Organisational Development | Learning Organisations

The Learning Organisation: Success Factors and Recommendations for Action

From Sabine Walter, Head of netzwerk managementberatung | coaching

For many companies, the speed at which they develop themselves and their service and product offerings is already a decisive competitive factor. However, as part of our organisational development projects and transformation support, we experience time and again that the cultural framework conditions in companies often work against this requirement and the entrepreneurial necessity of continuous further development. This article therefore addresses three questions: What are success factors? Learning organisations? What framework conditions do Learning organisationsneed? What concrete first steps can you take in your company to create a Learning organisation, build up?

There are different definitions for Learning organisations. In this article, we base ours on a definition that was already developed in the 1990s by Peter Senge and is still relevant today. Peter Senge was director of the Centre for Organizational Learning at the MIT Sloan School of Management and head of the Society for Organizational Learning.

Learning organisation: definition

Learning organisations are organisations that are continuously evolving

For Peter Senge, the main way Learning organisations distinguish themselves is not by offering a broad training programme or by sending employees to external seminars to acquire explicit knowledge. Rather, Learning organisations for him is that through the interplay of culture, organisational design, leadership and IT, they create framework conditions that enable and promote informal (and thus self-directed, casual and unconscious) learning, knowledge storage and knowledge exchange.

In his book "The Fifth Discipline", Senge describes what it takes for a company to become a Learner organisation. I take up Senge's impulses and develop them further with the help of our experiences.

Learning organisations

Framework conditions of learning organisations

For Senge, five basic conditions must be in place for an organisation to develop continuously:

• Personal Mastery - the pursuit of personal growth
• Mental Models - the further development of mental images
• Shared Vision - the development of common goals and objectives
• Team Learning - learning in a team
• Systems Thinking - thinking in complex systems

From my experience, I add one more essential condition: Freedom from fear or in other words, psychological security. This must exist so that three of the five framework conditions can occur, namely, personal growth, the further development of mental images and learning in a team.

Let's look at all the elements in detail.

Learning organisations: Framework conditions

Personal Mastery - the pursuit of personal growth

A basic thesis of Senge's is that the "commitment of an organisation to want to learn can only ever be as great as the commitment of its members." ¹.

Senge understands the striving for personal growth as the inner urge of people working in the organisation to continuously develop themselves. This also includes the fact that these people have their own concrete ideas about their own goals and feel the urge not only to realise these goals, but also to realise them with a high degree of professionalism; thus becoming an expert in a specific subject or discipline.

What does that require?

For people working in an organisation to strive for personal growth, the organisation needs to attract people who are driven by curiosity, a thirst for knowledge, openness to new things and have a 'growth mindset', i.e. who see the opportunities that lie in the new rather than the risks.

This calls for a certain creative freedom.

But an organisation only becomes a Learner organisationThis is only possible if the leadership culture succeeds in taking away the fear of new things from people who tend to value security. This requires a stable culture of trust and tolerance for mistakes.

Learning organisations: Framework conditions

Mental Models - the further development of beliefs and convictions

For Senge, another prerequisite of a Learner organisation is that its members are in a position to continuously review, develop or even cast overboard their own convictions, beliefs, patterns and ideas. This also includes questioning and adapting certain management models and the respective situation and objectives.

Learning organisations: Framework conditions

Shared Vision - Development of common goals

"If ever there was a single leadership idea that has inspired organisations since time immemorial, it is the ability to create and sustain a shared vision of the future." ¹. A shared vision, a shared purpose, shared values and goals that motivate and inspire are a prerequisite for an organisation to be successful in the first place; they are also a prerequisite for organisations to develop further.

Learning organisations: Framework conditions

Team Learning - Learning in a Team

It is well known that the intelligence of the swarm exceeds the intelligence of the individuals. "When teams are truly learning, they not only achieve outstanding results, but the individual members also develop faster than would ever be possible otherwise." ¹.

This shared learning in the team begins with dialogue and acceptance of others. It requires that each team member does not see a lack of knowledge or mistakes made as a devaluation of his or her own person and does not misuse personal know-how to devalue those lacking specific knowledge.

In addition, learning or development always happens outside the comfort zone. Therefore learning in a team requires freedom from fear on the part of the individual and trust in the group.. Only if the group offers psychological security or the individual finds this security in healthy self-esteem, will this person show vulnerability and ignorance, admit mistakes and leave his or her own comfort zone.

