For commercial organisations, a learning culture delivers sustainable competitive advantage, while for other organisations it can generate quantifiable improvements across the board
Bill Lucas writing to People Management magazine of CIPD-Lond has this to say;
That the Organisational culture is generally agreed to be a combination of values (what matters to people) and expectations of behaviour (the way things are done). It is, you could say, what an organisation does when it thinks no one is looking.
Ever since the birth of the idea of the "learning organisation" and of "knowledge management" in the 1980s, there has been great interest in exploring how learning can bring about continuous improvement. In truth, the benefits to organisations are much more tangible than these general-sounding phrases suggest.
If you would like to create one, explore the following steps.
1 Take stock
Your first job is to find out how you are doing now. Start by looking at the following statements and rating them according to whether they are always true, sometimes true or never true:
• Success is always celebrated.
• Mistakes are a cause for reflection, not blame.
• Individuals are empowered to act.
• Information is widely shared.
• Sessions exploring lessons learnt are commonplace.
• Change is embraced willingly.
• Experimentation and risk-taking are encouraged.
• Individuals regularly bring in ideas from outside the organisation.
• Stress is acknowledged and effectively managed.
• Managers actively support the development of their team members.
Simply by exploring these kinds of issues, you are beginning to have a discussion about the role of learning in your organisation, and creating an agenda for change.
The more people say that the statements are always true, the healthier your organisation is likely to be in terms of its learning culture.
2 Make the case
The next stage is to advance coherent arguments for what you plan to do. Use the points below to marshal your arguments, drawing on the specific context of your own organisation to illustrate each one:
• Learning generates better ideas.
• Providing opportunities for development helps both recruitment and retention.
• Learning leads to greater levels of engagement.
• Learning helps teams to function more effectively.
• Where people are confident learners, there is an enhanced capacity to deal with and lead change.
• Learning better ways of doing things increases performance in all aspects of an organisation – for example, speed to market, relations with customers and suppliers, product and service development and productivity.
Add other arguments of your own. Pick on areas of current weakness in your organisation where learning might provide solutions.
3 Engage managers
4 Engage individuals
5 Lay out a plan
6 Try different things
7 Measure what happens
8 Celebrate success
9 Be flexible
Checklist
Key points
• Encourage a debate about what learning is.
• Take time to make the case for learning.
• Avoid using vocabulary that is too closely associated with HR.
• Engage managers and employees.
• Be willing to experiment.
• Make a plan and expect it to take time and real commitment to implement.
• Measure the benefits of learning.
• Celebrate along the way.
• Learn from mistakes.
Hope this will be of some use to you.
I am also attaching a ppt on Organizational Culture.
Cheers
Prof.Lakshman
From Sri Lanka, Kolonnawa
32Bill Lucas writing to People Management magazine of CIPD-Lond has this to say;
That the Organisational culture is generally agreed to be a combination of values (what matters to people) and expectations of behaviour (the way things are done). It is, you could say, what an organisation does when it thinks no one is looking.
Ever since the birth of the idea of the "learning organisation" and of "knowledge management" in the 1980s, there has been great interest in exploring how learning can bring about continuous improvement. In truth, the benefits to organisations are much more tangible than these general-sounding phrases suggest.
If you would like to create one, explore the following steps.
1 Take stock
Your first job is to find out how you are doing now. Start by looking at the following statements and rating them according to whether they are always true, sometimes true or never true:
• Success is always celebrated.
• Mistakes are a cause for reflection, not blame.
• Individuals are empowered to act.
• Information is widely shared.
• Sessions exploring lessons learnt are commonplace.
• Change is embraced willingly.
• Experimentation and risk-taking are encouraged.
• Individuals regularly bring in ideas from outside the organisation.
• Stress is acknowledged and effectively managed.
• Managers actively support the development of their team members.
Simply by exploring these kinds of issues, you are beginning to have a discussion about the role of learning in your organisation, and creating an agenda for change.
The more people say that the statements are always true, the healthier your organisation is likely to be in terms of its learning culture.
2 Make the case
The next stage is to advance coherent arguments for what you plan to do. Use the points below to marshal your arguments, drawing on the specific context of your own organisation to illustrate each one:
• Learning generates better ideas.
• Providing opportunities for development helps both recruitment and retention.
• Learning leads to greater levels of engagement.
• Learning helps teams to function more effectively.
• Where people are confident learners, there is an enhanced capacity to deal with and lead change.
