Learning Organisation - what is it really?

An organisation that approaches problem-solving using the scientific approach, a quality culture, is a learning organisation. Peter Senge, referred to learning organisations in his seminal work, The Fifth Discipline, back in 1990. I was lucky to read this back in 1999, unrelated to my discipline of clinical medicine at the time.

Nothing new under the sun

We see people re-badging the same thing to seem novel! Quoting from Ecclesiastes 1:9:
"What has been will be again,
                                              what has been done will be done again;
                                                                                                              there is nothing new under the sun."

As I sit through numerous presentations of organisations trying to out-do their co-organisations, come up with the next initiative to seem different, seem better than their peers. Little do they realise it is re-hashing the wheel.

How does a learning organisation sub-optimise the whole?

Sad is this perpetuates internal competition within the system, which destroys the whole. Classic silo mentality, sub optimising for self-gain over the whole.

A learning organisation is any organisation as long as it provides an opportunity to apply scientific thinking, the foundation of which is the PDSA cycle. Why not call it a Deming organisation? A Toyota Production System-inspired organisation? Dare I suggest a Lean organisation? TQM organisation? An improvement organisation?

Improvement comes from Learning

Improvement is based on learning, learning comes from a scientific approach to a problem or improving a process. Any organisation that applies a framework of improvement is therefore a learning organisation. Does that warrant a new badge? What are we trying to hide with a new name for an organisation that has been learning all along?

Let’s return to Peter Senge and what disciplines he considered part of learning organisations:

• Systems thinking
• Personal mastery
• Mental models
• Building shared vision
• Team learning

A system of transformation

Deming talked about the need to transform the prevailing style of management, and provided years of his experience compiled into his System of Profound Knowledge (SOPK).

Appreciation for a System includes Systems Thinking.

Personal mastery could fall under Psychology and Theory of knowledge.

Mental models, building a shared vision and team learning are covered by Theory of Knowledge, Psychology and Appreciation for a System.

Across all these disciplines, understanding variation is applicable and complementary to the other domains. In fact, all are interlinked just as with SOPK, each component depends on the others to complete the system.

Therefore, learning organisations can develop by applying Deming’s SOPK, they are not distinct from organisations that have adopted those other frameworks that owe influence to Deming (and others).

'Belting up'

Just like Six Sigma created an industry of certification of training and qualifications, excluding those without the belts, can we expect a similar accreditation industry for organisations to receive the accolade of ‘Gold Award Learning Organisation’? Everybody in an organisation should be responsible for improvement and learning, not just the ‘belted’ personnel who likely don’t participate in the actual work, let alone stay around to sustain the improvement, the learning.