Dear Charlie,
I appreciate your passion for implementation and your opennes to looking at
it through the "process" (vs. the "project") lense.
I resonate with your concern:
>that the learning org would become a process for the
>highly trained elites in the organization and filter into
>pockets slowly.
For example, top managers may be good at developing and sharing mental
models, without necessary having to encourage a spirit of discovery and
high-synergy collaboration in the rank and file.
>The problem is that this kind of change
>needs to happen quickly - for survival of the concept itself
>- before another fix comes along
I think the "learning organization" metaphor has some staying power because
in times of increasing turbulence organizations either recognize and try to
cope with chaos or deny it. Companies in the first category have a chance
to survive and they will all be "learning organizations."
However, embracing only the rhetoric of it, as I see it in many, many
companies, will clearly not be of much help. To trigger lasting and
generative change, members of the organization need to inquiry into the
question: "learning for what purpose?"
>My experience is that implementation is the forgotten half of
>the change game - its messy, hard to predict, and filled
>with conflict.
I agree so much that I've even given up the idea of "implementation" and
started exploring the possibility of a new function for consultants and
internal change champions: stewards of the self-organizing collective
intelligence and wisdom of their customers. Is anybody interested to
co-explore it with me?
If the "stewards of the self-organizing collective intelligence" is too
alien from your working culture, as I suppose its is in most companies,
then why not call it "learning guides," "knowledge facilitators," or
whatever fits.
George Por
Organizational Learning Systems
gpor@ols.com (George Por)
"Electronic media is to be one of love's most powerful and effective tools
of transformation during the last days, facilitating education
and catalyzing widespread awakening." -- Ken Carey, 3rd Millennium