Replying to LO30834 --
Mark McElroy writes in LO30834:
> So to say that actual learning behaviors in different cultures,
> countries, or organizations differ is not to say that all of them
> might not be subject in the same ways to the same benefits realizable
> by achieving the same common goal -- an organizational learning model
> of a specific type of equal benefit to all. In other words, there may
> be an optimum organizational learning process (or model) which, if
> achieved, will produce superior learning performance REGARDLESS of
> culture.
Ahhh, the eternal search for the organizational consultant's holy
grail: "Just do it this way, and you're guaranteed optimum results!"
My wife has been a teacher for over 4 decades; one of the thing's
she's learned, and most good teachers learn to deal with, is that
children in the classroom have different ways (styles, modalities,
...) that are most effective for them in learning the presented
material. Can we suppose, when learners are brought together in an
organization, that the "organizational learning process" will somehow
"smooth out" the individual differences, or will the interactions of
individual learning processes lead to even greater complexity in the
modalities of organizational learning? (Are there any good studies of
this, grounded in actual practice?)
As a personal reaction, I'd suggest an emergent rather than a
prescriptive approach to engendering, facilitating, and supporting
organizational learning (and individual learning in the organizational
context). That is, rather than assuming that you have the optimum
learning process for this organization (much less for all
organizations across all cultures), observe carefully and with an open
mind and heart how learning actually takes place when and where it
does, and look to leverage the strengths and shore up the weaknesses
of _this_ individual's/organization's learning processes (plural
intentional) in the now-classic iterative approach.
Warm regards on a cold day,
--Don Dwiggins "Obey the law that reveals, d.l.dwiggins@computer.org and not the law revealed." -- Henry Thoreau
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