Re: Impact of reengineering on jobs
Nancy Dixon (dixonn@gwis2.circ.gwu.edu)
Sat, 28 Jan 1995 23:14:26 -0500 (EST)
I have some thoughts about how we might prepare managers for the learning
organization. Organizations which are striving to be learning
organizations ask managers to use the skills of analysis, interpretation
and synthesis to help the organization learn its way of the novel problems
it increasingly faces. I believe traditional management development
courses as well as traditional MBA programs send a contradictory message
to learners when delivery is structured in a way that negates the
reasoning capability of managers. If we want to facilitate organizational
learning we will need to make four fundamental changes in these
traditional programs. First, we need to situate learning in real work
rather than separating it out in classrooms. There are many formats like
action learning and action science that accomplish that. Secondly, we will
have to define a less central role for experts. Instead of providing
expert answers that will hopefully be applied to some future need, we need
to identify problems and then use known theory or expertise to inform our
thinking about those issues. Third, we need to learn in community rather
than as individuals. In classrooms the individual is the focus of learning
even if a group is present. Fourth, we need to create learning experiences
that occur over time, spaced rather than compressed, as most management
development programs are. I have written about these ideas in more depth
in an article "Developing Managers for the Learning Organization" in Human
Resource Management Review vol 3, no 3, 1993. I would welcome other's
ideas about how we might change management development and MBA programs to
meet the needs of the learning organization.
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From: Nancy Dixon <dixonn@gwis2.circ.gwu.edu>