• Learning better ways of doing things increases performance in all aspects of an organisation – for example, speed to market, relations with customers and suppliers, product and service development and productivity.
Add other arguments of your own. Pick on areas of current weakness in your organisation where learning might provide solutions.
3 Engage managers
4 Engage individuals
5 Lay out a plan
6 Try different things
7 Measure what happens
8 Celebrate success
9 Be flexible
Checklist
Key points
• Encourage a debate about what learning is.
• Take time to make the case for learning.
• Avoid using vocabulary that is too closely associated with HR.
• Engage managers and employees.
• Be willing to experiment.
• Make a plan and expect it to take time and real commitment to implement.
• Measure the benefits of learning.
• Celebrate along the way.
• Learn from mistakes.
Hope this will be of some use to you.
I am also attaching a ppt on Organizational Culture.
Cheers
Prof.Lakshman
From Sri Lanka, Kolonnawa
In addition to Prof.Lakshman's valuable write up, this is what I believe for developing a learning culture.
To understand the amalgamation of Learning culture, one needs to consider its interconnected components - values, work rituals, and leadership.
# Values
The employees of an organisation largely determine its collective values. The collective values of an organisation can be managed by managing employee selection, communications, and rewards.
If an organisation desires to inculcate certain collective values, it must select individuals whose values match those that the organisation would like to foster. For example, if the corporate environment requires more entrepreneurial values, then it must recruit people with high individual tolerance for risk.
The most brilliant organisation "collective" is not composed of brilliant employees, but a combination of intelligence and other intrinsic characteristics that can manage ideas, innovation, and action.
# Work Rituals
The term "work rituals" represents " the way things are done." This is the second important determinant of learning culture. Business processes, decision processes, and less formal, but definable, norms and standards largely contribute to culture transformation. For instance, basic questions, like what time do employees arrive and leave, how casual is the dress code Or how committed are they to their work, define work ethics and internal relationships. Changes in these can be designed to achieve deliberate cultural outcomes. However, any change in these areas should be engineered carefully because it directly affects the comfort levels of the employee.
# Leadership
Leadership is a major component of Learning culture and an agent of change. Different leadership qualities are required at different times. The command and control skills differ in every stage. Structure and accountability of leadership are instruments of culture. For example: Flat organisational structures have been adopted to create an environment of greater freedom, while narrowing spans of control.
Most organisations assume that their chosen leaders will know what to do and how to behave during integration. While truly, only exceptional leaders might know how to lead the situation. Companies must get the leadership model right through leadership selection; organisation structure, accountability and development.
Thus, culture transformation to integrate the needs of customers and the employees alike is a bit difficult but an interesting task.
Cheers
Archna
From India, Delhi
To understand the amalgamation of Learning culture, one needs to consider its interconnected components - values, work rituals, and leadership.
# Values
The employees of an organisation largely determine its collective values. The collective values of an organisation can be managed by managing employee selection, communications, and rewards.
If an organisation desires to inculcate certain collective values, it must select individuals whose values match those that the organisation would like to foster. For example, if the corporate environment requires more entrepreneurial values, then it must recruit people with high individual tolerance for risk.
The most brilliant organisation "collective" is not composed of brilliant employees, but a combination of intelligence and other intrinsic characteristics that can manage ideas, innovation, and action.
# Work Rituals
The term "work rituals" represents " the way things are done." This is the second important determinant of learning culture. Business processes, decision processes, and less formal, but definable, norms and standards largely contribute to culture transformation. For instance, basic questions, like what time do employees arrive and leave, how casual is the dress code Or how committed are they to their work, define work ethics and internal relationships. Changes in these can be designed to achieve deliberate cultural outcomes. However, any change in these areas should be engineered carefully because it directly affects the comfort levels of the employee.
# Leadership
Leadership is a major component of Learning culture and an agent of change. Different leadership qualities are required at different times. The command and control skills differ in every stage. Structure and accountability of leadership are instruments of culture. For example: Flat organisational structures have been adopted to create an environment of greater freedom, while narrowing spans of control.
Most organisations assume that their chosen leaders will know what to do and how to behave during integration. While truly, only exceptional leaders might know how to lead the situation. Companies must get the leadership model right through leadership selection; organisation structure, accountability and development.
Thus, culture transformation to integrate the needs of customers and the employees alike is a bit difficult but an interesting task.
Cheers
Archna
From India, Delhi
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