Learning OrganisationComparing models of organisational learning and development
Chris Jarvis
Know-how for competitive advantage & performance
Skill gaps filled by
What's wrong with the Strategy & Training Model?
Chris Jarvis
Training for workforce maintenance: induction, product, SoPs
Technical (know-how) training
Systematic staff devel: appraisal, resourcing, coaching & mentoring
Empowerment through know
Management development
ICT supported learning
Learning Company model (abstraction). What is the concrete form?
Chris Jarvis
Investors in People: National voluntarism
top level, commitment to develop all employees to achieve business objectives
regular review of T&D needs of all staff
action to train & develop individuals on recruitment + throughout employment
evaluate T&D to assess achievement & improve future effectiveness
written plan: business goals/targets, how employees will contribute, assess needs etc. Identify T&D resources
agree T&D needs with each employee. Link to NVQ if poss. Action: train new recruits & improve skills of existing staff
Review investment, competence & commitment of employees & skills learnt against business plan + at all levels
T&D effectiveness reviewed by top level è renewed commitment & targets
accreditation to promote Er-led, quality, effective staff development
Why do it?
What is a Learning Organisation?
"The essence of organisational learning is the organisation's ability to use the amazing mental capacity of all its members to create the kind of processes that will improve its own" Nancy Dixon, 1994
"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 learn together"
Senge P. 1990 The Fifth Discipline: The art and practice of the learning organization, Century Business/Doubleday.
an abstraction
pundits’ concepts
supply-chain learning
Rowden on Learning Organisation
“a model of strategic change in which everyone is engaged in identifying and solving problems so that the organisation is continuously changing, experimenting and improving, thus increasing its capacity to grow and achieve its purpose.”
Rowden R.W. 2001, The Learning Organisation & Strategic Change, S.A.M. Advanced Management Journal, Summer 2001, Vol 66, Issue 3 pg 117p
Chris Jarvis
an approach to bring about…..
planned change (a programme) using behavioural science knowledge.
organisation-wide, managed from the top
increase organisational effectiveness through ….. planned, systematic interventions in the organisation's behavioural processes
Ralph Stacey 1993 – Strategic Management
"….a long-term programme of interventions in the social, psychological and cultural belief systems of an organisation. These interventions are based on certain principles& practices which are assumed to lead to greater organisational effectiveness"
Soft versus Hard?
have systems, mechanisms & processes in place,
are used to continually enhance their capabilities and those who work with it or for it, to achieve sustainable objectives - for themselves and the communities in which they participate.
What systems, mechanisms and processes?
Requires
High levels of communication
Concern for interdependencies & interrelationships
Adopt a learning approach to strategy
Participative policy making
Informating (Information Systems)
Internal exchange (client-server relationships)
Company-to-company learning
Learning climate
Mgg. Org. Change
Pedler stresses that
the model is
a simplification, symbolic rather than concrete, not complete or rigid, not sequential
So what is it then
a paradigm of discourse?
A state of being?
starts with strategy, ends with creation of learning opportunities & bubbling.
Flowery, metaphorical talk of ecological flows, energies, life forces & balances
"vertical & horizontal loop energy flows providing linkages between individual & collective activity/change + dynamics between vision & action".
Chris Jarvis
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Sheet:
‘feedback’ to reinforce/counteract action.
Mental Models
Shared Vision
pictures of the future
Chris Jarvis
Making It Work
Generating a sense of purpose
The Tricky Part
Ideas behind PM have been heard before  
People forced to develop PM - may do more harm than good
How can this be
Making It Work
continually challenged 
Strong role of manager to integrate mental modelling and systems-thinking skills 
The Tricky Part
Managers not always very skilled in implementing new ideas 
People find it difficult to challenge assumptions they believe to be “the case” 
Some people act in routinised ways when they are at work
How can this be
Making It Work
put together by many not a few 
better when considered intrinsically at the organisational level.
The Tricky Part
Compliance not commitment 
Extrinsic visions are usually personally held and are defensive 
Vision is usually top-down - do not have as good an affect as they should.
How can this be
Making It Work
Teams must master the art of dialogue and discussion 
Conflict can still appear in good team learning
BUT essentially a unitary frame of reference
The Tricky Part
boredom sets in  
open minded with one’s own views and the views of others
How can this be
Making It Work
look at the whole picture, not “snap shots in time”
provide the right workplace conditions
The Tricky Part
People find it hard to see the whole pattern of change
takes time to see newly initiated ideas work
easier to learn at an early stage rather than uncouple tangled messes
How can this be
Operational / “Fire-fighting”
How to focus on embedded systems and processes
Reluctance to train (or invest in training)
Too many hidden personal agendas
Tension between top-down order and bottom up anarchy
Management exasperation?
