Learning Organizations

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Explanations of Learning Organizations

• The LO Homepage Introduction to Learning Organizations
• Why a Learning Organization?

Online Articles

• Personal Core Competencies by Mithya
• The Nature of Data, Information and Knowledge Exchanges in Business Processes: Implications for Process Improvement and Organizational Learning
• Brain Dancing - a good online book about personal development
• David Bohm Address on Dialogue by thread
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Information Archives/Resources

• Change Management Monitor link page - Great overview over LO resources 
• QuaSyLaTic Model / Thinking - Learning Organizations inspired homepage
• The Society for Organizational Learning
• Learning Org -- A Discussion of Learning Organizations. Contains current msgs and archives of the Learning-org mailing list.
• Stanford Learning Organization Web
• The Business Researcher's Interests: Organizational Learning & Knowledge Management - Lots of links

Courses/Books

The Fifth Discipline Fieldbook: Strategies and Tools for Building a Learning Organization

Mediagraphy with summaries

Argyris, Chris. On Organizational Learning. Cambridge, MA: Blackwell, 1992. pp

This MIT scholar summarizes the issues of the field in a series of papers first published elsewhere, and presents questions that need further research.

People can be taught to "identify the inconsistencies between their espoused and actual theories of action" that makes learning impossible. Reprinted in class readings book by French, Bell, and Zawacki.

Shows Professor Sterman of MIT leading the Beer Game in a class.

An organizational strategist with twenty years of experience, Brown believes organizations should be designed as communities that encourage emotional involvement by employees in a shared vision and overall strategy. Another article coauthored by her, Issacs, and Bryan Smith, in the same book is "Merging the Best of Two Worlds: The Core Processes of Organizations as Communities."

Profile of Peter Senge, Director of the MIT Center for Organizational Learning..

Describes his concept of the "Wheel of Learning" and the five key ideas that keep the wheel turning along with the type of leadership needed.

The central metaphor of the article is the croquet game in Alice in Wonderland. This is compared to the challenge that organizations face today when not only tools and technology keep changing, but also customers are more demanding and employees want more rewards and power now.

Extensive research in American companies forms the foundation of Kanter's work that demonstrates how organizations can change. Here is a link to Kanter's consulting firm - Goodmeasure.

Explores basic shifts in the guiding ideas of contemporary management. Reprinted in Chawla & Renesch. See above.

Organizations need to do more that build teams. They must become innovate and goal-oriented. Senge suggests the way with his five disciplines: Systems thinking, Personal mastery, Mental models, Building shared vision, and Team learning.

It is no longer possible to "figure it all out at the top" so leaders need new skills to function as designers, teachers, and stewards. These skills include visioning, surfacing and testing mental models, and systems thinking. This article most of the main concepts of The Fifth Discipline.

A pragmatic guide with ideas and approaches from 63 contributors to the field.

Videoconference of Dr. Senge illustrating one of his five principles.

Tells the remarkable story of Martin Paley, who with the help of Brown, challenged The San Francisco Foundation to become creative and take risks. The article is told in the first person alternating between Martin and Juanita.

Describes the factors leading to the need for learning organizations as well as the critical characteristics and action imperatives for creating one.