Responding to Michael Ayers in LO28711 who was in turn replying to my
earlier post --
>Fred Nickols thoughtfully writes, in part:
> > Organizations also acquire the capacity for new action based on
> >the design or redesign and engineering or reengineering of their business
> >processes. Ditto for the introduction of new systems, new machinery, new
> >plants, etc. Does that qualify as "organizational learning"? I, for
> >one, don't think so.
>
>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?
I think it is probably the case that redesigned or new systems would be
put in place by a person (or persons) who had 'learned' something but I'm
far less certain that this transfers that individual learning to the
organization. Think about the use of "transfer" in that statement. It
implies a shift in custody or possession; that, somehow, the organization
now possesses what has been learned. Although the organization is a legal
entity and may indeed "own" the new system or process or even the
intellectual rights thereto, it doesn't seem to me that it "owns" the
underlying knowledge in the same way that a human being possesses
knowledge gained through learning. Moreover, I'm also growing
increasingly skeptical of the notion of transferring learning or knowledge
from one person to another, let alone from a person to an organization.
Personally, I'm more inclined to think in terms of developing knowledge in
people than to think in terms of transferring it. (This is especially
true of tacit knowledge.) The whole notion of conveyance of knowledge
makes me intellectually uncomfortable. It's probably a nit on my part but
I choose to pick it.
(I snipped the second point because it requires no comment from me)
> >Back now to the final point of the essay question, the "interdependency
> >of individual and organizational learning." I don't believe they are
> >interdependent. I do believe that organizational learning (at least in
> >so far as people are concerned) is dependent upon individual learning. I
> >do not believe that individual learning is dependent upon organizational
> >learning because "organizational learning," as stated above, is merely a
> >shorthand way of referring to patterns in individual learning.
>
>So if the organization has been, let's say, redesigned, do not people
>learn from that? Suppose that we create a Chief Learning Officer (CLO),
>and position the Chief Information Officer (CIO) as a 'direct report' to
>the CLO ... Does this not help people learn that Information is actually
>subsidiary to Learning? And learning is the higher order and the more
>important? And that perhaps technology should serve the learning of the
>organization?
Yes, people no doubt learn from a redesigned organization. What they
learn probably differs from person to person. As for the positioning of
the CIO with respect to the CLO, I think it no doubt "sends a message" to
the effect you cite but I'm not sure that anyone "learns" anything from it
about the relative importance or merits of information vs learning. (On
second thought, they might learn something about sending "messages" via
the manipulation of reporting relationships.)
Going directly to the content of your information vs learning (CIO
reporting to CLO) comment, there is continuing tension in the workplace
with respect to the role technology plays. Some clearly see it as a
driver while others see it as an enabler. Nowhere is this clearer than in
initiatives related to knowledge management (KM). There, KM systems
dominate the landscape and the heart of the matter, namely, the employment
of knowledge (i.e., its application) seems to have lost out to its
deployment (i.e., its codification, capture, storage and distribution,
mainly in the form of information, not knowledge). My own view is that
this tension will never be resolved because there are times when
technology should be the driver and there are times when it should be an
enabler. Figuring out when it should be the one or the other is the
issue.
Your last question in the paragraph above caught my eye, Michael. When
you say that "perhaps technology should serve the learning of the
organization," what do you mean by "the learning of the organization"?
>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 ...
I think your paragraph immediately above (perhaps with a little
elaboration here and there) pretty well sums it up for me. I've always
thought that a learning organization (LO) was about promoting, fostering
and institutionalizing individual learning, and especially about the
development and application of new knowledge in the service of the
organization. As noted earlier, I'm a bit uncomfortable with the
"transfer of individual learning" phrasing because I'm not convinced that
you and I, for example, could ever learn exactly the same thing. We might
indeed develop comparable skills or competencies, and they might be close
enough to one another that there aren't any differences worth quibbling
about, but I also believe those differences are there. Whatever my
knowledge is or can be said to be, it is uniquely mine and unique to me;
ditto for you and yours and everyone else and theirs. Does that mean I
have my own personal version of the formula for the area of a circle?
Nope. But then that's the issue isn't it? Is that formula knowledge or
is it just information? Is the ability to correctly apply that formula
knowledge or is it a skill? Can an organization, a company, a
corporation, "understand" and "apply" that formula? Clearly, its people
(or at least some of them) can but the organization itself can't. It
can't do or say anything.
As for the anthropomorphizing of organizations, I believe that that is
exactly what we are doing when we talk about organizations learning.
Organizations don't learn, the people who populate them do.
Regards,
Fred Nickols
740.397.2363
nickols@safe-t.net
"Assistance at a Distance"
http://home.att.net/~nickols/articles.htm
--Fred Nickols <nickols@safe-t.net>
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