But learning in a team also means creating learning spaces in the team. Interaction is a basic prerequisite for this. And since learning usually works better without time pressure, time is also needed for real exchange, joint observation, questioning, exploring and experimenting.

Unfortunately, our education system still does not lay the foundation for learning to work naturally in community exchange. Therefore, companies are explicitly called upon to establish team learning as a matter of course, even when teams work across companies, i.e. Open Innovation.

Learning organisations: Framework conditions

Systems Thinking - Systemic Thinking

The fifth discipline, according to Senge, is the integrative discipline that links all the other four. Through systems thinking, the complex interrelationships of the whole are recognised and become transparent, so that the conscious and unconscious influence of one framework condition on the others can be taken into account. In Senge's theory, organisation and individual are closely linked. On the one hand, it is the organisation that influences the individual, i.e. the people working in it or for it; on the other hand, the organisation itself cannot learn. It is the people who learn and develop the organisation.

Learning organisations: Framework conditions

Psychological security

An aspect that Peter Senge does not explicitly address, but which, in our experience, is crucial for Learning organisations is psychological safety. Why is this important? I would like to highlight this question by looking at characteristics that occur when an organisation does not provide this psychological safety.

What happens when psychological security is not given?

• There is more silence than communication.
  And also when it comes to introducing new ideas, because if the individual is not 100% sure that it is a good idea and accepted by everyone, he will not express it.
• Mistakes are not admitted, possibly even covered up.
• People remain in their comfort zone.
• There is no experimentation. New things are not tried out. Consequently, no innovation is possible.
• Instructions, tasks or procedures are not questioned.
• Things are only verbalised when it is to one's own advantage.
• Information and knowledge are bunkered and instrumentalised
• Conflicts are not dealt with openly. This means that a productive solution is hardly possible.
• Organisation and team confidence continuously decline and with it also the self-confidence of the individual.

Guaranteeing psychological security is, in my opinion, central to a learning organisation and the most difficult change to master culturally. This is also related to the fact that our society is rather fear-driven and therefore in such a transformation it is also necessary to dissolve deeply anchored social patterns and conventions. The key to this is teams and leaders who also act as role models and multipliers.

Building a learning organisation

Concrete recommendations for action for companies

If you want to make your company a Learner organisation you will find concrete recommendations for action below.

Anchoring a culture of trust in the company

The first and most effective step is to establish a culture of trust within the company. This must be a priority for management. This assumes that the top managers have a healthy self-confidence and also live out a stable relationship of trust, i.e. trust others and thus lay the foundation for psychological security.

Living a culture of fault tolerance and feedback

This culture of trust is supported by a fault tolerance culture, in which the boss also openly admits his or her own mistakes and also talks about what he or she has learned from this mistake. Understanding mistakes as an opportunity for learning and development is central - also for the development and anchoring of psychological security.

This fault tolerance culture implies a constructive feedback culture. Without constructive feedback, any further development is made difficult.

Define a common vision and purpose

We have already pointed out in several articles how central a common vision and a common purpose are for the success of a company. With regard to a Learning organisation, a common vision sets the focus. What do we focus on? In which direction do we look, think and experiment? Where do we invest? Where not? What will be our content anchor? A shared vision that everyone stands behind is therefore not only motivating, but above all it guides decisions and makes it possible to deploy resources in a targeted manner, which in turn can lead to visible successes more quickly.

Exemplify growth mindset

Everything contains possibilities. Whether you find a situation pleasant or unpleasant, they are no different in their fundamental nature: a situation is something that offers possibilities. ... To decide that any situation is something that offers possibilities is growth." ². Only leaders who go through life with this attitude can have an Learning organisation, develop and lead. This does not mean that risks should be negated or minimised. It means that situations are considered and analysed in a value-neutral way in order to decide which path to take - always guided by the central question: "What is the best option for us in this situation? In this context, it is helpful not to make fundamental decisions that have far-reaching consequences for organisations in a small circle, but to include as many perspective providers and experiences as possible.

