Individual and Organizational Learning LO28716

From: Mark Feenstra (mark@practicefield.org)
Date: 06/19/02


Replying to LO28711

Michael Ayers writes in response to Fred Nikols:

>But wouldn't that redesign or new systems be put in place by a person (or
>persons) who had 'learned' something, and doesn't the redesign thus
>transfer that individual learning to the organization?

Maybe we need to differentiate between static and dynamic learning
following on from the distinction made by Robert Pirsig regarding static
and dynamic quality?

Organisational learning seems to me to be primarily static, with perhaps
some little blips into the dynamic realm made by various attempts at AI.
Individual learning, it seems to me, starts out being dynamic at the point
where it is creative, and then as it becomes routine or is recorded, is
translated into static learning.

snip

>Perhaps we are talking, not about 'organizational learning' but rather
>about the 'institutionalization of individual learning.' Or even the
>'transfer of individual learning to members of an organizationally
>sponsored network'? Or is that phrasing merely dodging the issue of our
>tendency to anthropomorphize organizations and give them human attributes
>thereby somehow letting the people that comprise the organization off the
>hook for what 'the organization' does ...

But what about group/team/collective learning, as distinct from
organisational learning? I think that the way people appear to be able to
learn dynamically together points to something beyond individual learning
that is not just anthropomorphizing organizations. Especially people who
practice together, in the sense of cultivating collective capabilities.

For me it has something to do with the facility for creativity to enter
the process of learning that makes it dynamic, and in my experience
creativity happens in the present moment. But how can the transfer of a
creative response between people become something more than static
learning? Would an organization designed to facilitate creative responses
by its staff, as opposed to getting people to follow a static recipe, be
facilitating organisational learning?

Warm regards

Mark Feenstra
mark@practicefield.org
ph +64 9 5755166

-- 

"Mark Feenstra" <mark@practicefield.org>

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