LEADERSHIP: CREATING A LEARNING

ORGANISATION

Prof. Dazydelian . L. Banda

ESAMI
 LEARNING ORGANIZATION
DEFINED
• Is one in which people at all
levels, individually and
collectively, are continuously
increasing their capacity to
produce results that they really
desire and care about.

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 LEARNING ORGANIZATION
DEFINED
L.O. can be perceived as:
• where everyone’s suggestions are valued
and the amount that people can
contribute is not determined by position
in organisation, gender, race, Age,
religious affiliation, ethnicity

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A model of a Learning Organisation

SHARED
VISION &
CULTURE
SYSTEMS
ENABLING STRUCTURE
THINKING EMPOWERING
MANAGEMENT

LEARNING
ORGANISATION
MENTAL MODELS
FOR ENHANCED
LEARNING SUPPORTIVE TEAM
LEARNING CULTURE

MOTIVATED,DIVERSE
WORKFORCE,
PERSONAL MASTERY

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 HOW TO CREATE LEARNING
ORGANISATION
• Creating a learning organisation means
Transformational change
– Transform attitudes, transform culture
 Proactive & visionary Leadership that will
challenge:
 Culture, Traditions and conventions
 Breakaway from convention
 Try-out untested models

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 HOW TO CREATE LEARNING
ORGANISATION

Knowledge Workers- Who are they?

• Those who value sharing of ideas with others
honestly and without fear of surrendering the
trump card, and regard it as a means of expanding
the frontiers of knowledge

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 KNOWLEDGE
Two types of Knowledge- based assets:
• Tacit
• Explicit
TACIT KNOWLEDGE - resides in an
individual’ s head
EXPLICIT KNOWLEDGE –is based on
policies, procedures, instructions and
standards. Examples include patents,
trademarks, business plans, marketing
research.
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 KNOWLEDGE MANAGEMENT
KM – is the process by which an organisation
creates value from their intellectual and
knowledge- based assets thus enabling
them to learn and innovate.

How do we manage this intangible resource?

• Promote innovation, idea generation by awards
• Dubai Government experience- Innovation Trees
and Innovation and Creativity Laboratories in
Public Organisationns

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 SYSTEMS THINKING IN A
LEARNING ORGANISATION
• PETER SENGE: The Fifth Discipline: the
art and practice of the Learning
Organisation,1992. Updated in 2006.
• Senge argues that successful organisations
in the 21st Century will be learning
organisations that muster the full
commitment of all its staff, while at the
same time developing their capacity to
learn.

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 FIVE DISCIPLINES
• Senge identifies 5 disciplines:
1. Personal Mastery
2. Mental Models
3. Building Shared Vision
4. Team Learning, and
5. Systems Thinking

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 1. PERSONAL MASTERY
• A Learning organisation requires
learning individuals.
• Personal mastery is the discipline which
relates to individual learning. This is
based on the clarification of a personal
vision and its continued development.
• Personal vision – “what do I really want
out of my life “- provides the
framework for individual action.

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 2.Mental Models
• Frameworks that exist within our mind- our
assumptions, our prejudices , our value
systems - that determine how we view the
world.
• Mental models lead us to say” No, that is not
possible” even before we have considered the
proposal in detail.
• This discipline forces us to bring these mental
models in the open, so they can be examined,
discussed and challenged- thus making
themselves more open to the influence of
others.
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 3. Building Shared Vision

• A SHARED vision ( between the leader and

their staff) can energise and enthuse staff.
• This discipline is concerned with the
development of a vision which staff are
committed to as opposed to one with which
they are merely complying with.
• A truly shared vision leads staff to do things
because they WANT to not because they
HAVE to! –NASA- Sweeper

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 4. Team Learning
• Teams are the basis for learning in the organisations.
Teams have to also learn if organisations are to
become learning organisations.
• Merely forming teams will not lead to success.
• This discipline aims at promoting team success
through team learning. For this to happen, dialogue
and willingness and capacity of team members to
suspend assumptions and engage in genuine
thinking is essential.
• Dialogue and discussion ensure that individuals
overcome their defensiveness and can thus learn as
individuals and as teams.

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 5. SYSTEMS THINKING
• This fifth discipline brings together all the
other four and shows how the interact.
• Systems Thinking is a framework and a set of
tools that enables us to see the BIG PICTURE
and the dynamics at play.
• It forces us to see the whole of any issue or
problem rather than just focusing on its
parts.
• In this way, we are more likely to see the
underlying causes and consequences of our
actions.

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 LEARNING DISABILITIES
• SENGE asserts that the 5 disciplines
are important for overcoming a
number of inter related LEARNING
DISABILITIES.
• These are :
1. I am in my position
2. The enemy is out there
3. The illusion of taking charge
4. The fixation of events
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 LEARNING DISABILITIES
5. The parable of the boiled frog
6. The delusion of learning from experience,
and
7. The myth of the management team.

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 1. I AM IN MY POSITION

• This is the tendency of not seeing any

further than one’s own position in the
organisation and assigning blame to
others when something goes wrong.
C.f. Silo Thinking.

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2. THE ENEMY IS OUT THERE
• An extension of the first, it is that we all
have the propensity to look for
scapegoats rather than address our own
individual and organisational role in
creating the problems that occur.

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 3. THE ILLUSION OF TAKING
CHARGE

• Happens when we go ahead to take

action without first having analysed the
real cause of the problem or the likely
consequences of our actions.

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4. THE FIXATION OF EVENTS
• This happens when we focus purely on
individual events, instead of the big
picture.
• We are then unable to see the long term
patterns that underpin what has
happened. Seeing the tree instead of the
forest! The very opposite of systems
thinking!

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5. THE PARABLE OF THE BOILED
FROG
• In the parable, the frog sits in the pot as
the heat is slowly increased - until it is
unable to climb out and eventually
boils.
• The moral of the parable is that people
and organisations will often only
respond to sudden and sharp stimulus
while ignoring gradual change.

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 6. THE DELUSION OF LEARNING
FROM EXPERIENCE
• Where consequences of our decisions and
actions are so far into the future that they do
not necessarily affect us- just now.
• So we become deluded that we can not learn
anything from that particular experience- since
it has not yet arrived- it is still so far into the
future! C.f. “we will cross the bridge when we
get there” saying! In management, it is vital to
think futuristically!

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 7. THE MYTH OF THE
MANAGEMENT TEAM
• Sometimes as individuals or teams, we
avoid the pain of deeply questioning our
own behaviour.
• So we gloss over disagreement. As such,
many management teams fail to deliver
when the pressure is really on.

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 GROUP ASSIGNMENT
1. Identify the Learning Disabilities
exhibited by the 3 major players in the
case study:
• Retailer - Group 1
• Wholesaler - Group 2 and
• Brewery – Group 3.
• 2. Point out the paragraph and page for
each disability.

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