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In this era of rapid change only organizations that are evolving and continuously learning can succeed. \u00a0Successful organizations discover how to tap their people\u2019s commitment and capacity to learn at all levels.<\/p>\nIn this era of rapid change only organizations that are evolving and continuously learning can succeed. \u00a0Successful organizations discover how to tap their people\u2019s commitment and capacity to learn at all levels.<\/p>\n
A Learning Organization<\/a> is a place where people continually expand their capacity to create the results they truly desire, where new ideas and thinking are nurtured, and where people are continually learning to see the whole together.\u00a0 A Learning Organization is established on the principles of innovation, free flow of ideas, and a consistent focus on transforming the ways of doing business.<\/p>\n Learning Organizations adopt 5 distinct practices to succeed, which form the \u201cbuilding blocks\u201d of such organizations:<\/p>\n Five key characteristics distinguish a Learning Organization<\/a> from the rest.\u00a0 These attributes serve as the guiding principles and practices that these organizations study and integrate into their DNA.\u00a0 A blend of these core characteristics helps organizations adopt a more interconnected way of thinking:<\/p>\n By adopting and mastering these core characteristics organizations become communities that employees can commit to.\u00a0 Let’s, now, discuss the first 3 characteristics in detail.<\/p>\n Systems thinking allows people to study businesses as bounded objects. \u00a0Learning Organizations possess information systems to assess the performance of the organization and its components as a whole.\u00a0 Systems thinking states that all the characteristics must be present together in an organization for it to be a Learning Organization.\u00a0 However, some experts consider that the characteristics of a Learning Organization are gradually acquired, rather than developed simultaneously.<\/p>\n Personal mastery is an individual\u2019s commitment to learning.\u00a0 It is about becoming more productive by applying skills to work in the most constructive manner.\u00a0 It involves clarification of focus, vision, and to interpret reality objectively.\u00a0 Training, development, and continuous self-improvement are the sources of individual learning.<\/p>\n Mental models<\/a> include assumptions and generalizations retained by individuals and organizations, which go undetected, as mental models limit peoples\u2019 observations.\u00a0 Learning Organizations need to identify and challenge these models.\u00a0 For a learning environment it is important to replace confrontational attitudes with an open culture that promotes inquiry and trust, introduce mechanisms for uncovering and assessing organizational theories of action, and discard any unwanted values.<\/p>\n Productivity and competitiveness relies on knowledge generation and processing.\u00a0 Therefore, organizations not only have to invest in new machinery and systems to improve production, but also focus on knowledge generation and learning of their people. \u00a0Learning Organizations require a new view of leadership<\/a>.\u00a0 Leaders in Learning Organizations create workplaces that help people keep building their capabilities to understand complexity, clarify vision, and improve shared mental models.<\/p>\n Peter Senge<\/a> describes the 3 key qualities of leaders to be critical in leading the Learning Organization:<\/p>\n The key roles of a leader as a designer in Learning Organizations is designing the policies, strategies, and systems.\u00a0 The designer also outlines the governing ideas\u2014the purpose, vision, and core values\u2014for the people.\u00a0 They plan and develop the learning processes whereby people throughout the organization can deal productively with the critical issues they face, and cultivate personal mastery of the team members in the desired learning disciplines.<\/p>\n According to Peter Senge, the notion of management in this modern age should be replaced by \u201cstewardship\u201d\u2014whereby control and consistency should be swapped with partnership and choice. \u00a0The leader as a steward tells \u2018purpose stories\u2019 about their organization and relate those stories.\u00a0 They explain the reasons of the tasks that are required to be performed, the need for the organization to evolve, and the purpose of evolution. \u00a0They learn to listen to other people, involve them, and develop vision\u2014both individual and shared.<\/p>\n Interested in learning more about the key attributes of leaders and core characteristics of a Learning Organization<\/a>?\u00a0 You can download an editable PowerPoint on Learning Organization Primer<\/strong> here<\/u><\/a> on the Flevy documents marketplace<\/a>.