MIDDLE EAST TECHNICAL UNIVERSITY DEPARTMENT OF CIVIL ENGINEERING CE 726 – STRATEGIC MANAGEMENT OF...

MIDDLE EAST TECHNICAL UNIVERSITY

DEPARTMENT OF CIVIL ENGINEERING

CE 726 – STRATEGIC MANAGEMENT OF CONSTRUCTION

COMPANIES

LEARNING ORGANIZATIONS

Nizami ÖZÇELİK - 1623156

Can Barış AĞBAY - 1492974

OUTLINE

• Learning Notion

• What is Learning Organization?

• Basics of Learning in Learning Organizations

• Founders of Learning Organization Concept

• Organizational Learning in Construction Industry

• How Construction Companies Learn

• Strategic Role of Organizational Learning

• Obstacles to Becoming a LO in Construction

Sector

• The Learning Organization Audit

INTRODUCTION

A world of rapid and accelerating change in today’s

markets

These organizations must learn as fast as their

environment changes in order to stay relevant and

competitive.

Learning organization develops due to changes and

pressures of modernization of the human and

organizational life cycle

Being better placed to respond to external pressures

Having the knowledge to better link resources to

customer needs

Learning Notion

Gaining experience and taking lessons from

experiences

Chris Argyris

A relatively permanent change in behavior that results from practice

Atkinson et al.

Learning process could be achieved by various methods with different percentages of retention.

The National Training Laboratories created a learning pyramid illustrates the percentage of learning retention

Learning Notion

Learning approaches were shifted in the latter half of

20th century that is giving rise to existing new fields

such as;

• Active learning

• Collaborative learning

• Organizational learning

“This shift eliminates the separation of teacher

from student and replaces it with dialogue between

teacher and student to encourage joint responsibility

for learning and growth.”

Burkey

(1997)

Learning Notion

Shana Ratner (1997) explains that this shift, from thinking of learning as a transaction to learning as process.

Old Answers (~1980s) New Answers (~2000s)

Knowledge is a “thing that is

transferred from one person to

another.

Knowledge is a relationship b/w the

knower and the known

We all learn in the same way. There are many different learning

styles.

We learn best passively, by listening

and watching.

We learn best by actively doing and

managing our own learning.

We learn alone, with our minds, based

on our innate abilities.

We learn in social contexts, through

mind, body, and emotions.

Our “intelligence” is based on our

individual abilities.

Our intelligence is based on our

learning community.

What is Learning Organization?

A company that facilitates the learning of its members

and continuously transforms itself

People are in a continuous search for new and better

ways to adapt to change and improve performance.

Learning organization enables organizations to

sustain competitive position in the business

environment.

Traditional vs Learning Organization


According to Peter M. Senge, an organization where;

People continually expand their capacity to create the

results they truly desire

New and expansive patterns of thinking are nurtured

Collective aspiration is set free

Anwhere people are continually learning how to learn


Rowden (2001) states that a organization in which;

Everyone is engaged in solving problems, enabling

the organization to continuously experiment, change,

and improve

Increasing its capacity to grow, learn, and achieve its

purpose


Garvin (1993) tells that learning organizations are

specialists at 5 activities:

Systematically problem solving

Testing for new approaches

Learning from own past experiences

Learning from others’ experiences and successful

applications

Transferring knowledge to each member of

organization rapidly

Basics of Learning in Learning Organizations

The smallest elements of organizations are persons

and learning process starts from persons.

Individual learning is the basic of the learning by

group. Individuals turn towards a common aim and

share personal knowledge.

After personal learning, learning by groups comes into

play.

Further, the results reached by group learning should

be transmitted to all members of organization and OL

could be achieved.

Learning Loop in Learning Organizations

Founders of Learning Organization Concept

Sandra Courter states that in literature and

conversations with practitioners, the authors whose

names came up again and again as "founders" of this

approach are;

• Chris Argyris,

• Donald Schön,

• Margaret Wheatley , and

• Peter Senge

Chris Argyris and Donald Schön

Chris Argyris The father of organizational

learning

Donald Schön Harvard scholar of Chris Argyris

They identified two methods as the theories of action.

The theories of action are divided into two parts:

• Espoused Theory: Are essentially the words

individuals use to convey what it is we do or would

others to think we do in a particular situation.

• Theories-in-use: Are the theories that govern the

actual behavior of what we do in a particular

situation.


Argyris and Schön addressed the issue of learning by

developing two distinctions which involve the methods

individuals solve problems.

• Single Loop Learning: Routine learning which

involves individuals solving problems within

structured guidelines.

