At 02:05 PM 11/25/96 -0600, Gord wrote about setting up
>Learning Accounts to
>budget the amount of time an employee can spend in learning activities each
>year.
Gord:
I am curious about the approach you are considering in your Learning
Organization Policy. The implications of this policy are to me quite
surprising. It strikes me that your policy "supports and promotes (and
limits) learning in the workplace" [parentheses added]. These comments
will seem to be critical of your approach, but I am really just trying to
understand the model with which you are working.
It appears at first glance that you are intending to ration the learning
entitlement of employees, in much the same way that organizations place a
limit on the number of days a person can be on paid leave to attend
conferences and seminars. Is this based on the notion that people might
"waste time" learning things that add little value instead of doing their
jobs?
Let me mention a few things about my perception of the learning
organization to see if we can ascertain the source of the differences.
In a learning organization, learning is a natural part of the job. As I
perform a set of tasks related to a project, I place my findings,
information about my decisions, information about the tools and methods I
used, information about the customer and the customer's problem -- I place
all of these things into the organization's repository of information. In
the future, if someone else in the organization encounters a problem new
to him/her, she can search through the repository and *learn* how to solve
this problem, using my stored information if it is relevant.
Also in this repository are articles that have been scanned in, other
types of documents from internal and external sources, reports,
ifnormation from the external environment on all matters that could affect
the orgzniation, instructions, courses, book references, references to
people who from their knowledge, skills and experience can help with
certain kinds of task, multi-media information. A growing, living
collection of the organization's intellectual capital.
To limit one's access to that repository, it seems to me, would be like
telling the retail clerk that he is allowed to use the cash register only
a certain number of times a day, regardless of how many customers show up.
Productive management of time is something that is always of concern (in
ourselves as well as in others). An employee who does no work, but spends
most of the working time browsing learning resources, is obviously
presenting a performance problem. At the same time, the employee who plods
along trying to complete a task for which he is poorly prepared, is also
dysfunctional. He should perhaps, spend some time learning better ways to
perform the task.
In my view, the most important learning in an established learning
organization will not be in the form of canned or person-delivered
courses, but will be achieved by drawing upon the collective knowledge,
experience, wisdom, and raw information stored in the heads of employees
and in the repository of corporate knowledge. Of course, courses will
continue to be useful, but for much of the learning that will be needed to
enable organizations to adapt to rapid change, there will be no time
available to prepare courses and instructors and materials.
Comments?
Brock Vodden
brock.vodden@odyssey.on.ca
At 02:05 PM 11/25/96 -0600, you wrote:
>We are in the process of developing an Organizational Learning Policy
>which supports and promotes learning in the workplace. One of the
>supports we are looking at is the concept of "Learning Accounts". In
>addition to formal training opportunities, we are looking at providing
>employees with a "Learning Account" where they could access up to a
>certain amount of days per year during work hours to engage in informal or
>self-directed activities identified in their learning plans.
snip
>Gord Johnston
H. Brock Vodden
Vodden Consulting
"Where People and Systems Meet"
Ontario, Canada
brock.vodden@odyssey.on.ca
--Brock Vodden <brock.vodden@odyssey.on.ca>
Learning-org -- An Internet Dialog on Learning Organizations For info: <rkarash@karash.com> -or- <http://world.std.com/~lo/>