<\/p>\n You can download in-depth presentations on this and hundreds of similar business frameworks from the FlevyPro Library<\/a>. FlevyPro<\/a> is trusted and utilized by 1000s of management consultants and corporate executives. Here’s what some have to say:<\/p>\n “My FlevyPro subscription provides me with the most popular frameworks and decks in demand in today\u2019s market. They not only augment my existing consulting and coaching offerings and delivery, but also keep me abreast of the latest trends, inspire new products and service offerings for my practice, and educate me in a fraction of the time and money of other solutions. I strongly recommend FlevyPro to any consultant serious about success.”<\/p>\n \u2013 Bill Branson, Founder at Strategic Business Architects<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n “As a niche strategic consulting firm, Flevy and FlevyPro frameworks and documents are an on-going reference to help us structure our findings and recommendations to our clients as well as improve their clarity, strength, and visual power. 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While FlevyPro contains resource material that any consultancy, project or delivery firm must have, it is an essential part of a small firm or independent consultant’s toolbox.”<\/p>\n \u2013 Michael Duff, Managing Director at Change Strategy (UK)<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n “FlevyPro has been a brilliant resource for me, as an independent growth consultant, to access a vast knowledge bank of presentations to support my work with clients. In terms of RoI, the value I received from the very first presentation I downloaded paid for my subscription many times over! The quality of the decks available allows me to punch way above my weight \u2013 it’s like having the resources of a Big 4 consultancy at your fingertips at a microscopic fraction of the overhead.”<\/p>\n \u2013 Roderick Cameron, Founding Partner at SGFE Ltd<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n “Several times a month, I browse FlevyPro for presentations relevant to the job challenge I have (I am a consultant). When the subject requires it, I explore further and buy from the Flevy Marketplace. On all occasions, I read them, analyze them. I take the most relevant and applicable ideas for my work; and, of course, all this translates to my and my clients’ benefits.”<\/p>\n \u2013 Omar Hern\u00e1n Montes Parra, CEO at Quantum SFE<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" In this era of rapid change only organizations that are evolving and continuously learning can succeed. \u00a0Successful organizations discover how to tap their people\u2019s commitment and capacity to learn at all levels. A Learning Organization is a place where people continually expand their capacity to create the results they truly desire, where new ideas and… Do You Know What Makes an Organization a Learning Organization?<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":110,"featured_media":5024,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"neve_meta_sidebar":"","neve_meta_container":"","neve_meta_enable_content_width":"","neve_meta_content_width":0,"neve_meta_title_alignment":"","neve_meta_author_avatar":"","neve_post_elements_order":"","neve_meta_disable_header":"","neve_meta_disable_footer":"","neve_meta_disable_title":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[408,85],"tags":[1629,1630,1633,1632,1634,1486,1631,824],"class_list":["post-5022","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-management-leadership","category-organization","tag-experimentation","tag-learning-organizations","tag-mental-models","tag-personal-mastery","tag-systematic-problem-solving","tag-systems-thinking","tag-team-learning","tag-transformation"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/flevy.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5022","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/flevy.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/flevy.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/flevy.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/110"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/flevy.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=5022"}],"version-history":[{"count":8,"href":"https:\/\/flevy.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5022\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":7887,"href":"https:\/\/flevy.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5022\/revisions\/7887"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/flevy.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/5024"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/flevy.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=5022"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/flevy.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=5022"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/flevy.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=5022"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}\n
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<\/a><\/p>\nSystems Thinking <\/strong><\/h3>\n
Personal Mastery<\/strong><\/h3>\n
Mental Models <\/strong><\/h3>\n
Role of Leadership<\/strong><\/h2>\n
\n
Designer<\/strong><\/h3>\n
Steward<\/strong><\/h3>\n
Do You Find Value in This Framework?<\/h2>\n