Replying to LO30473 --
Dear Organlearners,
Kristina Kiefer(?) < Klkiefer@aol.com > wrote:
>I am currently in the Organizational Management Masters
>program at Antioch University in Santa Barbara, and taking a
>class on the Learning Organization. Senge's "The Fifth Discipline"
>is our main text. We write reaction papers every week, and the
>salient question for me is how can we facilitate the shift in the mind
>that Senge talks about that is the requirement for learning to occur.
Greetings dear Kristina,
I enjoyed your intro very much.
You have touched the heart of the LO -- the shift of mind or "metanoia".
It is the metanoia which makes a "learning organisation" (two words, but
one concept) much more than an organisation which caters for learning like
a university. The latter is often called a learning organisation, but it
lacks these metanoia.
>I really liked the chapter on openness because it resonates with
>my perceptions of life. Openness is a key element of relationships
>and building relationships with openness is key to a learning
>organization. So my question again is how can one facilitate a shift
>in the mind to see how we as people are connected.
What a difficult question to answer, but i will try. When you look at the
end of the Fifth Discipline you will find an appendix giving a short
summary of the five disciplines. In that summary you will find the 11
essences of a LO. Openness is one of them.
An essence of a system means that without it the system cannot operate.
For example, my heart is an essential organ of my body. You will have to
use all 11 essences rather than merely openness to trace how we are
connected as people. Take an organisation which you are very familiar with
as exemplar. While you will be doing it, you will experience that shift of
mind.
>I start my endcap project in the fall quarter and would like
>to explore that question. I would appreciate any suggestions
>for further reading, websites, or thoughts in general. Thanks.
I do not want to sound negative, but i must caution you to trake it slowly
and have patience. There are so few LOs in existence that we cannot draw
on our experience of them.
You may consider using this list as one of your sources. Use Google's
advance search engine at
< http://www.google.com/advanced_search >
Type in the window "Domain"
learning-org.com
That will reduce whatever you search for to the discussion pages of
this list.
Thinking of what attrracted you, type into the top window
metanoia openness
and see how many hist you will get. Reading trhough them might help
you a lot.
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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