• Double Loop Learning: Questioning the structured

guidelines and determining if they are indeed the

best method for resolving the issue.


Argyris states “double loop learning is necessary if

organizations are to make informed decisions in

rapidly changing and often uncertain contexts”

With the purpose of illustrating this view, Argyris and

Schön developed two models:

• Model I: Inhibiting double loop learning

• Model II: Enhance double loop learning


Model I: Making inferences about behaviors without

checking whether they are valid and advocating one’s

view without explanation.

Model I is found harmful to organizations in that it

leads to defensive routines which are governed by 4

basic principles:

1) To remain in unilateral control;

2) Maximizing “winning” and minimize “losing”;

3) Suppressing negative feelings; and

4) To be as rational as possible.


Model II: Calling upon good quality data and to make

inferences. It looks to include the views and

experiences of participants rather than seeking to

impose a view upon the situation.

Argyris argues that Model II fosters productive

reasoning. Despite the challenges of breaking

individuals away from defensive reasoning, it is not

impossible.


To sum up, Argyris and Schön call for;

The adjustment of the thinking and behavior to ensure

that the best possible outcome is achieved at the

individual level.

Individuals must not fear failure or become defensive

when encountering new challenges

Persons should question old theories and must instead

embraces the possibility of learning.

Margaret Wheatley

Wheatley offers these core ideas:

1. Everything is a constant process of discovery and

creating.

2. Life is intent on finding what works, not what is

right.

3. Life is attracted to order.

4. Life organizes around identity.

5. Everything participates in the creation and

evolution of its neighbors.

Margaret Wheatley

Using a spider's web as a metaphor, Wheatley

demonstrates how organizations are living entities and

that learning strengthen their structure.

“... feeling its resiliency, noticing how slight

pressure in one area jiggles the entire web. If a web

breaks and needs repair, the spider doesn't cut out a

piece, terminate it. She reweaves it, using the silken

relationships that are already there, creating stronger

connections across the weakened spaces. We have not

yet learned how to be together.”

Peter M. Senge - FIFTH DISCIPLINE

System Thinking

Personal Mastery

Building Shared Vision

Mental Models

Team Learning

Systems Thinking

• Challenging since integrate new tools than simply apply them separately. That is the reason why system thinking is the fifth discipline.

• Brings and integrates other disciplines.

• Create an assemble logic for theory and practice.

• Focusing on whole pattern of change instead of snapshots of isolated parts of the systems. In fact, not only manage the results, it manages the the process as well.

System thinking requires; the disciplines of building

shared vision, mental models, team learning, and

personal mastery to realize its potential. Building shared

vision helps to think, plan, act, and behave in the long term.

Mental models focus on the openness required to root out

drawbacks in our present ways of seeing the world. Team

learning improves the skills of groups of people to look for

the whole picture that lies beyond individual perspectives.

And personal mastery fosters the personal motivation to

continually learn how our actions influence our world.

Systems Thinking

System thinking makes understandable the elusive and

subtle aspect of the learning organization. Individuals

perceive themselves and their world. A shift of mind is the

critical point of learning organization such as from seeing

ourselves as separate from the world to connected to the

world, from seeing problems as caused by someone or

something "out there" to seeing how our own actions

create the problems we experience.

Systems Thinking

• The key to seeing reality systemically is seeing circles of influence rather than straight lines.

• Breaking out of the reactive mindset that comes inevitably from "linear" thinking.

• Every circle tells a story. Any change made to the faucet position will alter the flow of water. As the water level changes, the perceived gap (between the current and desired water levels) changes. As the gap changes, my hand's position on the faucet changes again.

• When reading a feedback circle diagram, the main skill is to see the "story" that the diagram tells:

• how the structure creates a particular pattern of behavior (or, in a complex structure, several patterns of behavior) and how that pattern might be influenced.

How To Read System Diagram

Individual learning does not guarantee organizational learning. But without it organizational learning would not occur.

Kazua Inomari, says whether it is research and development, company management, or any other aspect of business, the active force is "people." And people have their own will, their own mind, and their own way of thinking. If the employees themselves are not sufficiently motivated to challenge the goals of growth and technological development, there will simply be no growth, no gain in productivity, and no technological development.

continually expanding ability to create the results in life we look for and want.

Personal Mastery

Personal mastery goes beyond competence and skills

It goes beyond spiritual unfolding or opening.Approaching one's life as a creative work, living life

from a creative as opposed to reactive viewpoint. A series practices and principles such as personal

vision, holding creative tension, structural conflict, commitment to truth, using subconscious.

Personal vision comes from within. We have goals and objectives, but these are not visions. The ability to focus on ultimate desires, not only on secondary goals, is a cornerstone of personal mastery as having vision. Therefore, idea of purpose is important to understand the real vision.

