The Learning Organization

An attitude or philosphy about what an organization can become

 The Fifth Discipline: The Art and Practice of Learning Organizations Peter Senge Change managers need to undergo to help their organizations adapt to an increasingly chaotic world.

Sources of Change
Management practices & perspectives vary over time in response to
Social Political Economic Technology Physical Envt. (Planet Earth)

The learning organization

Total Quality Management Contingency views Systems theory Management science perspective Humanistic perspective Classical perspective

Learning Organisation
Everyone is engaged in identifying & solving problems,enabling the organisation to continuously experiment,change, & improve,thus increasing its capacity to grow,learn, & achieve its purpose.

Classical View of Organisation Designed for Efficiency

Web of Interacting Elements in a Learning Organization

Leadership

Open information

Participative strategy

Learning originations

Empowered employees

Team-Based Structure

Strong adaptive culture

1. Leadership
Traditional View - Individualistic Set Goals,make decisions,& direct the troops. Learning Organisation Building relationships based on a shared vision and shaping the culture that can help achieve it. Help people see the whole system, facilitate teamwork,initiate change & expand the capacity of people to shape the future.

Shared Vision
Picture of an ideal future for the organisation, performance outcomes,& underlying values. Widely understood & imprinted in peoples minds. Employees carry out the vision without supervision from the top.

2. Team Based Structure

Self directed teams are the fundamental unit in a learning organisation. Made up of employees with different skills who rotate jobs to produce an entire product or service. Team members take responsibility for training, safety, scheduling vacations, and decisions about work methods, pay and reward systems, and coordination with other teams.

3. Employee Empowerment
Traditional View : Limit Employees Learning Organisation Empowerment : Expand Behaviour Give employees power,freedom, knowledge, and skills to make decisions and perform effectively. Reflected in self directed work teams,quality circles, job enrichment, & employee participation groups as well as through decision-making authority, training, and information so that people can perform jobs without close supervision.

Cont
People are a manager's primary source of strength, not a cost to be minimized. Believe in treating employees well by providing competitive wages, good working conditions, and opportunities for personal and professional devel-opment. They often provide a sense of employee ownership by sharing gains in productivity and profits."

Quality Circles
The organization with a commitment to participative management or interested in exploring its possibilities as means of realizing its productivity and quality goals, the quality circle process can be a valuable tool. Quality circles themselves are relatively simple. A circle consists of small group of people within the company who do similar kinds of work. This group meets on a regular basis that is once in a week to identify, analyze and solve problems in its member work area.

Cont
As a problem solving forum the Quality circle is to select problems within the members work area to study and solve. In the early stages of circles life time it is important that members relatively easy problem to solve. Quality circles are not permitted to work on problems whose causes are outside of their area of responsibility.

Accenture
One of the most active networks is the Accenture COO Circle, a community of operating executives from the worlds leading organizations. A unique aspect of this group is that members drive the content and discussion agendas to ensure their interactions are relevant, timely and valuable. Recent discussions have explored such topics as maximizing leadership development and talent management; improving collaboration between business and government; and navigating the economic downturn.

4. Open Information
Traditional View : Deals with Products & Things Learning Organisation view : Work with Ideas & Information Flooded with Information Formal data about budgets, profits, and departmental expenses are available to everyone. A manager's role is to give workers the information they need and the authority to act on it.

5. Participative Strategy
Traditional View : Responsibility of top executives e.g. how best to respond to competitors & cope with envt. Changes or effectively use available resources. Formulated & imposed on the organisation. Learning Organization : Bottom Up as well as Top down

 Top executives do not control or direct strategy alone. Accumulated actions of employees contribute to the development of strategy. 3 groups who tend to be underrepresented in strategy making: Employees with youthful perspectives Employees who are new & far removed from company headquarters Employees who are new to the industry. 90% of innovative ideas come from employees & not R&D or top Management.

Cont
Emerge from partnerships with Suppliers-Tata Nano(Design of Components) Customers - REDS Competitors Canon & HP for Inkjet engines Citizen & Titan for watch movements Missed opportunity for Mac?

6. Strong Adoptive Culture

Culture is the set of key values, beliefs, rituals,customs, and understandings shared by members of the organization. A strong, adaptive organizational culture is the foundation of a learning organization. The culture creates a sense of belonging, community, and caring that supports other elements, such as teamwork and participative strategy . Develops organically & is transmitted directly from the founders personality & habits to the Cos employees (Sahara Pranam)

Key Cultural Values

1. Egalitarian v/s elitist (Create status differences)
The emphasis on treating everyone with care and respect creates a climate of safety and trust that allows experimentation, frequent mistakes, and failures that enable learning. Egalitarian : Compensation ratio of 1:10 b/w Top Manager & Juniormost employee, Having lunch in college canteen,Travelling economy class Elitist : Private Jets,Corner office,Skewed bonuses.

Cont
2. Question the Status Quo Constant questioning of assumptions opens the gates to creativity and improvement. The culture celebrates and rewards the creators of new ideas, products, and work processes. In addition, the learning organization may also reward failure, to symbolize the importance of taking risks in order to learn and grow.

