Criteria for "Learning Organization" LO29668

From: AM de Lange (amdelange@postino.up.ac.za)
Date: 12/06/02


Replying to LO29631 --

Dear Organlearners.

Joe Podolsky <joe_podolsky@hp.com> writes:

>Your very thoughtful response raises within me this question:
>What is the purpose of learning in a learning organization?
>My initial answer is framed in Maslow's Hierarchy of Needs.
>Learning should first assure (cooperative and competitive)
>survival and then the higher order purposes can and should
>follow, depending on the desires of the stakeholders in the
>organization.
>
>How would you (and the rest of the list) respond?

Greetings dear Joe,

I will gladly try to comply to your request. Only today by your
formulating your request i realised that Abraham Maslow stands in the way
of those who want to characterise a Learning Organisation -- LO (two
words, but one intricate concept) -- as just one of many equal ways to
improve on organisational learning.

During the hey-days of the Freudean, Skinnerian, Jungian and Rogerian
schools of psychology in which psychological disorders were used to fathom
the psyche, Abram Maslow began bravely to focus on the creativity of
normal people as crucial to their psychological behaviour. Sadly, his name
is known for the "Hierarchy of Needs" and not for his valuable
contributions in understanding creativity.

The "Hierarchy of Needs" as he formulated it, is from top to bottom:-
5 Self Actualization -----
4 Ego Needs --------
3 Social Needs ------------
2 Security Needs ----------------
1 Bodily Needs --------------------

Please think of them as the layers of a pyramid, bodily needs being at the
bottom and self-actualisation being at the top. The world of business
quickly began to use this scheme in their market planning by aiming on the
lower levels for making profits. I think this is not what Maslow ever had
in mind. He wanted to understand what drives the complexity of people's
creativity. The lowest level (bodily needs) leads to the least complex
creations whereas the the highest level (self-actualisation) leads to the
most complex creations. There is an upward pulsating between the levels of
needs, but also a downward influencing of needs.

I think we ought to take care when using the word "hierarchy". In the
domain of human relationships it often carries with it the connotation of
conflicts between various levels. Rather think of this "hierarchy of
needs" as a "stratification" like that in a vertical soil profile. A
stratum in a soil, by its own function as well as its interaction with
adjacent strata, contributes to the soil as a whole and thus determines
its fertility. I also think we should take care when using the word
"needs". They are not like blind dictating forces. They are rather
"attractors" within people to which they can respond.

Lastly, I think that Maslow's number of levels, their identification and
their ordering should not be taken too strict. For example, I myself would
rename the second highest stratum from "love" to "compassion" and place it
at the top. The real contribution of Maslow was to indicate that such
interacting levels of needs exist and that these levels have an order
among them. Long before him Jan Smuts, (Holism and Evolution, 1926) came
to the same conclusion. His stratification of the personality followed a
similar pattern. He was convinced that there is a intricate, but
compelling, relationship between a person's stratified personality and
his/her creativity. It is with this "stratified personality interacting
with the person's creativity" that I look and understand Senge's LO.

Many consultants market the concept of a "Learning Organisation" (LO) as a
way for an organisation to maximise the learning of its members with
respect to its daily activities. For example, should a bank become a LO,
its members would learn the fastest and best about the banking business.
This, I think, is a red herring which leads the organisation off the track
of becoming a LO.

The members of a LO rather provide the environment for other members to
develop their personalities to full capacity. As a consequence the
creativity of every member gets enriched and hence the day-to-day business
benefit from it. Furthermore, the creative outputs of a member is not
frowned upon, but considered as the most valuable assets of the LO. Such
creative outputs are dilligently studied, defects in them corrected before
they get implemented as soon as possible. The creativity of people in a LO
is not for the birds, but to the benefit of all members. The respect for
and the implementation of a "hierarchy of needs" or "stratification of
personality" is an essential feature of the LO, despite its day-to-day
business.

What few consultants who sell the LO as a "treasure map" know, is that
improving this "hierarchy of needs" or "stratification of personality" for
all the members of a LO, improves its capacity to adapt radically by
self-organisation to changes in its environment. It is like driving a car.
It is one thing to drive at the highest possible speed with accelerator
pedal stepped down to the hilt, but another thing to maneuver safely
through dangerous tracks, using accelerator, clutch and break pedals. In
an ordinary organistion the management team does the driving like in a bus
while all the other members are passengers. But in a LO there are no
passengers -- they all drive the bus as one body.

Perhaps the metaphor of a bus is not appropiate. But in the old days of a
sailing ship each mate knew that what he did, was crucial to the success
of the voyage. The more the crew acted like passengers, the greater the
chance for ship-wreck.

I have been studying the autobiography of Benjamin Franklin the past few
months. Obviously, we cannot expect from him to articulate the concept of
a LO as Senge did, nor the hierachy of needs as Maslow did. We have to
accept his articulations in their own right and try to determine whether
they correspond to Senge's and Maslow's articulations. I am convinced
after careful contemplation that they do, but in Franklin's unique way.
Franklin is Franlin and cannot be made a Senge or a Maslow.

Since as a young boy, Franklin had a profound desire to improve on his
knowledge in particular and personality in general. He uses many pages to
describe his attempts. He often writes in detail how he organised others
in doing the same, i.e., forming a "tacit LO". Now why would a man focus
on such detail if he did not consider it of paramount importance?

Telling about his life at about 50 years of age, his tone changes
strangely. The colonists got into all sorts of conflicts with England,
France and the native Americans. He offered his insights, but in such
stressing times hot-headed leaders relying on their own whims caused many
a calamity. His autobiography becomes near the end a careful observation
of what happened rather a passionate interaction with the people of the
colonies. He became the distant observer rather than the passionate
participant as earlier. And then, on this tone, his biography suddenly
ends. It does not tell the paramount role which he played further on in
the formulating of the decleration of independence as well as the
constitution of the first eleven independent states.

Did Franklin become tired or fed-up of writing his autobiography? No, he
was an incredibly prolific worker all his life, dedicating himself to the
well being of his fellow citizins. So why did he stop his autobiography
abruptly when so much could still be told? I think it was to compell his
readers to ask questions which they have to answer themselves.

Joe, i can advise you only one thing -- study Franklin's autobiogrphy and
find out for yourself how much he corresponds to Senge's and Maslow's
articulations. You may very well not agree with me, but the study itself
will be invaluable.

Thank you Dwig for sending me as gift the autobiography. I have learned
much from it. Furthermore, we have in our own history an enigmatic person
called Adam Tas who lived in the same age as Franklin. He had a decisive
influence on the thinking of our people. Only after having read Franklin's
autobiography, I began to realise how much Franklin and Tas may have had
in common. Now i will have to explore the facts to make sure that my hunch
is not my imagination. Shame on you for compelling me to work so much ;-)

By the way, dear fellow learners, i will take leave from today so that my
responses will deminish. Please forgive me for not responding as i would
have liked to. I will come in every few days and study my mail, but that
will be probably all.

With care and best wishes,

-- 

At de Lange <amdelange@postino.up.ac.za> Snailmail: A M de Lange Gold Fields Computer Centre Faculty of Science - University of Pretoria Pretoria 0001 - Rep of South Africa

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