SEMINAR PAPER ON LEARNING ORGANIZATION

Bishwajit Mazumder
Nursing Instructor
Dhaka Nursing College, Dhaka
E. mail: mbishwa@rocketmail.com
Seminar on Learning Organization
Introduction:
Learning organizations are organizations that place emphasis on flexibility and
responsiveness (Senge, 1990). Enactment of Senges five disciplines is essential to
achieving learning organization status. Disciplines refer to the critical and interrelated
elements that comprise a grouping that can function effectively only when all elements
are present, linked, and interacting. For example, a car with a working engine and other
operational features but no tires could not be driven as designed. Without knowledge of
the interrelatedness of the cars operational features, one might not be able to take the
right action to use this form of transportation (Yoder, Patricia S. 2007).
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 (OKeeffe, T. 2002 ) A learning
organization has five main features; systems thinking, personal mastery, mental models,
shared vision and team learning (Senge, P.M. 1990). The Learning organization concept
was coined through the work and research of Peter Senge and his colleagues (Senge,
1994). It encourages organizations to shift to a more interconnected way of thinking.
Organizations should become more like communities that employees can feel a
commitment to.
Learning is something undertaken and developed by individuals; organizational
arrangements can foster or inhibit the process. The organizational culture within which
individuals work shapes their engagement with the learning process. More than this, there
are serious questions about whether and how the organization can harness the learning
achieved by its individual members. Thus, although continuing professional development

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has long been a part of the NHS, evidence from other sectors suggests that learning needs
to take a more central role. Organizations that position learning as a core characteristic
have been termed learning organisations, and this concept is an important one in the
context of Organizational development.
An organization is not simply a collection of individuals; the whole amounts to
something greater than the sum of the parts. Similarly, the learning achieved by an
organization is not simply the sum of the learning achieved by individuals within that
organization. Individuals may come and go, but the organization (even in the turbulent
world of health care) usually endures. Robust organizations can still accumulate
competence and capacity despite the turnover of staff; individual learning can be retained
and deployed in the organization. How well any organization can do this depends on
factors such as internal communication and the assimilation of individual knowledge into
new work structures, routines, and norms. Learning organizations see a central role for
enhancing personal capabilities and then mobilizing these within the organization.
Background of learning organization/History:
Peter Senge is considered by most to be the "father" of organizational learning
(Dumaine, 1994). Senge is a director at Innovation Associates, a Cambridge consulting
firm, and advises government and educational leaders in centers of global change like
South Africa. Senge's message of growth and prosperity holds strong appeal for today's
business leaders. His research center at MIT, the Center for Organizational Learning,
started in 1990. The learning organization concept gained broad recognition when Senge
published his best-selling The Fifth Discipline in 1990. In it he writes that a learning
organization values, and derives competitive advantage from, continuing learning, both
individual and collective. The five disciplines are systems thinking, personal mastery,
mental models, shared vision, and team learning (Senge, 1990). Senge proposes that
people put aside their old ways of thinking (mental models), learn to be open with others
(personal mastery), understand how their company really works (systems thinking), form
a plan everyone can agree on (shared vision), and then work together to achieve that
vision (team learning).

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Educational concepts in learning organization: The educational concepts to the

learning organization are following
Training and learning issuesTraining can help shape ideas and aspirations, because it involves learning new
things. Depending on the type of training, it can be the most effective way of learning.
The difference between training and learning is that individuals are different when it
comes to learning. This can lead to a number of unpredictable outcomes, such as
increased motivation and self-confidence, changing attitudes and insights which shape
future actions.( DePhillps FA, Berliner WM, Gribbin, JJ.1960)
AwarenessOrganizations must be aware that learning is necessary and must take place at
all levels, not just the management level. Once the educational institution has accepted
the need for change, it is then responsible for creating the appropriate environment in
order for this change to occur.
EnvironmentCentralized, mechanistic structures do not create a good environment as
individuals do not have a comprehensive picture of the whole organization and its goals.
This causes political and parochial systems to be set up which stifle the learning process.
Therefore a more flexible and a flatter structure, which encourages innovations, would be
more suitable. The flatter structure also promotes the passing of information between
workers, so creating a more informed work force.
LeadershipIn a learning organization, leaders are designers, stewards and teachers. They
are responsible for building organisations.4 Leaders should promote the systems thinking
concept and encourage learning to help both the individual and the organization in
learning. It is the leaders responsibility to help change the individual views of team
members. For example, they need to help the teams understand that competition is a form
of learning, not a hostile act.
Management must provide commitment for long-term learning in the form of resources.
The amount of resources available (money, personnel and time) determines the quantity
and quality of learning. This means that the organization must be prepared to support this.
Leaders have to generate and manage creative tension especially around the gap

