Explaining a learning orgLO10460

S. Sankaran (shankar@singnet.com.sg)
Sun, 13 Oct 1996 12:24:19 +0800 (SST)

Replying to LO10450 --

Hello Shankar,

You missed the gurus mate!

.....Chris Argyris and Donals Schon - Organisational Learning II - Theory,
Method and Practice - p 180

"Organisational adaptability, flexibility, avoidance of stability traps,
propensity to experiment, readiness to rethink means and ends,
inquiry-orientation, realization of human potential for learning in the
service of organisational purposes and creation of organisational settings
as context for human development."

It is interesting to note that Argyris and Schon draw a distinction
between LO and OL (Organisational learning). They consider LO to be
practice-oriented and prescriptive promulgated mainly by consultants and
practitioners and OL to be arising from the skeptical, scholarly
literature from academics. Although the two views have different thrusts,
appeal to different audiences and use different forms of language they
intersect at key points.

To them "OL occurs when individuals within an organisation experience a
problematic situation and inquire into it on behalkf of the organisation.
They experience a surpsrising mismatch between expected and actual results
of action and respond to that mismatch through a process of thought and
further action that leads them to modify their images of of organisation
or their understaning of organisational phenomenon and to restructure
their activties so as to bring expectations and outcomes into line,
thereby changing organisational theory-in-use. In order to become
organisational the learning that results from organisational inquiry must
become embedded in the images of the organisation held in its member's
minds and/or in the epistemological artifacts (the maps, memories and
programs) embedded in the organisational environment. (p 16 of same
reference)."

Regards

Shankar
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Shankar Sankaran
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Singapore 588136
shankar@singnet.com.sg
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-- 

shankar@singnet.com.sg (S. Sankaran)

Learning-org -- An Internet Dialog on Learning Organizations For info: <rkarash@karash.com> -or- <http://world.std.com/~lo/>