Jason Smith wrote, in a very small part:
> Who benefits from a
> learning organization? I'd say everyone who comes near it: owners,
> customers, employees, suppliers, the community.
Jason
I am very interested in your expanding on this idea since, in your
previous post, you mentioned that you had a union as a client. I am also
interested because your email address indicates that you are in Canada
and, in spite of the fact that the borders are permeable, the
relationships between labor and management and the social perspective in
Canada is different in subtle but signficant ways which I beleive may
yield to different alternatives over the models here in the US
Linda McQuaig is a Canadian investigative reporter in the best tradition
of the old "muck raking" style. Her recent book "The Cult of Impotence"
is not to be found on this side of the border and her earlier works are
out of print. Never-the-less, the book is worth a serious read because it
calls into question your "truism" about who benefits from a learning
organization. Who benefits and how they benefit depends largely on who has
set the global parameters of the "game". And if the economy at the
national or international level is parameterized to favor capital, then
the organizations readjusts at the expense of labor. This is the serious
issue with respect to the MAI, NAFTA and Freidman's infamous model of
inflation vs unemployment.
Most of the discussion on this list has talked about the LO as if the
company were one of the players in the pond with no way to change the
larger rules of the game. Unfortunately capital has asked, nay demanded,
the right to change the pond's parameters. A LO can't function for the
benefit of all players-mgmt, stockholders, customers, workers... if some
in the organization are more equal than others- a LO can not just focus on
the internal dynamics and that is what most of this discussion has been
about.
I would note an interesting strike in the US. The most recent was with US
West where labor was not striking about more benefits and wages but the
right to have a "life" outside of the company. Several other strikes have
recently been over similar issues though not always articulated in the
press. This is not an internal LO problem only but is in part due to
changing environments in the global pond which is being tampered with by
one segment of the LO (management and stockholders) and is not a position
which has been responded to as a LO in total
If indeed, LO practioners want to include general systems theory and
chaos/complexity in their models, they will have to transcend micro
management. If these models of complexity/chaos and systems tell us
anything it is that one can not just isolate the organizatin from what
appear to be factors too far removed.
This discussion must transcend traditional HR issues and introduce a much
more comprehensive approach, an approach which many in this area may be
ill equipped to respond to.
thoughts?
tom abeles
--tom abeles <tabeles@tmn.com>
Learning-org -- Hosted by Rick Karash <rkarash@karash.com> Public Dialog on Learning Organizations -- <http://www.learning-org.com>