On 22 Nov 95 16:53:28 EST Rol Fessenden wrote:
> From: Rol Fessenden <76234.3636@com.compuserve>
> Date: 22 Nov 95 16:53:28 EST
> Subject: Re: Intro -- Rol Fessenden LO3810
> To: learning-org <learning-org@com.std.world>
>
> >...on one hand, the organization you're in has a short-term and very
> practical perspective, while you correctly see the need to take the long
> view. Plus, as you say, we have goals that are at least superficially in
> conflict with the goals of some of those departments. My first thought is
> that you are swimming in too small a pond.>>
> As you go on to say, the
> solution starts here. I value what someone else has described as personal
> responsibility, so I have to do what I have to do. Besides, my goals are
> not really any different than anyone else's. I want the company to
> succeed in the short term, and I want to build a healthy capacity to
> survive in the long term as well. Also, I have lots of personal examples
> of individual effort making all the difference. This is where I diverge
> from some who may view 'team as god' in terms of accomplishment.
> Somewhere in all this there needs to be a healthy blend of team and
> individual. We cannot afford to lose the contributions of the passionate
> individual contributor in our quest for team coherence.
[...balance of Rol's msg trimmed by your host...]
Rol, I am glad to someone else is interested in the importance of teams to
the learning organization concept. Personally, it seems to me that
relatively little work has been done on team learning generally (the few
examples, such as Bill Isaccs' pioneering work being notable exceptions).
It seems strange, given the amount of time given to Senge/MIT's work on
learning organizations (almost completely ignoring the valuable work done
by Pedler et al in the UK and Swieringa et al, on the European continent,
I might add), that so little time is spent on what Senge himself termed
the most important link in the learning cycle/chain, between individual
competence development and organizational learning.
Do you, or anyone else out there, agree, or have I missed some really
important empirical work?, or is there some PHD thesis in the making to
rectify this apparent gap?
-- andy rowe <adrowe@essex.ac.uk>