Making information and knowledge transparent

Good knowledge management was and still is a very big challenge for Learning organisations. There are many knowledge management systems from which companies can choose. But in our experience, the main sticking point is not the system. Rather, the following things should be at the centre of your leadership when it comes to making information and knowledge transparent in your company:

• No undocumented know-how: It must be a matter of course to document and thus share knowledge and information.
• Processes before system. Before you invest in a knowledge management system, the information and communication processes in your organisation must be moulded into a sustainable design. Who needs what information? In what form? Where is knowledge created? In what form? What is the easiest way to share it? What are the dependencies between the different processes? If the homework is not done and is not done continuously, the system you invest in will only be moderately successful.
• Easy access, low complexity: It should a central system that uses an intelligent search engine to provide access to all available information and knowledge, a kind of corporate Google.
• Someone wears the hat: There must be a team that is responsible for the further development and maintenance of the system and ensures that defined "input guidelines" are adhered to, insofar as this is not done by AI.
• Everyone works with us: The further development of stored knowledge contributions must be possible by everyone.
• Timeliness is a must: Processes, templates, guidelines, documents... must always be up-to-date.
• First-hand information at the same time: Say goodbye to having information intended for all members of your organisation announced through the different levels of the hierarchy according to the silent mail principle. If you have information for everyone, then address everyone, e.g. via a video message.

Create learning spaces

Before permanent learning becomes a matter of course, it is important that learning is given an explicit temporal space. Set up times in your company for exchanges within the team and, if necessary, define questions to be dealt with in teams at certain times. Create time slots in which employees give presentations on certain topics or invite keynote speakers from outside. This is also possible in a virtual setting. For companies that are already using the Agile working method, retrospectives are another learning space from which the essence of what has been learned should be made accessible to the organisation.

Allow self-efficacy

Another important element in building a Learner organisation is self-efficacy, i.e. the experience of each individual being allowed to shape things. This self-efficacy requires clarity of purpose, scope for decision-making, a culture of feedback and tolerance of mistakes. In organisations, self-efficacy therefore often goes hand in hand with greater self-organisation of the teams. You can read more about this in our article "Giving decision-making authority to the team".

Building a learning organisation

The role of Human Resources (HR)

Even if the described framework conditions have to be created and lived out by all members of an organisation, HR in Learning organisations plays, in my view, a key role on several levels. On the one hand, they should be drivers of this development and role models alongside the top managers. On the other hand, it is their task to create conscious and unconscious learning spaces and to provide concepts and facilitators for their design.

What does that mean in concrete terms? Below I list some of the tasks:

• Focus the selection process of new hires on people with a growth mindset.
• Define the competence profiles accordingly.
• Design and develop a multi-level training programme that, in addition to teaching methods and input-based learning, focuses on the personal development of three key skills: comprehensive awareness, building self- and relational confidence and situational empathic action. This can be done within the framework of individual coaching and group-based formats and requires that external service providers are able to facilitate purely situational and participant-focused learning based on targeted learning experiences only.
• Provide internal and external resources which also can provide ad-hoc support with learning and development processes in teams. i.e. are learning and development companions.
• Attract external impulse providers and "learning partners", such as universities, start-ups, research centres, customers for the company and create framework conditions for uncomplicated creative exchange.
• Develop a pool of supervisors to act as sparring partners for internal learning and development facilitators.
• Actively address breaches of psychological safety in teams and the organisation and use them as learning and development opportunities for the organisation.

If you would like to know what you as an HR team can specifically do in your company to help your organisation move towards a Learner organisation and play a significant role in shaping the future, contact us.

Conclusion

Learning organisation will survive

"A Learning organisation, is a place where people continually discover that they create their own reality. And that they can change this reality. ¹.

A Learning organisation, requires six key framework conditions:

• Personal Mastery - the pursuit of personal growth
• Mental Models - the further development of mental images
• Shared Vision - the development of common goals and objectives
• Team Learning - learning in a team
• Systems Thinking - thinking in complex systems
• Psychological security

This organisational and entrepreneurial self-image is becoming a core element when it comes to managing companies successfully in the long term, in a world that is becoming increasingly complex and developing at a rapid pace. A Learning organisation, is becoming a prerequisite more quickly than ever for lasting entrepreneurial success and the continued existence of an organisation.

Outlook

Learning organisations as a motor for a learning society

If we entrepreneurs succeed in embedding this growth mindset and the urge for continuous development in our organisations, we will make a significant contribution to a new society; a society that is characterised by trust, sees and seizes opportunities instead of manoeuvring itself into an inability to act out of fear of risks. The key to this lies within each and every one of us because in every situation we have the possibility to open our own eyes to the opportunities that lie in the situation, even if the solution is not always easy and the path to it can be rocky. Let's make continuous learning and personal growth a matter of course!

¹ Peter M. Senge, The Fifth Discipline, 11th edition, Schäfer / Poeschel
² Safi Nidiaye, The Voice of the Heart, Bastei Lübbe, Year 2000