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Hot air, recursive polemic?
The LO characteristics become
an energetic, normative, persuasive device for those wishing to manage change.
a professional "change agents'" model? Independent of the context or analysis of change processes?
prescriptions - commitments to flexible, self-managing, incremental, experimental, participative activities ?
ethically correct, personal values model?
How well does down-sizing and asset stripping fit in?
Chris Jarvis
“Training by its nature pre-specifies outcomes.”
“A planned process to modify attitude, knowledge, or skill behaviour through learning experience to achieve effective performance in an activity or range of activities. Its purpose, in the work situation, is to develop the abilities of the individual and to satisfy the current future”
Manpower Services Commission, 1981
Appraisals
Still creaky, bureaucratic
Training budget agreed
Mgt visibility - MbWA - not obvious!
How would you research the evidence for L.B. Dickens being a learning organisation?
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1 – 5 days e.g.
Recruitment & selection; Leadership for Team Coordinators
Staff appraisal & recruitment skills & equal opportunities
Using Windows XP
Longer then a week e.g.
Two weeks Database Developer
Day-release for Postgrad (MBA/MSc)
Diploma in Social Work
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Corporate training at LBD put higher on agenda
Corporate aims adopted at dept level.
focus on ensuring that staff attend certain compulsory courses.
Non-compliance means staff will be unable to undertake key elements of work which may cause serious effects on department operations.
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Assertion:
Managers and senior executives who are successful leaders will not only respond to change positively but also actively create change.
Characteristics:
Leaders with a particular drive, a desire to bring order out of chaos, or, if something is too cosy, to create chaos in order to bring change.
projecting a particular ethos and culture
powerful vision of where their companies or their societies are heading.
Chris Jarvis
Contributors: Downton (1973), Burns (1978), Bass (1985), Bennis & Nanus (1985), Tichy & Devanna (1986)
Bass surveyed 70 execs
"In your careers, who transformed you in Burns' terms (raised awareness, move up Maslow hierarchy …. to transcend self-interest).
Answer: usually an organisational superior.
fresh thinking?
transformational leader creates conditions for followers to want to achieve results and to fulfil themselves.
bridges small group studies & leadership by ’movers & shakers’ who transform organisations
Chris Jarvis
From Laissez faire to Transactional
Laissez-faire not really leaders at all, avoid intervention, weak follow up, passivity, potential for confusion
Transactional leaders
Active: standards/objectives, monitor, correct, look for error,
enforce rules/procedures. Low initiative and risk-taking
Constructive transactions, contingent rewards
outcome: performance that meets expectations.
simplified in One-Minute Manager (Blanchard & Johnson 1982)
Airport business library
Transactional leadership in perspective
Mixed evidence - it may be desirable, even necessary. Contingent rewards underpin PRP
laissez-faire & transactional in directive, consultative, participative & delegative styles
Directive: 'These are the rules and this is how you've broken them'.
Participative: 'Let's work out together the rules to identify mistakes'
Weaknesses
management > leadership
Assertion: fails to develop, motivate, bring to full potential (Bass)
Chris Jarvis
promotes
teams, esprit de corps, autonomy, synergy, belief, value
Four 'I's.
IS
unorthodoxy in character, symbolise innovation.
compare UK motorcycles & Swiss watch market to Sony
Chris Jarvis
I had a dream …...
Ask not what America can do for you. Ask what you can do..
go the extra mile. Iacocca at Chrysler.
ldealised influence
the buck stops here'. Purpose, persistence, trust, accomplishment over failure. Respected for personal ability
Leadership .. the priceless gift you earn from those who work for you. I have to earn the right to that gift, and continuously re-earn (it).
John Harvey-Jones (ICI)
Hitler, Jim Jones
develop people more fully to respond better to competition & change
Chris Jarvis
concepts, symbols and vision for world-class quality
IS, IM, IC in promoting awareness, responsibility and self-monitoring
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Is transformational leadership cross-cultural?
‘exporting participative management or Theory Y from the USA to authoritarian cultures is like 'preaching Jeffersonian democracy to managers who believe in the divine right of kings'.
Haire, Ghiselli and Porter 1966
Leadership - a universal phenomenon?
context and culture influences
Bass presents evidence from studies in Italy, Sweden, Canada, New Zealand, India, Japan and Singapore
suggests that the notion needs only fine-tuning across cultures
Chris Jarvis
Discuss.
“It is glib to talk of a learning organisation. The concept is gloss and elusive. Demonstrating it in action is more difficult . Almost anything could be presented to say that a L-organisation exists and operates yet many could also present instances to refute the proposition.”
Discuss.
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