Issues in organization change

1. Sustaining Organizational
Effectiveness
2. Leadership in practice
3. The Learning Organization
 Learning
 Learning
◦ capturing knowledge”
◦ converting “tacit” knowledge into “explicit”
knowledge.
 Transformation strategy:
◦ make the ability to learn a central resource for
strategic change.
 Learning
 Learning
◦ capturing knowledge”
◦ converting “tacit” knowledge into “explicit”
knowledge.
 Learning
 Explicit knowledge
◦ know-what
◦ knowledge that is formalized and codified.
◦ easy to identify, store, and retrieve.
◦ similar to information.
 databases, memos, notes, documents, etc.
 Tacit Knowledge
◦ know-how
◦ hard to define knowledge that is largely experience
based, deeply rooted in action, commitment, and
involvement.
◦ regarded as knowledge
◦ cultural beliefs, values, attitudes, mental models,
skills, capabilities and expertise
 Learning
Approaches of learning:
 Interviewing experts

◦ can be done in the form of structured interview.

 exit interview.
 Learning by being told
◦ can be done by interviewing or by task analysis.
◦ Task analysis is the process of determining the actual
task or policy by breaking it down and analyzing what
needs to be done to complete the task.
 teaching the processes of a task.
 Learning by observation
◦ can be done by presenting the expert with a sample
problem, and then observing the process used to solve
the problem.
 3.The Learning Organization
1. Changing perceptions of organization
2. Disciplines for the learning organization
3. Competence development in handling
change
What is a learning organization?
 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4_blLCT
8iyQ

 http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=izkXtw1tD
eg
 Learning
 Learning
◦ acquiring new, or modifying and reinforcing,
existing knowledge, behaviors, skills, values, or
preferences
◦ ways of “capturing knowledge” and converting
“tacit” into “explicit” knowledge.
 Learning Culture
 Creating a learning culture
◦ people seek to learn rather than know.
◦ admit the world is incomplete and therefore need
to learn from each other in order to fully
understand the whole system.
◦ do this through a process of respectful inquiry into
each other's world views.
 Learning Organization
 Organisations
◦ where people continually expand their capacity to
create the results they truly desire,
◦ where new and expansive patterns of thinking are
nurtured,
◦ where collective aspiration is set free, and
◦ where people are continually learning to learn together
Senge P.
1990 The Fifth Discipline: The art and practice of the learning
organization,
Century Business/Doubleday.
 “An organization that facilitates the learning of
all its members and continually transforms itself”
M. Pedler
 Learning Organization
 Learning Organizations are people-focused.
They promote process, progress and
sustainability through:
◦ increased job satisfaction
◦ team-baseed environments
◦ autonomy, and
◦ learning at all levels
 Characteristics of Learning
Organization
 A learning organization is characterized by
◦ Continual improvement through new ideas, knowledge
and insights…
Public Service of Canada
 A learning organization has the following
characteristics: they
◦ provide learning opportunities and use learning to reach
their goals
◦ link individual with organizational performance
◦ make it safe for people to share openly and take risks
◦ embrace creative tension as a source of energy and
renewal
◦ are continuously aware of and interact with their
environment
Calvert et al. 1994; Watkins and Marsick 1993
 A shift from the Industrial Age to
the Information Age - Jobs
Industrial Age Information Age
 Low-discretion  High-discretion
 Required little  Required

decision making considerable

 Analyzed and thinking and
broken into simple decision making
tasks requiring very  Emphasized giving

little thinking on employees

the part of workers authority to make
decisions
 A shift from the Industrial Age to
the Information Age – Employees
Industrial Age Information Age
 Ability to “fit in”  Ability to network,

 Follow orders, chain people focus

 Use initiative, flexible
of command
 Think outside the box
 Think inside the
 Ability to multi-task,
box
shift gears, meet
 Perform as directed
shifting demands of
 Tasks/ assignments
the workplace
do not vary much in  People with “vision
one job description and attitude”
 Peter Senge
 “People don’t resist change, they resist being
changed”
Peter Senge
 Senior Lecturer at the Massachusetts Institute
of Technology
◦ Best known for his book, The Fifth Discipline: The
Art and Practice of the Learning Organization (1990)
 Senge believes that a Learning Organization
◦ Decentralizes the role of leadership
◦ Places human values at the cornerstone of the
workplace
◦ Recognizes vision, purpose, reflectiveness and
systems thinking as essential
 Disciplines for the learning
organization
1. Personal mastery
2. Mental models
3. Building shared vision
4. Team learning
5. Systems thinking
 1.Personal mastery
Personal mastery:
 Connecting personal and organizational

learning
 Merging personal vision with current reality
 Commitment between the individual and the

organization
◦ continually clarifying and deepening... personal
vision,
◦ focusing... energies,
◦ developing patience, and
◦ seeing reality objectively.
 2.Mental models
Mental models:
 The deeply ingrained assumptions,

generalizations, and even pictures or images

that influence how we understand the world.
 Learning

◦ to disclose... internal pictures of the world,

◦ to bring them to the surface, and
◦ to hold them rigorously to critical observation.
 3. Building shared vision
Building shared vision:
 The “picture of the future”.
 Developing shared images of the future

◦ everyone holding a shared vision for the future.

◦ Leadership is the key to creating and
communicating the vision.
◦ The leader creates vision, but is prepared to have it
reshaped by others.
 4. Team learning
Team learning:
 Group effectiveness
 Individual position

◦ teams, not single individuals, are the key to

successful organizations of the future, and
◦ individuals have to learn how to learn in the context
of the team.
 5. Systems thinking
Systems thinking:
 Learning organizations are interdependent

and continuously changing

◦ everyone must learn how to view things as a whole
and that one set of events impacts on others.
 Competence development in
change
 In any change setting, we move
◦ from unconscious incompetence to unconscious
competence,
◦ via conscious incompetence and then conscious
competence
 Competence development in
change
Performance management Unconscious
Learning organization competence
Personal development Developing
mastery

Conscious
Change workshops competence
Skills training
Staff surveys Learning Skill
vehicles building
Customer surveys
Benchmarking Conscious
incompetence

Awareness
Briefings raising
Diagnostic studies Unconscious
Task forces, reviews incompetence
 ?
Questions