Most directly a result of living consistently with your purpose. This is a critic for personal mastery.

Personal Mastery

The principle of creative tension is the central principle of personal mastery.

Creative tension can appear when you bring the vision and a clear picture of current reality to juxtaposition. The significance of personal mastery is learning how to generate and sustain creative tension in our lives.

not mean acquiring more information, but expanding the ability to produce the results .

Need lifelong generative learning.

learning organizations are not possible unless they have people at every level who practice it.

Personal Mastery

Many people, even highly successful people, harbor deep beliefs contrary to their personal mastery.

these beliefs are below the level of conscious awareness.

hold one of two contradictory beliefs that limit our ability to create what we really want.powerlessness—our inability to bring into

being all the things we really care about. unworthiness—that we do not deserve to

have what we truly desire.

Personal Mastery

Robert Fritz uses a metaphor to describe how contradictory underlying beliefs work as a system, counter to achieving our goals.

Imagine, as you move toward your goal, there is a rubber band, symbolizing creative tension, pulling you in the desired direction.

But imagine also a second rubber band, anchored to the belief of powerlessness or unworthiness. Just as the first rubber band tries to pull you toward your goal, the second pulls you back toward the underlying belief that you can't (or don't deserve to) have your goal. Fritz calls the system involving both the tension pulling us toward our goal and the tension anchoring us to our underlying belief "structural conflict," because it is a structure of conflicting forces: pulling us simultaneously toward and away from what we want.

Personal Mastery

Commitment to the truth often seems to people an inadequate strategy.

not mean seeking the "Truth," the absolute final word or ultimate cause.

root out the ways we limit or deceive ourselves from seeing what is.

It means continually broadening our awareness.

When personal mastery is realized as a discipline—an activity we integrate into our lives—it involves two underlying movements. The first is continually clarifying what is important to us. We often spend too much time coping with problems along our path that we forget why we are on that path, in the first place. The second is continually learning how to see current reality more clearly. We've all known people have in counterproductive relationships, who remain stuck since they behave as pretending everything is all right.

Personal Mastery

mastery means a special level of proficiency.

People with a high level of personal mastery are able to consistently realize the results that matter most deeply to them in effect.

They approach their life as an artist would approach a work of art, by becoming committed to their own lifelong learning.

The discipline of personal mastery starts with clarifying the things that really matter to us, of living our lives in line with our highest aspirations.

Personal Mastery

Many brilliant ideas do not get put into practice most of time. Best ideas and strategies fail to get translated into action. This is not due to weak intention, wavering will or non systematic understanding but from mental models. Particularly, new insights fail to get put into practice because they conflict with deeply held internal images of how the world works. Those images limit us to familiar ways of thinking and acting. Therefore, managing mental models as a discipline -surfacing, testing and improving our internal pictures of how the world works- promises to be a major breakthrough for building learning organizations.

Why are mental models so powerful in affecting what we do? In part, they affect what we see. As Albert Einstein once wrote, "Our theories determine what we measure." For many years, physicists ran experiments that contradicted classical physics, yet no one "saw" the data that these experiments eventually provided, leading to the revolutionary theories—quantum mechanics and relativity—of twentieth-century physics.

Mental Models

The inertia of deeply entrenched mental models can overwhelm even the best systemic insights.

To illustrate, business skills and interpersonal issues, sides of the discipline, are very important. On the other hand, most of managers are inherently pragmatic. They are motivated and willingness to learn when they need to learn in business context. Training them in mental modeling or "balancing inquiry and advocacy," with no connection to pressing business issues, will often be rejected. On the other hand, without the interpersonal skills, learning is still fundamentally adaptive, not generative. Generative learning requires managers with reflection and inquiry skills, not just consultants and planners. Then, the individuals with groups in whole organization realize the learning within an assemble cycle.

Mental Models

To sum up, mental models are deeply ingrained assumptions, generalizations, or even pictures of images that influence how we take action. Very often, we are not consciously aware of our mental models or the effects that they have on our behavior.

Many insights into new markets or outmoded organizational practices fail to get put into practice because they conflict with powerful, tacit mental models.

Institutional learning is the process whereby people change their shared mental models of the company, their markets, and their competitors.

Mental Models

A shared vision is not just an idea. It is like attractive force in people's hearts, a

force off impressive power. Once it is realized, then it is no longer an

abstraction. It is concrete. People begin to see it as if it exists.

Few, if any, forces in human affairs are as powerful as shared vision.

Answer to the question, "What do we want to create?"

