Communities of Practice LO26998

From: Mark W. McElroy (mmcelroy@vermontel.net)
Date: 07/13/01


Replying to LO26975 --

Rod:

Communities, in general (of practice or otherwise) are groups of people
that form around common interests, needs, or other shared orientations of
some kind. Some schools of thought hold that "real" communities are ones
that self-organize whereas artificial communities, like teams, are ones
that managers form. These two kinds of communities can be expected to
behave differently in important ways.

In any case, communities are breeding grounds for new ideas and new
knowledge. They produce, through intensive dialogue and interaction
amongst their members, knowledge that has the potential of becoming
adopted by their host organizations. In other words, communities are
nested inside organizations and serve as the wellsprings of knowledge that
may or may not be adopted by their host organization for organization-wide
practice. In one conception of this idea, organizations learn through a
process that begins with individual learning, followed by group learning
(communities), followed by organizational learning. Knowledge evolves
through this process of moving from the minds of individuals to the minds
of groups, to the minds of organizations. Here's a simple animation from
my own web site which illustrates this progression:
http://www.macroinnovation.com/animation.htm

Peter Senge writes "teams learn only through individuals who learn." By
the same token, organizations learn only from individuals and communitites
who learn.

Hope this helps.

Regards,

Mark

"French, Roderick C" wrote:

> Can someone explain to me how Organizational Learning is related to a
> community of practice....

-- 

"Mark W. McElroy" <mmcelroy@vermontel.net>

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