Learning Organisations
A Learning Organisation encourages its members to improve their personal skills and qualities, so that they can learn and develop. They benefit from their own and other people's experience, whether it be positive or negative.
People are appreciated for their own skills, values and work. All opinions are
treated equally and with respect. By being aware of their role and importance in the whole organisation, the workers are more motivated to "add their bit". This encourages creativity and free-thinking, hence leading to novel solutions to problems. All in all there is an increase in job satisfaction.
People learn skills and acquire knowledge beyond their specific job requirements. This enables them to appreciate or perform other roles and tasks. Flexibility allows workers to move freely within the organisation, whilst at the same time it removes the barriers associated with a rigidly structured company. It also ensures that any individual will be able to cope rapidly with a changing environment, such as those that exist in modern times.
There are more opportunities to be creative in a learning organisation. There is also room for trying out new ideas without having to worry about mistakes. Employees' creative contribution is recognised and new ideas are free to flourish.
Learning requires social interaction and interpersonal communication skills. An organisation based on learning will ensure members become better at these activities. Teams will work better as a result.
Learning Organisations provide the perfect environment for high performing teams to learn, grow and develop. On the other hand these teams will perform efficiently for the organisation to produce positive results.
A team is composed of highly specialised members who can not and are not expected to know everything about a job. In this case the sharing of common knowledge is quite important for the completion of a job. Within learning organisations in general, and teams in particular, information and knowledge flows around more freely. This makes for higher productivity within teams and between teams as they build on each others strengths. Trust between team members increases and hence they value each others opinions more.
In any organisation people depend on each other for the completion of their jobs. Learning Organisations will increase this awareness, and improve relations
between people at a personal level. By knowing more about other people's roles, needs and tasks, members can manage their time better and plan their work more efficiently. This dependency is decreased as learning is enhanced, letting people get on with their own job better as they rely less on others.
An active learning organisation will have at its heart the concept of continuous learning. Therefore it will always be improving in its techniques, methods and technology.
The old hierarchical communication barrier between manager-worker has devolved
into more of a coach-team member scenario. Leaders support the team, not dictate to it. The team appreciates this which in turn helps them to be highly motivated.
All workers have an increased awareness of the company's status, and all that goes on in other departments. Communication between and across all layers of the company gives a sense of coherence, making each individual a vital part of the whole system. Workers perform better as they feel more a part of the company; they are not just pawns in a game.
A company's first priority is its customer's needs. A Learning Organisation
cuts the excess bureaucracy normally involved with customer relations allowing greater contact between the two. If the customers requirements change, learning organisations can adapt faster and cope more efficiently with this change.
Over time a company builds up a pool of learning, in the form of
libraries, and human expertice. This pool of knowledge within learning organisations is larger than average. New problems and challenges can be met faster using this increased resource.
As more people in every level of a company engage in continual learning a valid contribution can come from any member of the company, and from any part of the company. Being innovative and creative is the responsability of the whole workforce and allows learning organisations to adapt to changes in the state of the market, technology and competition efficiently.
Moreover, this creativity gives rise to an increased synergy.The interaction between high performing teams produces a result which is higher than was planned or expected of them.
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