Create sense of commonality that permeates the organization and gives coherence to diverse activities.

truly share a vision common aspiration. creates energy with focusing on the things. While adaptive learning is possible without

vision, generative learning occurs only when people are striving to accomplish something that matters and carries a meaning deeply to them. In fact, the whole idea of generative learning—"expanding your ability to create"—truly want to accomplish. will seem abstract and meaningless until people become excited about some vision they


Encourage members to develop their personal visions as building shared vision. Knowing that if individuals do not have their own vision, they can only adapt and sign up for someone else’s vision. This causes a result which is compliance, not commitment.

As a metaphor, hologram, can be given. if you cut a photograph in half, each part shows only one part of the whole image. But if you divide a hologram, each part shows the whole image intact. Similarly, as you continue to divide up the hologram, no matter how small the divisions, each piece still shows the whole image. Likewise, when a group of people come to share a vision for an organization, each person sees his own picture of the organization at its best. Each shares responsibility for the whole, not just for his piece. But the component "pieces" of the hologram are not identical. Each represents the whole image from a different point of view


Senge states that “visions spread because of a reinforcing process of increasing clarity, enthusiasm, communication and commitment.

As people talk, the vision grows clearer. As it gets clearer, enthusiasm for its benefits builds. And soon, the vision starts to spread in a reinforcing spiral of communication and excitement. Enthusiasm can also be reinforced by early successes in pursuing the vision”. It is represented in the below figure. If the reinforcing process continues, it would lead to growth in clarity and shared commitment toward vision as more people join.


However, any kind of limiting factors can come into play to slow down this cycle.

To illustrate, as the number of people increases, number of different views grows as well. This would generate unmanageable conflict. This is called as a classic "limits to growth" structure, where the reinforceing process of growing enthusiasm for the vision interacts with "balancing process" that limits the spread of the visions, due to increasing diversity and polarization.


Relatively unaligned team waste energy.

Aligned with commonality of direction, individuals’ energies harmonize. As a result, there would be much less wasted energy.

There is commonality of purpose, a shared vision, and understanding of how to complement one another's efforts.

Alignment as a whole team is the requirement condition before empowering the individual.

Empowering the individual when there is a relatively low level of alignment worsens the chaos and makes managing the team even more difficult.

Team Learning

Need for mastering team learning in organizations.

Individual learning, at some level, would not be so important for organizational learning. But if teams learn, they become a microcosm for learning throughout the organization. However, it is known that team skills are more challenging to develop than individual skills. This is why learning teams need "practice fields," ways to practice together so that they can develop their collective learning skills.

The almost total absence of meaningful "practice“ is probably the predominant factor that keeps most management teams from being effective learning units.

Team Learning

Team learning has three critical dimensions.

1. thinking insightfully about complex issues. Teams ought to know that potential for many minds is more intelligent than one mind.

2. need for innovative coordinated action. Outstanding teams in organizations develop the same sort of relationship—an "operational trust," where each team member remains conscious of other team members and act in ways that complement each others' actions.

3. role of team members on other teams. For example, most of the actions of senior teams are actually carried out through other teams. Thus, a learning team continually fosters other learning teams through inculcating the practices and skills of team learning more broadly.

Team Learning

The discipline of team learning involves mastering the practices of dialogue and discussion, the two distinct ways that teams converse.

In dialogue, there is the free and creative exploration of complex and subtle issues, a deep "listening" to one another and suspending of one's own views. Moreover, to a large degree, the skills that allow dialogue are identical to the skills that can make discussions productive rather than destructive. These are the skills of inquiry and reflection, originally discussed, "Mental Models." In fact, one of the reasons that dialogue is so important is that it offers a safe environment for honing these skills and for discovering the profound group learning that they can lead to.

By contrast, in discussion different views are presented and defended and there is a search for the best view to support decisions that must be made at this time.

Dialogue and discussion are potentially complementary

Team Learning

It is important to mention about team learning and fifth discipline together .

the tools of systems thinking are significant because virtually all the prime tasks of management teams—developing strategy, shaping visions, designing policy and organizational structures—involve wrestling with enormous complexity.

Perhaps the single greatest difficulties of management teams is that they confront these complex, dynamic realities with a language designed for simple, static problems. Management consultant Charles Kiefer says it this way: "Reality is composed of multiple-simultaneous, interdependent cause-effect-cause relationships. From this reality, normal verbal language extracts simple, linear cause-effect chains. This accounts for a great deal of why managers are so drawn to low leverage interventions." For example, if the problem is long product development times we hire more engineers to reduce times; if the problem is low profits we cut costs; if the problem is falling market share we cut price to boost share.

