Learning organizations Free Essay Example

1) Systems Thinking – It is the art of seeing the interrelated nature of the world at large, and how it affects the organization (Maani and Benton, 1999). Stimuli, such as data and information, both affect the organization, in the same way that the organization itself affects the world at large (Midgely, 2003).

2) Personal Mastery – This is seen as the ability to continually understand and realize one’s own personal visions, abilities and limitations. It is the bridge between individual learning and organizational learning (Senge, 1990).

3) Mental Models – These are intrinsic judgments, assumptions and ideas that determine our individual understanding of the world and how we take action. This involves an in-depth understanding of one’s own ideas of the world at large, and the ability to express this thought process effectively, in order to influence others (Maani and Benton, 1999).

4) Building Shared Vision – This involves the leader translating his own personal ‘vision’ or desires for the organization into shared vision – into a set of principles and guiding practices (Brooking, 1999).

5) Team Learning – This discipline takes place when a team dialogues, exchanges free-flowing insights, thinks together, and produce results. This is vital in learning organizations, because “unless the team learns, the organization cannot learn” (Senge, p. 10).

These five key disciplines operate simultaneously to effectively embody the learning organization. These disciplines are based on personal and organizational abilities. This also means that the learning organization is one that has several innate competencies that are reflections of its principles and disciplines. of its members to be actively informed and given awareness (Sugarman, 2001).

Storytelling by the leader can fall under any of these disciplines.

And with that, through the stories he tells, the leader is able to make the organization develop skills of continuous learning. These are skills that provide learning organizations with their competitive advantages in the transfer and acquisition of new ideas, methods, information and insights. Learning organizations are able to transfer knowledge at an efficient and effective pace, learning from past experiences and their own best practices. By definition, knowledge is the fact or condition of knowing something gained through experience or association.

It is also seen as the acquaintance or understanding of a particular insight, art, science or technique. Organizations normally rely on structure, protocol and functionality to determine the transfer of knowledge, with a heavy reliance on its leadership to dictate its manifestations, such as its practices, ideas and new insights. In the learning organization, this process of gaining new knowledge and sharing it within the organization is inherently present in all of its members, especially in its teams (Dess and Picken, 2000).

Storytelling by the leader leads to the ability to engage all of its members in the creative exploration, utilization and transfer of knowledge, which increases the ability of the members and teams within the organization to collectively learn and create its future (James, 2002). This creativity is manifested in the production of new insights derived from the collective generation of ideas and newfound knowledge both within the organization and outside of it (McPhee, 2001). Also, learning organizations devise specific mechanisms that allow generation of new ideas and information for its members.

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