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between vision and reality. Mastery of such tension allows for a fundamental shift. It
enables the leader to see the truth in changing situations.
Empowerment (flatter hierarchies)Empowerment has been variously defined, but its core idea is based on creating
an environment where others are equipped and encouraged to make decisions in
autonomous ways and to feel that they are in control of the outcomes for which they have
accepted responsibility.
Learning from mistakesStaff members need to find out what failure is like so that they can learn from
their mistakes in the future. The managers are then responsible for setting up an open,
flexible atmosphere in their organizations to en-courage their workers to follow their
learning example. Anonymity can be achieved through electronic conferencing; this type
of conferencing can also encourage different sites to communicate and share knowledge.
Learning organizations in healthcare:
A notable example of this structural reform is the induction of culture of
learning organization for the NHS. This implies that healthcare provides need to embrace
learning from simple errors and common mistakes to improve health care. Healthcare
managers in the NHS need to utilize the learning potential in individuals to achieve safety
and quality in service delivery to clients/patients (Davies and Nutley, 2000). The demand
for safety and quality in healthcare should make doctors can learn from prescription
errors. When a pharmacists perceives a prescription error , he/she can write her
professional opinion at the back of the prescription sheet and request the patient goes
back to see the doctor who issued the prescription.
(http://doc2doc.bmj.com/blogs/doctorsblog/_learning-organizations-can-improvehealthcare-quality)
Learning Organization:
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. Learning organization
enables organizations to remain competitive in the business environment.
Or,

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A "Learning Organization" is one in which people at all levels, individually and

collectively, are continually increasing their capacity to produce results they really care
about.
http://www.learning-org.com/
Definition learning organization:
The Organization that acquires knowledge and innovates fast enough to survive
and thrive in a rapidly changing environment. Learning organizations are (1) create a
culture that encourages and supports continuous employee learning, critical thinking, and
risk taking with new ideas, (2) allow mistakes, and value employee contributions, (3)
learn from experience and experiment, and (4) disseminate the new knowledge
throughout the organization for incorporation in to day to day activities.
http://www.businessdictionary.com/definition/learningorganization.html#ixzz2GyyNABpN
Development of Learning Organization:
There are many factors which develop an organization into learning
organization. To remain competitive companies need to learn faster, need to work more
effectively, and to develop a customer responsive culture. Requires co-operation between
individuals and groups, free and reliable communication, and a culture of trust.

Principles/Discipline of learning organization:

The term learning organization has been with us ever since Peter Senge
published his groundbreaking book The Fifth Discipline in 1990. Learning organizations
are those that are able to integrate the following five disciplines as1. Systems thinking
2. Personal mastery
3. Mental models
4. Shared vision
5. Team learning
Systems
thinking
Team
learning

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Learning

Personal

Organization

mastery

Shared
vision
Mental
models

Systems Thinking
The foundation of any learning organization is the fifth discipline - systems
thinking. This is the ability to see the bigger picture, to look at the interrelationships of a
system as opposed to simple cause-effect chains thus allowing continuous processes to be
studied rather than single snapshots. Also, this 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. This is why systems thinking is fundamental to any
learning organization as it is the discipline used to implement the disciplines. Without it,
each of the disciplines would be isolated and consequently not achieve their objective.
Systems thinking enable the formation of an integrated system, whose properties exceed
the sum of its parts. Nevertheless, all of the other four disciplines mentioned above are
required to successfully implement systems thinking. System thinking is the mainstay of
a true learning organization, integrating the above disciplines and is a way of discovering
solutions to complex problems. This discipline enables interrelationships between
systems and teams; at the same time, it allows the organization, through linear and logical
thinking, to understand the source of and the solutions to modern problems.
Or,
A way of thinking about, and a language for describing and understanding, the
forces and the interrelationship that shape the behavior of systems. This discipline helps
us to see how to change systems more effectively, and to act more in tune with the larger
processes of the natural and economic world. (Senge, Roberts et al.1994)
Learning organizations use this method of thinking when assessing their company and
have information systems that measure the performance of the organization as a whole
and of its various components (Argyris, C. 1999) Systems thinking state that all the

