blocks
• Example of success
• First (baby) steps

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• What does Learning Organization mean?

A learning organization is "an organization that
is continually expanding its capacity to create
its future"
"an organization skilled at creating, acquiring,
and transferring knowledge, and at modifying its
behavior to reflect new knowledge and insights.
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• Peter Senge 1994 proposed the framework of the
  learning organization
• Personal mastery (learning individual).
• Mental models (learning individual).
• Shared vision (learning team).
• Team learning (learning team).
• Systems thinking (learning organization).

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• Personal Mastery
• Individual learning as prerequisite to OL
• True individual learner never arrives
  Life-long!
• It is a process one can never possess it as an
  end!
• Personal mastery people are aware of their
  ignorance, their competence, their growth areas.
• They are deeply self-confident!

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Creative Tension
Back
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• Mental Models
• Assumptions, generalizations, pictures and images
  that influence how we see the world an take
  actions.
• We are often unaware of their impact.
• To do, we need to look inward Discover our
  mental models, bring them to surface, and
  question them.
• Ability to hold meaningful conversations with
  others exposing own thinking effectively to
  others influence
• Free of internal politics games ? fostering
  openness.

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• Building Shared Vision
• Genuine vision results in people excelling and
  learning because they want to.
• The lack exists in failure to translate vision
  into shared vision.
• How? By unearthing shared Pictures of the
  future causing genuine commitment and enrolment
  rather than compliance.
• Dictating a vision is counter-productive.

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• Team Learning
• The process of aligning and developing the
  capacities of team to create the results its
  members truly desire
• It builds on personal mastery and shared vision.
• Also needs people to act together (learning
  together ? growing together ? rapid
  organizational success)
• It starts with dialogue ? Suspended assumptions
  ? entering into thinking together ? results not
  attainable individually!
• Learning how not to interact in teams (avoiding
  the negative)

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• Systems thinking
• The cornerstone of the learning organization
• Organizations must be viewed as complex systems.
• We must see organizations as dynamic processes
• Result in more appropriate actions
• Cause and effect are far apart Long range
• Resist focusing on close solutions (usually
  having near relief but long range costs)
• System blindness ? cycles of blaming and
  self-defense

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The Laws of the Fifth Discipline

• Todays problems come from yesterdays
  solutions
• The harder you push, the harder the system pushes
  back
• Behavior grows better before it grows worse
• The easy way out usually leads back in
• The cure can be worse than the disease
• Faster is slower

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The Laws of the Fifth Discipline

• Cause effect are not closely related in time
  and space
• Small changes can produce big results but the
  areas of highest leverage are often the least
  obvious
• You can have your cake and eat it too but not
  at once
• Dividing an elephant in half does not produce two
  small elephants
• There is no blame

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What are some characteristics of a true
Learning Organization?

• It has a culture where the company regards
  changing as learning and learning as the
  cornerstone

• Its actions are proactive rather than reactive
  or adaptive

• Learning is integrated with business objectives
  and strategies

• Learning is regarded as an ongoing process

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• What are some characteristics of
• a true Learning Organization?

• Learning focuses values and competencies
  development through risk taking shared
  experience while maintaining damage limitation
  through developmental support systems
  (individuals are encouraged to take risks and
  learn what they themselves find necessary for
  achieving organizations goals while being
  trusted and made responsible)

• Experience is regarded as the ultimate stage of
  learning

• Learning utilizes the idea of "The Learning
  Wheel"

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• What is the Learning Wheel concept?

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• Replicate
• Follow the Formula
• Mass Production

• Fulfill shared vision of Organization mission in
  a community like environment

Bureaucracy
Learning Org
Super-ordinate Goals

• Create profits
• Rising Share Value (For investors)

Strategy

• Innovate for Customer Satisfaction

Bureaucracy
Learning Org

• Hierarchy-Vertical
• Chain of Command
• Big Picture at Top

The 7-Points Difference
Bureaucracy

• Versatile
• Cross-trained

Skills
Learning Org
Structure

• Network-Horizontal
• Many Project Teams
• Big Picture with All

Learning Org
Bureaucracy

• Narrowly specialized

Staff
Systems
Learning Org
Bureaucracy

• Flexible Job Boundaries
• Passion about their work

• Standardized
• Coordinated by Rules
• Standard OPs

Style
Bureaucracy

• Role clarity
• Dispassionate

Learning Org
Learning Org
Bureaucracy

• Informal
• Coordinated by Mutual
• Adjustments

• Conformity
• Please the boss
• Everything is in Place

• Creativity - Learning
• Participation dialogue
• Politics priorities/strategies

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• Why become a Learning Organization?

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• For superior performance and competitive
  advantage
• For enhancing customer relations
• To avoid decline
• To improve quality
• To understand risks and diversity more deeply
• For innovation
• For our personal and spiritual well being

Why become A Learning Organization
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• To increase our ability to manage change
• For understanding
• For energized committed work force
• To expand boundaries
• To engage in community
• For awareness of the critical nature of
  interdependence
• Because the times demand it

Why become A Learning Organization
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• The real competitive advantage for
  organizations is their ability to learn faster
  than the competition, to generate and share
  knowledge and to continuously improve.
• -Peter Senge

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• Q. Can a learning organization improve our bottom
  line results?

A. Many folds however, we must be willing to
put in the sacrifice and struggle it requires...
When in high gear, the process is fun and
exciting
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• How can we become a true Learning Organization?

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It starts with leaders

• Leaders set the necessary conditions for
  developing an effective learning capability.
• Leaders take strategic action and make specific
  interventions to ensure that learning can occur.

