Knowledge Management &
Organizational Learning

Sending people to short skill-building workshops may be adequate for adding to an existing base of knowledge they already posses.
However, to develop new capabilities that are different from the current knowledge base, a short-term course will not provide the depth and span of knowledge and learning retention that is needed.  The difficulty goes up exponentially as additional, interdependent knowledge areas are added to the new learning mix.

This is the role of Communities of Practice (CoP) in organizational learning

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Barriers to a team implementing new business ideas (best practices in today's jargon) include:

• Priorities - heavy work load that will require something else to take a lower priority
• Sidetracking - focusing on ancillary issues (cost and time) that detract from the main focus
• No buy-in - belief that originator lacks full knowledge of the true situation and needs
• Shortsightedness - unwillingness to wait for full impact to take effect before results are demanded
• Politics - internal competition, not collaboration
• Time - solution misses the timing requirements of the problem
• General - lacks specifics that may be required for the situation at hand
• Rigidity - not adaptable (find the middle ground)
• Single sightedness - seeing the best practice as the answer to everything, even where it is not warranted

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Requirements for spreading a best practice across the organization:

• Easy for everyone to understand "as is" without excessive explanation and support
  - clear business purpose for multiple stakeholders
• Easy to be communicated between different levels and between different groups within the organization
  - allow for different rates of learning and different learning styles  [ see stages of learning ]
  - builds on an existing knowledge base in and between team members
• Adaptable to specific, local requirements
  - what worked in one situation may not work elsewhere
  - what is the core essential elements that are critical to the best practice?
  - is the core element the concept itself or the execution process?
  - sufficient supporting information to permit changes to fit current situation
  - sufficient time to allow mistakes to be made and corrected
• Storage and retrieval system for collecting and disseminating the best practice within the organization
  - "bank" good ideas for later use
  - promote availability once banked
  - retrieval mindset (not librarians or archivists, but brokers and matchmakers)
  - realize that value is only realized through use
  - don't get tied up in technical or ownership issues
• Existing system structure and processes that do not inhibit collaboration  [see business culture]
  - beware sub-optimization
  - reward "copying" ideas; do not rely solely on those internally developed

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Organizational Learning

Peter Senge in The Fifth Discipline defines learning organizations as those that continually enhance their capacity to create the results they really care about.  This is accomplished by paying attention to three key areas:

• Shared Vision and a common sense of purpose - able to clearly articulate the vision
• Common language for communicating information within the organization - productive conversations to make the results happen
• Understanding of organizational dynamics and complex business processes - tools and thinking to management the complexities involved

As learning takes place, an individual (or organization) goes through five stages of learning.  Without an understanding of the stages of learning, a manager may think that more than enough time and resources have been spent training someone and are then disappointed when the level of knowledge is less than desired.  Or worse, the subject area being trained, if new, is discarded as being without merit because results are expected too soon.  If an organization is serious about developing its ability to create its own future, there must be a way to develop a critical mass of people at the competent level in the desired knowledge areas.  This requires an organizational awareness of its level of learning and the development of a learning plan to move forward.  Part of the learning plan is the identification of available internal training resources and acquiring outside resources when needed. 

Why a Learning Organization?

Behaviors associated with organizational learning

Systems Thinking - one of the Five Learning Disciplines

Information Taxonomy - preparing for knowledge mapping

Organizational Learning Activities

Other Resources

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Transformative Networking – connecting change leaders to enable self-organized grassroots change.
http://groups.google.com/group/transformative-networking

Next Steps – While still conceptual, transformative networking offers the possibility of leading change through the networking of those already interested or involved in similar initiatives, effectively tearing down existing silos of practice that exist across disciplines and fields of work.  The next step is to develop a proof of concept built on the theoretical underpinnings above, possibly using Google Wave as the collaboration platform.  Included will be identifying the minimal structure and governance required to enable self-organization within the network while not constraining what might emerge.  Join this initiative and help create the future of organizing - networking communities of interest.
http://groups.google.com/group/transformative-networking    

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Last modified: July 19, 2009