T. J. Elliott,
Someone -- perhpaps you -- recently pointed out that the traditional role
of leader in most organizations is that of chief learner. The leader uses
the organization to conduct experiments so the leader/learner can learn
and improve organizational performance. This is a very viable model for
learning, it is just not the LO model. The LO model, to my mind,
incorporates the notion that the leader is still a learner, but so is
everyone else.
My guess is that most companies fall somewhere on the continuum from pure
leader/learner to organizational/learner. The Gap, a US retailer, appears
from the outside to be more of a leader/learner organization. So does
Micorsoft. 3M and HP may be more org/learner. But there are no pure end
states, that is, no pure leader/learner orgs, and no totally converted
LOs.
How can we distinguish an end-state learning org from some other kind of
LO that practices learning at all levels? What level of LO does an org
need to achieve before we want to measure their performance? How do we
characterize and categorize orgs on this scale from LL (leader learner) to
LO?
--Rol Fessenden
Learning-org -- Hosted by Rick Karash <rkarash@karash.com> Public Dialog on Learning Organizations -- <http://www.learning-org.com>