This occurs due to fact that we see the world in simple obvious terms, and we believe in simple, obvious solutions. This leads to searching for simple solutions and fixes.

Team Learning

The outputs of construction works are unique projects that involve the integration of different subsystems and components by a range of participants such as clients, advisors and subcontractors who come together for a temporary cooperation (Barlow, 2000).

Having a project-based nature, characterized as short-term and task-oriented, construction industry does not allow a culture for continuous learning. For this reason, construction companies should be more careful in developing and measuring OL so as to benefit from OL principles (Kululanga et al., 2001).

A learning organization in construction should be skilled at five main activities as Garvin (1993) suggests: systematic problem solving, experimentation with new approaches, learning from their own experience and past history, learning from the experiences and best practices of others and transferring knowledge quickly and efficiently throughout the organization (cited in Love et al., 2000).

A construction company learns from its internal resources as well as from the other organizations through partnerships and benchmarking. (Özorhon, 2004)

Organizational Learning in Construction Industry

As Nevis et al. (1995) state learning is concerned about the production and delivery of goods and services. Since in construction works, the unit of production or service is the project then, the most important source of learning is the project-related activities. Project knowledge includes;

the technical knowledge concerning the product, its parts and technologies,

procedural knowledge concerning producing and using of the product and

organizational knowledge concerning communication and collaboration between the work teams (Kasvi et al., 2003).

How Construction Companies Learn

Love et al. (2000) argue that lean production, concurrent engineering, benchmarking, partnering and supply-chain management can be effectively implemented when construction companies learn.

Benchmarking is a popular means of learning the best practices used by other companies, including the competitors (Mann, Samson and Dow, 1998 cited in Robey et al., 2000).

Cooperative strategic alliances encourage partners to commit resources to the relationship. By the help of alliances, companies learn from each other, compensate their lacks in the market.

How Construction Companies Learn

OL can influence performance, long-term effectiveness and survival

Ability of searching, encoding, distributing, and interpreting the external information (cited in Hong, 1999).

More attention to sharing, interpretation and utilization of knowledge to integrate this asset in their daily activities.

Effectively used techniques and technologies such as; the telephone, Internet/intranet/e-mail and documents and reports for knowledge sharing among employees in construction organizations

Face-to-face meetings and interaction with the supply chain (Egbu and Botterill, 2002).

Strategic Role of Learning Organization

Becoming a learning organization is an evolution in

mind and system; therefore some obstacles arise:

Project based teams

Limited time and budget in construction industry

No allowance for continuous learning culture in

construction industry

Taught thinking way and communication habits

Obstacles to Becoming a Learning Organization

in Construction Sector

Obstacles to Becoming a Learning Organization in Construction Sector

Limited support from top management

Apparently given lessons, not practical and

applicable lessons

Upright hierarchy in many companies

Lack of collaboration due to competition

Not having an innovative company culture

Not sharing personal knowledge with other

members

Measuring and evaluating those learning organizations

are important.

Mainly two evaluating methods are proposed;

• Organizational Learning Profile (OLP)

• Learning Organization Questionnaire (DLOQ)

The Learning Organization Audit

Organizational Learning Profile (OLP)

This approach measures 4 factors that describe

important elements of LOs:

a) information-sharing patterns,

b) inquiry climate,

c) learning practices, and

d) achievement mindset.

The OLP consists of 34 items about these 4 factors

Respondents agree or disagree by using a six-point

scale

Learning Organization Questionnaire (DLOQ)

Rather than focus on learning processes, focus on

primary characteristics of a LO.

Watkins and Marsick (1997) identified 7 dimensions of

a LO: (a) creates continuous learning opportunities,

(b) promotes dialogue and inquiry,

(c) promotes collaboration and team learning,

(d) empowers people to evolve a collective vision,

(e) establishes systems to capture and share learning,

(f) connects the organization to its environment, and

(g) provides strategic leadership for learning.


(DLOQ) consist of 55 statements about organization

practices. Respondents indicate the degree by using a

6-point scale (almost always to almost never).


DLOQ is applied for a project-based construction organization

No success in being a LO in this case.

Conclusion

An excessive literature study about LO is shared with

you.

LO have important benefits such as maintaining levels

of innovation, remaining competitive, being better

placed to respond to external pressures.

In spite of mentioned obstacles, construction LOs

could be achieved by following the guidelines proposed

by the founders of the concept.

References

Please see the attached report for detailed reference list.

Organizations will eventually learn how to become

a learning organization!

MIDDLE EAST TECHNICAL UNIVERSITY DEPARTMENT OF CIVIL ENGINEERING CE 726 – STRATEGIC MANAGEMENT OF...

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