Examples

Culture at Apple,Google & Genentech

All 3 Cos imbue employees with idealism.Apple keeps a laserlike focus on the customer. Googles Motto is DO NO EVIL. Genentechs is IN BUSINESS FOR LIFE All 3 Cos flout conventional wisdom & take a damn the torpedoes approach to naysayers. All 3 put huge emphasis on attracting the best & the brightest.Genentech awards sabbaticals to stave off burnout.To keep creativity alive,both Apple & Google encourage their scientists & engineers to spend fully 20% of each workweek pursuing pet projects.

Indian Cos evolving into a LO

InnoClusters, a forum for Tata companies to discuss challenges, explore ideas, discuss InnoMeter, a tool to assess InnoMultiplier worksho trends and seek solutions, took off the innovation process and ps were held at in a big way. About 40 innovation culture seven companies Tata companies are members of of companies and which also (Tata Capital, North the five InnoClusters: Water, helps design interventions, Delhi Power, Tata Steel Information Technology, Plastics was used in six companies Processing and and Components, (Tata Capital, North Distribution, Tata Steel, Nano Technology and Delhi Power, Tata Steel Titan Industries, Engineering. Teams are actively Processing and Distribution, TM International pursuing 85 projects, across Tata Steel, Titan Industries Logistics and clusters, under various stages of and TM Tata Motors). development. Collaborations were International Logistics). The workshops helped formed with Corning and DuPont Innometer helped identify challenges for close coordination with these companies deal with and suggested Tata companies. Corning is challenges in an innovative innovative themes already started working way. for the company. withTata Chemicals and Advinus Therapeutics.

Tata InnoVerse, an innovation hub aimed at encouraging Tata employees to participate in the innovation process, was launched in January 2010. Based on a Web 2.0 platform, InnoVerse makes the whole process of innovation exciting for employees. Ashok Krish, head, Web 2.0 Innovation labs, Tata Consultancy Services, delivered a talk on the technology and InnoVerse at Bombay House, Mumbai and at Tata Management and Training Centre, Pune. InnoVerse has over 10,000 members from seven Tata companies (Voltas UPBGA, TM International Logistics, Jamshepdpur Utility and Services Company, North Delhi Power, Tata Chemicals, Tata Capital and Tata Quality Mangement Services).Mr PS Viswanathan, chief transformational officer, TCS, was instrumental in designing a campaign for InnoVista and Innoverse.

Innovista
Tata Groups internal competition designed to stimulate,support & celebrate innovation. 2006-100 entries ; 2009-1700 Entries No of Cos increased from 33 to 62 3 categories Already implemented Idea Stage Dared to Try An honour the group bestows on those who on ambitious projects but failed.

 Last Decade(1996-2005)-Globalisation & cost competitiveness Next Decade(2006-2015) Innovation (Shared Vision) Open Innovation or Innovation alliances with companies such as Dupont, Philips & Intel, Honeywell Du Pont- Biotechnology,Biofuels,Speciality Proteins & Carbon di-oxide absorption.

 Going Beyond simple process or product innovation & opting for a more holistic approach e.g Nano-not just engineering but also management,marketing,service,delivery etc. Low Carbon economy in assocciation with GLTE Social Innovations : SMS weather alert system for fisherman Tata-Gen Innovation Awards-25 Cos

Achievements
Ace Mini Truck Eka Super Computer-Developed by the groups CRL in record time of 6 weeks @ a cost $30 Mn. Used in automotive design & weather forecasting by ISRO for Chandrayan-I launch. Beverage dispensing machine that doesnt use electricity. Reduced the time taken in the lengthy process of tea tasting by 3/4th. Ginger Hotel sans frills & fuss yet offering most of the amenities on offer at high grade hotels.

Tata Teleservices
Aurum : Alert key acts as an alarm bell. Sends out a high decibel ambulance wail,attracting attention of passers-by & comes in handy for people with a history of strokes or in case of being mugged. Sumukha : Designed to look like the elephant god ganesha,with Ashtavinayak ringtones & Ganesha Wall Papers. Anano : Modelled on the car Nano. Suave: Large Sized keypads & lettering to help the elderly.

Wireless EPABX

Process innovation in support areas (HR, branding, finance, etc)

1. Jaguar Land Rover: Improving efficiency in JLR's value chain. 2. Voltas - UPBG: A flexible and low-cost business model.

Promising Innovations in New product

Tata Steel Europe: Condensation regulating solution. 2. Tata Chemicals: High purity oligosaccharides for the nutraceuticals business.

Promising Innovations New Service

Tata Consultancy Services: The iON platform. 2. Rallis India: MoPu.

Process innovation in core operations

1. Tata Chemicals: Fluoride removal from trona. 2. Titan Industries: Break the barrier in diamond industry.

Dare to Try
1. Tata Consultancy Services: Portable cardiac device. 2. Tata Global Beverages: The Clever Jelly Company.

The Leading Edge

1. Tata Motors: Use of cornstarch in car to improve crashworthiness. 2. Tata Communications: The Tata box. 3. Tata Chemicals: Polyglutamic acid for industrial applications.