My view is that
1) No large organization (as far as I know) is 100% a learning
organization; there are no "pure" examples.
2) Some units within some very anti-LO organiations sure look like
learning organizations to me, much of the time, for most of their
activities.
So, it must be possible.
On the other hand, I doubt that a negative overall organization
environment helps. I'm thinking of the recent post, "HELP! I'm trapped in
a Theory-X Organization!"
And, finally, the organizational boundaries are fuzzy. Why draw the line
at the corporate boundary? Maybe the corporation as a whole is
anti-learning organization, but the larger society demonstrates, at least
sometimes, significant learning progress. Or the company is backwards,
but the people within have interactions with a professional or industry
body that is more of a learning-organization.
Many of our clients are working in situations where the support from
above is compromised, intermittant, inconsistent, or unclear.
On Tue, 24 Jan 1995, Denis Cowan wrote:
>
> If a learning organization needs to have an external learning
> organization environment to exist in , then no learning organization
> could exist. Because unless the universe as a whole was a learning
> environment no such sub entity could exist.
>
> OOPs. Possibly the universe is the learning organization and we are the
> blip which is trying to deny this.
> >
Richard Karash ("Rick") | (o) 508-879-8301 | Mac * Flying
Innovation Associates, Inc. | (fax) 508-626-2205 | Systems Thinking
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