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characteristics must be apparent at once in an organization for it to be a learning

organization (Senge, P.M. 1990).
Personal Mastery
Personal mastery is one of the core disciplines for building a learning
organization. It refers to an individual commitment to life-long learning; it is a
continuous and never-ending process (Senge P M. 1990). Personal mastery can be
defined as the process of continually clarifying and deepening an individuals personal
vision. This is a matter of personal choice for the individual and involves persistently
assessing in an objective manner the gap between their current and desired proficiencies,
and practicing and refining skills until they are internalized. This would develop selfesteem and creates the confidence to deal with new challenges. Personal mastery has
three important elements: commitment to truth, personal vision and creative tension.
Personal mastery allows individuals to look at their current reality and desired future
(commitment to truth and reality), continually focus and clarify their personal vision for
the desired future (personal vision) and use these gaps to create the dynamic energy to get
to their desired future (creative tension).
Or,
Learning to expand our personal capacity to create the results we most desire,
and creating an organizational environment which encourages all its members to develop
themselves toward the goals and purposes they choose. (Senge, Roberts et al.1994)
Or,
The commitment by an individual to the process of learning is known as
personal mastery (Senge, P.M. 1990). There is a competitive advantage for an
organization whose workforce can learn more quickly than the workforce of other
organizations. Individual learning is acquired through staff training and development,
however learning cannot be forced upon an individual who is not receptive to learning.
Research shows that most learning in the workplace is incidental, rather than the product
of formal training; therefore it is important to develop a culture where personal mastery is
practiced in daily life. A learning organization has been described as the sum of
individual learning, but there must be mechanisms for individual learning to be
transferred into organizational learning (Wang, C.L. and Ahmed, P.K. 2003).

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Mental Models
These are deeply ingrained assumptions, generalizations, or even pictures and
images, that influence how we understand the world and how we take action (Senge, P.M.
1990). Every human being has an internal image of the world, with deep-rooted
assumptions. Therefore, individuals will behave according to the true mental model that
they subconsciously hold and usually not according to the theories in which they claim to
believe. If group members can constructively challenge each others ideas and
assumptions, they can begin to recognize their mental models and to change these to
construct a shared mental model for the team. This is essential as the individuals mental
model will control what they think can or cannot be done.
Or,
Reflecting upon, continually clarifying, and improving our internal pictures of
the world, and seeing how they shape our actions and decisions (Senge, Roberts et
al.1994).
Or,
Organizations tend to have memories which preserve certain behaviors, norms
and values. In creating a learning environment it is important to replace confrontational
attitudes with an open culture that promotes inquiry and trust (OKeeffe, T. 2002). To
achieve this, the learning organization needs mechanisms for locating and assessing
organizational theories of action.
Shared Vision
Building a sense of commitment in a group, by developing shared images of the
future we seek to create, and the principles and guiding practices by which we hope to get
there (Senge, Roberts et al.1994).
Or,
The development of a shared vision is important in motivating the staff to learn,
as it creates a common identity that provides focus and energy for learning. The most
successful visions build on the individual visions of the employees at all levels of the
organization, thus the creation of a shared vision can be hindered by traditional structures
where the company vision is imposed from above(OKeeffe, T. 2002).

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Team Learning
The transforming, conversational and collective thinking skills, so that groups
of people can reliably develop intelligence and ability greater than the sum of individual
members talents.
(Senge, Roberts et al. 1994)
Or,
Team learning focuses on the learning ability of the group. Mature people learn
best from each other by reflecting on how they are addressing problems, questioning
assumptions and receiving feedback from their team and from their results. Through
team learning, the learning ability of the group becomes greater than the learning ability
of any individual in the group.
Or,
The accumulation of individual learning constitutes Team learning. The benefit
of team or shared learning is that staff grows more quickly and the problem solving
capacity of the organization is improved through better access to knowledge and
expertise. Learning organizations have structures that facilitate team learning with
features such as boundary crossing and openness. Team learning requires individuals to
engage in dialogue and discussion; therefore team members must develop open
communication, shared meaning, and shared understanding (OKeeffe, T. 2002).
Learning organizations typically have excellent knowledge management structures,
allowing creation, acquisition, dissemination, and implementation of this knowledge in
the organization.
Characteristics of learning organizations include the following:
1. An organizational vision is created through input from all key areas and is endorsed by
all employees, not mandated from on high.
2. The organization focuses on analyzing patterns over time rather than taking snapshots.
3. In their on-going communications, employees balance advocacy with inquiry, that is,
they argue for their point of view as much as they invite others to question this point of
view and as much as they ask questions about others points of view.
4. When unintended outcomes happen, learning organizations focus their efforts on
understanding how the system structure enabled that outcome rather than blaming an
individual or group of individuals.

