Presented by Anirudh Subramaniam C-38

A learning organization is the term given to a company that facilitates the learning of its members and continuously transforms itself. Learning organizations develop as a result of the pressures facing modern organizations and enables them to remain competitive in the business environment.

Before a Learning Organisations can be implemented , a solid foundation can be made by taking into account the following

Organizations must be aware that learning is necessary before they can develop into a Learning Organization. Once the company has excepted the need for change, it is then responsible for creating the appropriate environment for this change to occur in.

Centralised, mechanistic structures do not create a good environment. This causes political and parochial systems to be set up which stifle the learning process. Therefore a more flexible, organic structure must be formed. The flatter structure also promotes passing of information between workers and so creating a more informed work force.

Leaders should foster the Systems Thinking concept and encourage learning to help both the individual and organisation in learning. It is the leader's responsibility to help restructure the individual views of team members. Management must provide commitment for long-term learning in the form of resources.

The workers become responsible for their actions; but the managers do not lose their involvement. They still need to encourage, enthuse and coordinate the workers. Equal participation must be allowed at all levels so that members can learn from each other simultaneously.

Companies can learn to achieve these aims in Learning Labs. These are small-scale models of real-life settings where management teams learn how to learn together through simulation games. They need to find out what failure is like so that they can learn from their mistakes in the future.

It is possible to identify three generic strategies that highlight possible routes to developing Learning Organizations.

Many companies may already be taking steps to achieve their business goals that, in hindsight, fit the framework for implementing a Learning Organisation. This is the accidental approach in that it was not initiated through awareness of the Learning Organisation concept.

Once an organisation has discovered the Learning Organisation philosophy, they must make a decision as to how they want to proceed. The subversive strategy differs from an accidental one in the level of awareness; but it is not secretive.

The principles of Learning Organisations are adopted as part of the company ethos, become company "speak" and are manifest openly in all company initiatives.

Thrive on Change Encourage Experimentation Communicate success and failure Facilitate learning Reward learning Proper selfishness A sense of caring

There are five disciplines which are essential to a learning organisation and should be encouraged at all times.

Team learning focuses on the learning ability of the group. With team learning, the learning ability of the group becomes greater than the learning ability of any individual in the group.

To create a shared vision, large numbers of people within the organisation must draft it, empowering them to create a single image of the future. All members of the organisation must understand, share and contribute to the vision for it to become reality. With a shared vision, people will do things because they want to, not because they have to.

Individuals will act according to the true mental model that they subconsciously hold, not according to the theories which they claim to believe. If team members can constructively challenge each others' ideas and assumptions, they can begin to perceive their mental models.

Personal mastery is the process of continually clarifying and deepening an individual's personal vision. This is a matter of personal choice for the individual and involves continually assessing the gap between their current and desired proficiencies in an objective manner, and practising and refining skills until they are internalised.

This is the ability to see the bigger picture, to look at the interrelationships of a system as opposed to simple cause-effect chains; allowing continuous processes to be studied rather than single snapshots. The fifth discipline shows us that the essential properties of a system are not determined by the sum of its parts but by the process of interactions between those parts.