My name is Srinath Srinivasa, and I am currently a researcher at the
Indian Institute of Technology, Madras, India.
The concept of learning organizations was first introduced to me about 3
years ago when I was working for a software company. It was only then I
realised what change really meant. Changes not only seemed to affect the
way we work, but also the way we live! For example, somehow the concept of
a "9 to 5" working hours didn't seem effective at all. Infact, most
significant breakthroughs in our projects were made sometime in the
nights.
As I wanted to study more on the concept of change and its management, I
left the company and pursue research in this area. For the past two years,
I have been working on the issue of managing unstructured information
which is prone to change. My thesis work is about a paradigm for managing
organizational information systems. I also plan to be back in the same
company as a process engineer.
Some of the major problems that I have faced here is the lack of
resources. I have been putting off buying Senge's "The Fifth Discipline",
as its cost is almost a month's salary I make as a graduate student! So,
all that I have learnt about change is from the internet and personal
inquiry.
My experience dealing with change include creation of a process model for
the research lab that I work in. We found that new entrants to the lab
spent a significant amount of time and effort in trying to understand some
of the work practices and administrative requirements. These work
practices however, changed over time depending on what the current
interests of the lab were. We have developed a process model that not only
illustrates current work practices, but incorporates other subprocesses to
include or delete a work practice from the process database. It is
currently under implementation and as we frequently run into conflicts,
progress is rather slow. I can only imagine how complex it would be if we
were a large organization, rather than a lab of 15 people.
As I lack in experience, my present interests are centered towards
conceptual aspects of change. I would be very interested to hear from
people who have implemented any new concepts to manage change. I would
also be very grateful for insightful mails on issues regarding learning
and large organizations. Some of the questions that I am presently
pursuing are --
* What are the training requirements for a learning organization? More
specifically what support is needed from academia in this regard?
* Can we build an evolutionary model which describes change occuring in
an organization? Can we use this to build an evolutionary solution
which can address change?
An example is: A small group is trained effectively in identifying and
handling change. The group members then disperse into those parts of
the organization which have been identified as potential change
injectors. They then start a similar training for all the people at
that place. This process is repeated recursively.
Well, let me stop here. Sorry for such a long intro mail.
Thanks and Regards
Srinath
--Srinath Srinivasa <srinaths@lotus.iitm.ernet.in>
Learning-org -- An Internet Dialog on Learning Organizations For info: <rkarash@karash.com> -or- <http://world.std.com/~lo/>