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5. Learning organizations are forward looking, always focused on the desired future they
want to create, rather than looking back to what went wrong and trying to fix it.
6. Learning organizations encourage employees to stretch and try out new ideas.
Benefits of Learning Organization:
There are some benefits of Learning Organization- Maintaining levels of innovation and remaining competitive.
- Being better placed to respond to external pressures.
-Having the knowledge to better link resources to customer needs.
-Improving quality of outputs at all levels.
- Improving corporate image by becoming more people oriented.
-Increasing the pace of change within the organization.
Barriers of Learning Organization:
In some organizations a lack of a learning culture can be a
barrier to learning. An environment must be created where individuals
can share learning without it being devalued and ignored, so more
people can benefit from their knowledge and the individuals becomes
empowered. A learning organization needs to fully accept the removal
of traditional hierarchical structures (OKeeffe, T. 2002).
Personal mastery can even be seen as a threat to the
organization. Some organizations find it hard to embrace personal
mastery because as a concept it is intangible and the benefits cannot
be quantified; personal mastery can even be seen as a threat to the
organization. This threat can be real, as Senge
empower

people

in

an

unaligned

points out, that to

organization

can

be

counterproductive. In other words, if individuals do not engage with a

shared vision, personal mastery could be used to advance their own
personal visions. Resistance to learning can occur within a learning
organization if there is not sufficient buy-in at an individual level. This
is often encountered with people who feel threatened by change or
believe that they have the most to lose (OKeeffe, T. 2002).

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In addition, Organizational size may become the barrier to internal knowledge

sharing. When the number of employees exceeds 150, internal knowledge sharing
dramatically decreases because of higher complexity in the formal organizational
structure, weaker inter-employee relationships, lower trust, reduced connective efficacy,
and less effective communication. As such, as the size of an organizational unit increases,
the effectiveness of internal knowledge flows dramatically diminishes and the degree of
intra-organizational knowledge sharing decreases.
Level of learning:
Single loop learning: (learning is about incremental improvements to existing practice).
Argyris and Schn describe three different levels of learning. The most basic
level is the detection and correction of error (this they labeled single loop learning, as it
is analogous to maintaining a steady course through use of a feedback loop). Single loop
learning tends to leave organizational objectives and processes.
An example in health care- Single loop learning. A hospital examines its care
of obstetric patients. Through a clinical audit, it finds various gaps between actual
practice and established standards (derived from evidence based guidelines). Meetings
are held to discuss the guidelines, changes are made to working procedures, and reporting
and feedback on practice are enhanced. These changes increase the proportion of patients
receiving appropriate and timely care (that is, in compliance with the guidelines). This is
an example of single loop learning largely unchanged.
Double loop learning :( double loop learning occurs when organizations rethink basic
goals, norms, and paradigms).
Beyond basic error correction, more sophisticated learning which changes
fundamental assumptions about the organization is possible. This level of learning leads,
for example, to a redefining of the organizations goals, norms, policies, procedures, or
even structures. Example-In examining its obstetric care, some patients are interviewed
at length. From this it emerges that the issues which are bothering women have more to
do with continuity of care, convenience of access, quality of information, and the
interpersonal aspects of the patient professional interaction. To priorities these issues,
obstetric care is completely reconfigured to a team system led by midwives. The

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standards laid down in the evidence based guidelines are not abandoned but are woven
into a new pattern of interactions and values. This is an example of double loop learning
Or,
Double-loop learning is about solving difficult problems, according to Argyris.
We discover and establish truth when we subject people's claims to rigorous tests. That
allows us to see more clearly the causal processes embedded in those claims. Argyris
calls this transparency. Double-loop learning depends on stewardship, or the internal
commitment by employees to seek truth, transparency, and personal responsibility in the
workplace. For single-loop learning, people are programmed to believe that transparency
and truth are good ideas, but only when they're not threatening or embarrassing, he says.
Argyris's double-loop learning encourages people to examine their own
behavior, take responsibility for their action and inaction, and make conscious the kind of
potentially threatening or embarrassing information that can produce real change.
Learning about learning or metalearning: (metalearning reflects an organizations
attempts to learn about (and improve) its ability to learn).
Usually underdeveloped, aspect of learning capacity is the ability of
organizations to learn about the contexts of their learningwhen they are able to identify
when and how they learn and when and how they do not, and then adapt accordingly.
Thus, successful learning organizations build on their experience of learning to develop
and test new learning strategies. Example-The experience of refocusing obstetric
services better to meet patient needs and expectations is not lost on the hospital. Through
its structure and culture, the organization encourages the transfer of these valuable
lessons. The factors that assisted the reconfiguring (and those that impeded it) are
analyzed, described, and communicated within the organization. This is not done through
formal written reports but through informal communications, temporary work
placements, and the development of teams working across services. Thus, the obstetric
service is able to share with other hospital services the lessons learned about learning to
reconfigure. This is an example of learning about learning or meta-learning.
Problems Organizational Learning addresses:
Some of the issues that Learning Organizations wanted to address within
Institutions is fragmentation, competition and reactiveness (Chawla and Renesch 1995
p.16). Fragmentation is described as breaking a problem into pieces. For example each

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organization has an accounting department, finance, operations, IT and marketing.

