How Leaders Can Use Humor to Promote Learning

Adult and Organizational Learning

Summary

This paper describes the importance of leaders adopting an andragogical approach to the education of workers to facilitate organizational learning and organizational transformation. It also discusses the role that humor can play in creating an atmosphere of levity that helps to relax workers and bring them together in a harmonious manner. In an environment where workers are afraid to make mistakes, learning potential is curbed and limited. However, in an organization wherein mistakes are welcomed because they offer learning opportunities for workers, leaders and followers can benefit substantially. Creating room for workers to breathe and feel at their ease is vital for transformational leaders.

Organizational learning and knowledge management are tied together in terms of how understanding is shared and processed. Workers have to know what the aims of the organization are and the leader must be able to communicate these aims and show how organizational learning processes are aligned with them. The three streams of learning—the learning curve, psychological experimentation, and field research—should be used to support the active engagement of adult learners. Adult learners come to the workplace with experience and tacit knowledge that can be complemented by explicit instruction when needed.

It must be remembered, however, that adult learners are autonomous beings who are typically self-motivated and capable of self-directed learning. Providing them with mentors whose knowledge can be accessed when necessary is a way for leaders to support the autonomy of their adult learners. Using humor to facilitate the learning process and the development of a culture of learning aligns with Maslow’s theory of human motivation and self-actualization.

Introduction

Organizational learning occurs as the organization acquires experience and as knowledge is obtained and shared among the members of the organization. Team learning is a microcosm of organization learning, and adult learning best explains how the individual within a team acquires and communicates knowledge. Thus, andragogy is really at the heart of organizational learning. This paper will explore the essential elements of organizational learning and their linkage to knowledge management; discuss the three streams of team learning and explore how organizational and team learning impact leadership; define, compare, and contrast tacit and explicit knowledge and its impact on organizational learning; examine the relationship between and the integration of adult learning and organizational learning; discuss how organizational learning integrates with the transformation of organizations; and describe how a general understanding of adult learning and organizational learning is integrated into the philosophy of leadership.

Organizational Learning and Knowledge Management

Organizational learning is the process of creating knowledge, maintaining it, sharing it, and growing from it. It is manifested in myriad ways but primarily through information processing, product development and innovation (i.e., research and development), and increasing effectiveness in management. Over time, organizational learning concepts have been refined and can be summarized as “the process of developing a shared understanding to facilitate adaptability and competitive advantage” (Witherspoon, 2020, p. 23).

Knowledge management refers to the means or process by which information within an organization is identified, organized, stored and shared. Knowledge management systems are often used in organizations to facilitate this process. The purpose of knowledge management is to enhance the efficiency of the organization and to improve decision-making. As having access to information is critical to decision-making, knowledge management is seen as a valuable process and one that supports organizational learning. Organizational learning and knowledge management are like hand and glove.

The essential elements of organizational learning are that it must be aligned to the organization’s business strategy, its scope should be well-defined, and it should be supported by a learning culture within the organization. Of these elements, culture plays perhaps the most important part: in an organization where mistakes are punished and punitive risk is felt by workers should they make a mistake, learning is not going to be valued because one of the best ways people learn is by making mistakes. In a punitively-oriented organization, workers will seek to do everything by the book and never deviate from the status quo. But of course a status quo-minded culture is static, never grows, and will stagnate over time, thus robbing the organization of the potential to become innovative. Organizational learning thus requires a culture in which mistakes are valued as learning opportunities, in which regular debriefing is promoted, and in which workers are groomed to develop their talents. Knowledge management facilitates this process by providing a framework for debriefing and identifying opportunities where learning can take place. Knowledge management should not, however, be without a degree of humanity, as humor can play a large role in helping information to be shared positively and ensuring that knowledge is acquired humbly (Greatbatch & Clark, 2003; Hatch, 1997).

Three Streams of Team Learning

The three streams of team learning consist of learning curves that focus on enhancing outcome improvement, psychological experiments requiring team coordination and focusing on the development of task mastery, and field research focusing on understanding team learning processes in teams and how the group process works. Learning curves are helpful in showing how well a team is growing in its understanding of processes for the sake of improving performance: they show where the team has been and where it can be projected to be heading. Psychological experiments are helpful in that they build awareness among team members of how they communicate, how they resolve tension and conflict, and how they work together to perform tasks well. Field research complements all of this because it provides a foundation for moving forward based on best practices and up-to-date information related to andragogy in the work place.

Organizational and team learning impact leadership because leaders are reacting to the environment. Leaders have to be able to marshal resources to ensure desired performance outcomes are reached. The ways in which knowledge is acquired, maintained, communicated and used in decision-making are important to understand for leaders. How teams and organizations learn, and by extension how adults learn as self-directing learners, are areas that should occupy leaders’ attention and concern. By directing the development of task mastery, conducting psychological experiments to facilitate team development, enhancing the learning curve, and engaging in field research leaders can better attend to the various issues in management and team building that they are expected to oversee. Especially when it comes to follower happiness and maintaining a good learning culture, leaders have an important role to play (Van Wart & Moynihan, 2013).

Tacit and Explicit Knowledge

Tacit knowledge is knowledge obtained in silence, implied but not stated; it cannot be easily stated or transferred from person to person but is often obtained through personal experience. Explicit knowledge is that which is expressed easily and simply and can be transferred from one person to another. Explicit knowledge is useful among teachers who have a specific objective—a bulk of information that they want to convey to learners. Tacit knowledge, on the other hand, is dependent upon the learner’s own observations and reflections and requires deep down appreciation of facts and an understanding of phenomena.

