Building Learning Organizations

A ‘Learning Organization’ is an organization that is adept at generating, adopting, and transmitting knowledge, and changing its behavior to reflect the newly acquired knowledge and insights. Such an organization continuously strives to provide its employees access to relevant, practical information. These kind of relevant, practical information can empower them to improve both their individual as well as organizational performance. In a ‘Learning Organization’, learning happens at the whole organization level and involves creating a culture where learning is implanted, communicated and understood by all that there is a place to seek information.

The concept of a learning organization is not a new one. It flourished in the 1990s, stimulated by Peter M. Senge’s, The Fifth Discipline and countless other publications, workshops, and websites.  A learning culture can help an organization to encourage its employees to innovate, seek out novel ideas and concepts and, experiment.  A learning culture can also help an organization to quickly adapt to changes and manage change effectively.

A learning culture can help an organization to maintain a competitive advantage in times of rapid changes in the market. A continuous and sustained learning culture can help an organization encourage its workforce to achieve greater results and improve quality.

Watkins & Marsick defines a ‘Learning Organization’ as follows:

“Learning organizations are characterized by total employee involvement in a process of collaboratively conducted, collectively accountable change directed towards shared values or principles.”

Jamali, Khoury, & Shayoun (2006) defines a ‘Learning Organization’ as follows:

“A type of organization that promotes continual organizational renewal by weaving/embedding a set of core processes that nurture a positive propensity to learn, adapt, and change.”