Dear Maria,
>>What I do find difficult to tackle is the cultural change - I was
thinking about constructing a learning program and start it off by
building learning teams as the first stage of the program. I hoped that
any subsequent learning (ie courses etc.) would then be undertaken in the
spirit of enquiry and enthusiasm for continuously improving upon the
culture the teams had been exposed to. Will this planting of small seeds
naturally grow through out the organisation? I doubt somehow that it will
be enough to give the impetus for continued growth. The small seed
approach is the one I would like to take but I'm not sure how to expand it
from there.
Perhaps I am attempting too much by trying to implement an education
program and changing the culture at the same time. I just don't see the
sense in dumping a learning program into a culture that has not yet begun
to learn???
As I was reading your message I had the reaction that we do try to do too
much by trying to change the culture first. I think that, as you say, we
need to plant a little seed in everything we do (e.g. a competency
assessment, or a new job posting system, or a training/learning
administration system development, or ......)and do a lot of nurturing
(finding kindred souls who will do the nurturing too). I guess I have a
great deal of hope (and someone once said, "there is no hope" that the
resulting garden will be a transformed culture. I find that I end up
having a lot of hallway philosophical sessions with these kindred people
and we figure out how we might operationalize some improvement without
couching it as a culture change or transformation. If I look back on what
we have accomplished, I think we have made some progress.
I hope this wasn't too rambling.
-- Alexia Martin AlexiaM@aol.com