When it comes to organizational learning, experience counts heavily: tacit knowledge is a valuable resource that can be used as a foundation for the spread of explicit knowledge. In education, teachers often use the method of scaffolding to build upon what learners already know, and the same is true in organizational learning. The more tacit knowledge workers and teams have, the easier it is to deliver and develop explicit knowledge. Tacit knowledge serves as the bed in which explicit knowledge can be planted. It is the good soil that allows for new knowledge to plant its seeds, grow roots, and sprout fruit.

To help workers acquire tacit knowledge, leaders should focus on grooming them and developing them via workshops, seminars, training, and the promotion of continuing education. Tacit knowledge is so intimately linked to experience that leaders must take measures to provide followers with access to experiential learning opportunities, both in the field and in educational environments. This is why having a culture in which mistakes are not punitively dealt with is so vital: a culture of learning has to be fostered, and such a culture cannot be had if workers are afraid that any mistakes they may make in the field are going to be met with by punitive actions from leadership.

Relationship between Adult Learning and Organizational Learning

Adult learning is often heuristic: adults are self-learners, self-motivated, and capable of directing their own education. It is different with adults than it is with children, who typically require more direction and focused instruction. Adults, on the other hand, are capable of exploring on their own, working through problems based on their tacit understanding of the subject, and communicating with others when they run into a roadblock. Having mentors on the job whose role is to help workers make adjustments and develop their tacit understanding (while complementing that understanding with explicit knowledge when necessary) is an added plus when it comes to organizational learning and should be a step that leaders seek to take. The more support that leaders can give to learners in the workplace, the more likely they are to find a satisfactory outcome when it comes to organizational learning (Arghode, 2013).

One way to provide that support is through the promotion of workplace spirituality (Van der Walt & De Klerk, 2014). When spirituality is not only accepted but actively encouraged, it improves the odds of workers attaining job satisfaction. Workers who are satisfied on the job are more likely to give their all to their performance and buy in to what their leaders want them to see and work towards. As Albrecht (2006) points out, the social intelligence of leaders is one of the main ingredients of success. Social intelligence should help leaders to see the value that workplace spirituality has for an organization. The more accommodating leaders are in this respect, the greater social capital they store up for themselves. The greater social capital they store up for themselves, the easier it is for them to get what they want out of their followers.

How Organizational Learning Integrates with Organizational Transformation

Transformation of organizations is dependent upon a number of factors, not the least being the possession of a transformational leader to oversee the process. Transformation relies upon the clarity of communication and the communication of a vision that workers can buy into and work towards. It also means that resistance to change is a barrier that has to be broken down and overcome through means of persuasion, support, and camaraderie. Organizational learning helps with organizational transformation because education is the key to changing workers’ minds and attitudes about transformation. Transformational leaders must be able to provide a solid reason for why change is necessary, and they must use logical discourse to bring workers to the point where buy-in can be achieved. Workers want to know why transformation is essential; if they cannot see the point of the change or its value, the transformational process can become discredited and ultimately fail. Organizational learning can therefore be a useful process in organizational transformation insofar as it shows to workers why change is important based upon what their learning and the sharing of information shows to them.

Some implications of this for one’s ability to lead effective change processes across their organizations are that leaders must take an active role in organizational learning, overseeing the process and guiding it so as to strengthen their position in facilitating change. As Kotter shows in his 8-step model for change management, it is crucial that leaders have facilitators among the workers, who actively promote the vision of the leader and serve as generals marshaling the troops to accept the vision; they are the ones who put the leader’s vision into practice and who serve as a good example to other workers of what must be done in order to bring about a successful transformation.

Again, culture plays an important role as well, because without the learning culture needed to support knowledge growth, workers will not engage with information or with information sharing in a meaningful way. The growth of a learning culture can be facilitated by the use of humor in the workplace, which the leader can promote so as to put workers at their ease, make them feel comfortable in their surroundings, and provide them with a happy environment in which the stress and worry of failure is displaced by accepting attitudes and light-hearted approaches to learning. Humor helps leaders to demonstrate and foster group cohesiveness (Greatbatch & Clark, 2003). For transformation to occur, cohesiveness is absolutely vital.

Integrating Adult and Organizational Learning into Leadership Philosophy

From the perspective of andragogy, adult learners are ready and willing to learn; they are not heavily dependent upon teachers in the same way children are. Their autonomy and insight should always be assumed and respected. At the same time, there are going to be subjects that adult learners do not know; this is where explicit knowledge and instruction will come into play within the organization. However, adult learners do not need to be treated as though they are children without any experience or tacit understanding. On the contrary, adult learners typically bring with them a great deal of personal experience and tacit knowledge that leaders must trust will support them in their development. Adult learners are also to be considered active learners, who are engaged with the material and understand how to apply whatever new knowledge they acquire through explicit instruction (Forest III & Peterson, 2006).

Successful organizational learning depends upon leaders appreciating that pedagogical approaches will not satisfy or work with the education of adult learners. Adult learners want to be respected because they are mature learners; they want a degree of independence so that they can work with information and experiment with it in their own ways. Leaders thus must be willing to give adult learners room to engage in such experimentation. This is where the value of a culture of learning can be seen so greatly in an organization: a culture that supports experimentation and gives workers room to make mistakes so long as learning is had is one that will benefit the leader and the transformation process in the long-run. To achieve self-actualization, according to Maslow’s theory of human motivation, esteem and rapport are vital rungs in the ladder.