Luis J. Colorado wrote:
> I'm still looking for a way to measure performance in a Learning
> Organization. I think it's a very elusive issue, because, as you said,
> quantitative metrics like the stock market may be misleading. Thinking in an
> LO as a live organism, failing and learning from those errors, a short term
> measure like the stock market performance in the last months may be
> misleading. Going further, the time period needed to have a significant
> metric should be at very least the time needed by the LO to learn and act
> accordingly to the accumulated knowledge. As it would be unreasonable to
> rank any organization for the last day's stock value, it makes no sense to
> rate a LO for a too short period of time.
Thank you, Luis for your reply to my post.
Having kids in school makes your comment about LO as living organism
resonate. How do you measure the 'learning' or even the 'success' of a
living organism. In many cases, people pick metrics. They posit a
causality that serves as the rationale for the things they then measure.
So in one school, you have learned if you can recite certain dates, names,
and other facts. In another, you must show that you can create a new
reality in an essay or a picture. As many readers will know, both schools
will not only argue the validity of their method and metrics but they will
disparage or ignore the other approach. And anyone who has ever been to a
school reunion can testify to the lack of correlation between school
performance in either case and life success whether measured materially,
emotionally, or intellectually.
So it is with for me on LOs. I maintain as I said in my last post that we
don't know. We need a mixture of what Etienne Wenger calls 'participation
and reification' to make meaning out of what is going on in an LO or in
any organization. Yes, you have to measure but you also have to dive in
and be a part of it to get at the reality o the organization. I do
maintain that you have to be in the org to a certain extent to make sense
out of what is happening there in terms of learning and success.
Of course, as Senge and Kleiner wrote these initiatives do have to subject
themselves to the measurements of the markets. But at what scale? Porras
and Collins make the point in 'Built to Last' that leaders like Sam Walton
and Walt Disney were more interested in building the best company they
could over the long term than in "amassing a personal fortune." Even after
yesterday's stock dive, these organizations are looking at the success of
themselves as LOs with a longer perspective in a broader way. All the
best,
T.J.
--"T.J. Elliott" <tjell@IDT.NET>
Learning-org -- Hosted by Rick Karash <rkarash@karash.com> Public Dialog on Learning Organizations -- <http://www.learning-org.com>