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How

• They develop a widely shared vision supported by
  employees to influence the learning capability of
  the organization.
• They introduce and maintain mechanisms to
  facilitate the transfer of knowledge between work
  teams

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• What are the Building Blocks of a true Learning
  Organization?

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• 1. CLARITY AND SUPPORT FOR MISSION AND VISION

GE and Motorola are good examples of companies
where senior managers and the CEO spend
considerable time articulating a vision and
creating employee commitment to achieving it.
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• 2. SHARED LEADERSHIP AND INVOLVEMENT

Nortel has frequent training sessions and
workshops that include all employees, where some
seniors and a manager are always part of.
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• 3. A CULTURE THAT ENCOURAGES EXPERIMENTATION    

At 3M, experimentation is built into work
activities!!! At Hewlett-Packard ?
time-activated obsolescence !!!
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• 4. ABILITY TO TRANSFER KNOWLEDGE ACROSS
  ORGANIZATIONAL BOUNDARIES

Xerox and ATT have programs that benchmark the
managerial practices of the best companies in an
industry and their competitors!!!
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• 5. TEAMWORK AND COOPERATION

Honda is the best example of a learning company
with a strong focus on teamwork and cooperation.
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• SUPPORTING FOUNDATIONS

EFFECTIVE ORGANIZATIONAL DESIGN
EMPLOYEE SKILLS AND COMPETENCIES
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Case Study

• A Detroit (USA) luxury car manufacturer embarked
  on a new car program, Epsilon 3-years tight
  deadline.
• Challenges
• Meeting many quality standards
• Staying within Budget
• Delivering before deadline

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Case Study

• The Journey of Success
• - Teamed up with a consulting-research team from
  MIT.
• A "core learning team" was formed with ten
  Epsilon managers and several staff from MIT
• Began learning and practicing the basic concepts
  and tools of learning organization
• Leadership group first engaged themselves in
  some very serious learning and change

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Case Study
Journey of Success

• Began to teach and coach the rest of the Epsilon
  staff with the help of internal consultants
• Training agenda and content wad developed by the
  Core Learning Team.
• Investigate the biggest challenges and strengths!
• Main focus
• Why are our parts always late?

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Case Study
Journey of Success

• Began to teach and coach the rest of the Epsilon
  staff with the help of internal consultants
• Working together ? system map (casual loops) ?
  Root Cause Point of Leverage were discovered!!!
  
• Root cause/leverage point
• Engineers not reporting problems until very late
  ? causing other dependent elements delays ?
  compounding the problem!!!

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Journey of Success
Case Study

• Why this happened consistently?
• "engineering culture" (don't report any problem
  until you know the solution) plus
• company culture (reporting problems would be
  held against persons)

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Journey of Success
Case Study

• Repairing the Root Cause
• Establishing greater trust ?"bearing bad tidings
  is safe".
• No one has all the answers (even managers).
• The good of the whole program was more important
  than some individuals fears
• ? Chief Aim Create a culture very different
  from the one they have experienced many years at
  their company!

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Journey of Success
Case Study

• Repairing the Root Cause
• Engineers make their own decisions ?
  cross-functional collaboration was expected and
  rewarded.
• These insights were developed first among the
  core learning team, over eight months of regular
  meetings.
• Learning labs were held, firstly involving one
  quarter of entire staff, with many briefings and
  discussions held with all of them. (focusing on
  changing the norm of communication)!!!

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Journey of Success
Case Study

• Repairing the Root Cause
• The learning labs included various experiential
  methods.
• Employees saw senior Epsilon managers actually
  change their own behavior ? Less authoritarian,
  more open to other view points, and collaborating
  on solutions instead of punishing against
  reported serious problems and punishing honesty)

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SUCCESS !!!
Case Study

• SUCCESS
• Launch of the new model went smoothly, on-time
  (as intended) instead of the usual last-minute
  panic and pandemonium
• The project was also well under budget, saving
  some 60 million in re-tooling costs
• Customer reaction and various quality measures
  on the new vehicle were also well above previous
  levels.

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• It is the nature of man to rise to greatness if
  greatness is expected of him.
• --John Steinbeck

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Attitudes
Shift of focus towards ongoing learning
Commitment
Begin to move learning up on agenda
Eliminate barriers that impede learning
Slow
Management
Processes
Benefits
First Steps
Environment
Reflect
Symposiums
Current Conditions
Analyze
Study Missions
Learning
1-Foster Learning due to knew knowledge 2-
Wisdom of Implications
Int. Benchmarking
Forums
No Boundaries
Employees
Systems Audits
New Products
Strategic Reviews
No Rush
Conferences
Learning
Time
Cross- Organizational Or Customers Suppliers
Meetings
Productivity
Training
Project Teams
Brainstorming
Fresh Ideas
Problem Solving
Evaluating
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•  " Organization-wide learning involves change in
  culture and change in the most basic managerial
  practices, not just within a company, but within
  a whole system of management. ... I guarantee
  that when you start to create a learning
  environment, people will not feel as though
  they are in control."  
• --Peter Senge

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• A one time improvement does not equal Learning
  Organization

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• Shell Oil planning director Arie de Geus, says
  that over the long run, superior performance
  depends on superior learning.

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• The person who figures out how to harness the
  collective genius of the people in his or her
  organization is going to blow the competition
  away.

Walter Wriston -- Citibank CEO
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• The most successful corporation of the 1990s
  will be something called a learning organization,
  a consummately (perfectly) adaptive enterprise.

Fortune Magazine
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The Learning Organization
By Dr. Sam Saker Thank you very much