Competition occurs when employees are trying to do better or "beat" others in an
assignment instead of collaborating. Reactiveness occurs when an organization changes
only in reaction to outside forces. Only doing an assignment because it is assigned and
not continually creating. These are deeply rooted in many of today's organizations as a
product of capitalism and the drive to generate more profit.
Creating a culture that supports the learning organization:
Learning organizations embrace change and constantly create the reference
points to precipitate an ever-evolving structure that has a vision of the future built in to it.
According to Richard Karash, learning organizations are healthier places to work because
they:
1. Garner Independent Thought
2. Improve Quality
3. Develop a More Committed Work Force.
4. Increase our Ability to Manage Change
5. Give People Hope that Things Can Get Better.
6. Stretch Perceived Limits
7. Are in Touch with a Fundamental Part of our Humanity (Mason MK, 2007).
8. Make information in the organization accessible to all.
9. Help employees manage change by anticipating change and creating the types of
change desired by the organization.
10. Empower employees to act.
11. Acknowledge and support the need to take risks.
Everyone must learn that the steps they use to define and solve problems can be a
source of additional problems for the organization (Argyris C. 1991)
How to achieve of a learning organization:
The first step is to create a timeline to initiate the types of changes that are
necessary to achieve of a learning organizationSTAGE ONE
To create a communication system to facilitate the exchange of information
which is the basis on any learning organization built. The use of technology has and will
continue to alter the workplace by enabling information to flow freely and to provide
universal access to business and strategic information.
STAGE TWO

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To organize a readiness which acts as a tool to assess the distance between

where an organization is and where it would like to be, in terms of the following seven
dimensions.
1. Providing continuous learning
2. Providing strategic leadership
3. Promoting inquiry and dialogue
4. Encouraging collaboration and team learning
5. Creating embedded structures for capturing and sharing learning
6. Empowering people toward a shared vision
7. Making systems connections
STAGE THREE
To commit to developing, maintaining and facilitating an atmosphere that
garners learning.
STAGE FOUR
With the help of all employees, is to create a vision of the organization and
write a mission statement.
STAGE FIVE
Through training and awareness programs is try to expand employees
behaviors to develop skills and understanding attitudes needed to reach the goals of
the mission statement, including the ability to work well with others, become more
verbal, and net-work with people across all departments within the organisation.
STAGE SIX
Communicate a change in the companys culture by integrating human and
technical systems.
STAGE SEVEN
To initiate the new practices by emphasizing team learning and
contributions because employees will then become more interested in self-regulation
and management, and be more prepared to meet the challenges of an ever-changing
workplace.
STAGE EIGHT
Allow employees to question key business practices and assumptions.
STAGE NINE
Develop workable expectations for future actions.
STAGE TEN

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To remember that becoming a learning organization is a long process and that

small setbacks should be expected.
CONCLUSION
A learning organization encourages its members to improve their personal
skills and qualities, so that they can learn and develop. They benefit from their own
and other peoples experience, whether they are positive or negative. In a learning
organization, there are more opportunities to be creative and this helps ensure that any
individual will be able to cope rapidly with a changing environment and move freely
within the organization. Effective leadership is the foremost requirement for the creation
of a learning organization, which is not based on traditional hierarchy, but based on a mix
of different people from all levels of the system leading in different ways.

Reference:
Yoder, Patricia S. (2007). Leading and managing in Nursing, 4th edition. Mosby,
Inc., Canada.
Cors, R. (2003). What Is a Learning Organization? Reflections on the Literature
and Practitioner Perspectives, Engineering Professional Development, University of
Wisconsin-Madison.
Abri, Al- R K., Hashmi, Al- I S. (2007). The Learning Organization and Health
Care Education, Vol. 7, No. 3, p. 207-214.
Marty Jacobs, (2009). Davie Healthcare Rx: Are You a Learning Organization?
Davies, H T O. Nutley, S M. (2000). Developing learning organisations in the
new NHS, BMJ vol.320.
http://www.learning-org.com/
http://www.businessdictionary.com/definition/learningorganization.html#ixzz2GyyNABpN
http://www.systemsinsync.com
(http://doc2doc.bmj.com/blogs/doctorsblog/_learning-organizations-canimprove-healthcare-quality)