Developing a Learning Organization Through Informed Leadership

Introduction

As the global economic downturn continues, the need for organizations of all types and sizes to develop innovative practices that add value and eliminate waste at every opportunity has never been greater. Moreover, in an increasingly globalized marketplace, developing and sustaining a competitive advantage is absolutely essential for success, and many companies are falling by the wayside because they have failed to embrace and respond to these needs. Indeed, many corporate leaders may believe they know what is required to become nimble and flexible in response to these challenging times, but lack the expertise needed to achieve these goals. To determine what is involved in developing and sustaining a learning organization that is responsive to a dynamic marketplace and promotes continuous improvement, this paper provides a review of the relevant literature, followed by a summary of the research and important findings in the conclusion.

In the Age of Information, the need to translate the barrage of information that floods the workplace into meaningful and value-added activities is paramount — yet making sense of all of this information is akin to trying to drink from a fire hose. The solution to this problem, Fry and Griswold suggest, is to develop a learning organization. According to these authorities, "The learning organization [is] designed to produce flexible, responsive, and adaptive structures relying on constant experimentation, feedback, and response to cope with larger quantities of information and the increasing pace of change. The culture of the organization is to be transformed from an emphasis on predictability and stability to an emphasis on experimentation and innovation" (Fry & Griswold 2003, p. 311).

Therefore, the work environments that will characterize truly successful enterprises in the 21st century will be those that are learning organizations. According to Fry and Griswold, however, while there is a growing consensus that learning organizations are necessary, there remains a lack of consensus concerning what the term "learning organization" really means. A useful definition provided by these authors states that, "At its most basic level, the learning organization is simply an organization that facilitates individual learning processes and cultivates new capabilities by either teams or individuals" (Fry & Griswold 2003, p. 312). Likewise, an effective learning organization is described by Stevenson as one that is "skilled at creating, acquiring, and transferring knowledge, at modifying its behavior to reflect new knowledge and insights" (2000, p. 198). Learning organizations, then, are any type of institution capable of learning in meaningful and collective ways, in a continuous process that emphasizes the need to constantly improve performance and manage knowledge optimally (Gilley & Maycunich 2000).

Overview of Learning Organizations

Notwithstanding these general definitions, a wide array of researchers have weighed in on what constitutes a true learning organization, including the representative samplings set forth in Table 1 below.

Table 1: Representative Definitions of the Learning Organization and Its Variants

Senge (1990): Organizations where people continually expand their capacity to create the results they truly desire, where new and expansive patterns of thinking are nurtured, where collective aspiration is set free, and where people are continually learning how to learn together (p. 3).

Pedler, Burgoyne & Boydell (1991): A learning company is an organization that facilitates the learning of all its members and consciously transforms itself and its context (p. 3).

Nonaka (1991): When markets shift, technologies proliferate, competitors multiply, and products become obsolete almost overnight, successful companies are those that consistently create new knowledge, disseminate it widely throughout the organization, and quickly embody it in new technologies and products (p. 96).

Garvin (1993): An organization skilled at creating, acquiring, and transferring knowledge, and at modifying its behavior to reflect new knowledge and insights (p. 80).

Watkins & Marsick (1994): The learning organization is one that learns continuously and transforms itself (p. 8).

Kilmann (1996): A learning organization describes, controls, and improves the processes by which knowledge is created, acquired, distributed, interpreted, stored, retrieved, and used for the purpose of achieving long-term organizational success (p. 208).

As can be discerned from the various definitions presented in Table 1 above, some of the common themes that typify popular constructs of learning organizations include variations on "constant," "continuous," "everyone," "knowledge," and permutations of "responsiveness." These definitions help describe what popular concepts of learning organizations entail, but throughout the literature there is also a primary emphasis on empowering everyone in the organization to learn while they work and to apply innovations in technology to achieve superior learning and production (Gilley & Maycunich 2000). Learning organizations typically include a number of important dimensions and characteristics, including the following:

Although the term "empowerment" is frequently bandied about in corporate circles, the concept is rarely applied in the substantive ways required to create and sustain a true learning organization. According to Longworth, "Empowerment is the guiding principle behind the movement in industry towards establishing 'learning organizations.' The larger companies, especially, have recognized that their survival depends on a workforce that will constantly renew its knowledge and practice in order to stay current with developments in its own field" (2003, p. 20). Longworth also emphasizes that the transformation of a company into a true learning organization involves more than just ensuring that employees keep abreast of new developments and trends in their respective fields. As he adds, "In a fast-changing world which renders individual jobs frequently redundant, companies will often require their own people to retrain rather than employ new recruits. Thus there is a continuous process of learning and re-learning throughout every operation of the business" (2003, p. 20).

In support of these assertions, Longworth cites the following ten characteristics of any and all types of learning organizations:

Each of the foregoing characteristics has significant implications for all types of companies that aspire to become learning organizations, because they influence the manner in which corporate culture is developed and sustained, as well as how all of the company's stakeholders view the learning process (Longworth 2003). Because corporate culture begins at the top of the organization, the type of leadership in place will have an enormous impact on whether a company succeeds in the transformation to a learning organization, as well as how long it will take — issues that are discussed further below.

People can learn, and because all organizations are comprised of people, it follows logically that organizations can learn as well. The creation of a true learning organization therefore begins with the people involved, and the process begins at the top. By inculcating a corporate culture focused on the development of its employees, companies take their first step toward becoming a learning organization. According to Recardo and Jolly, "When people talk about corporate culture, they are generally talking about a set of values and beliefs that are understood and shared by members of an organization. These values and beliefs are specific to that organization and differentiate it from other organizations" (1999, p. 5). An organization's culture serves to influence the behaviors of its constituency and the practices within the organization (Recardo & Jolly 1999). Corporate culture consists of several dimensions, including those described in Table 2 below.

Table 2: Dimensions of Corporate Culture (Source: Recardo & Jolly, 1999, p. 5)

Communications: This dimension involves the number and types of communication systems, what information is communicated, and how. It includes the direction of communications (top-down, bottom-up, or three-way), whether communications are filtered or open, whether conflict is avoided or resolved, and whether formal or informal vehicles are used to transmit and receive communications.

Training and Development: Employee success is largely dependent on new skill acquisition. Key indices include management's commitment to providing developmental opportunities and how well the organization allows new skills or behaviors to be applied on the job. A key index is whether management is focused on providing education for employees' current or future developmental needs.

Rewards: This dimension concerns what behaviors are rewarded and the types of rewards used. Are employees rewarded individually or as a group? Are all members of the organization eligible for bonuses, and what are the criteria for advancement? Other criteria include the degree to which employees are involved in developing performance standards, the perceived equity of rewards, and the degree to which the organization provides performance feedback.

Decision Making: This dimension addresses how decisions are made and conflicts resolved. Are decisions fast or slow? Is the organization highly bureaucratic? Is decision-making centralized or decentralized?

Risk Taking: This dimension concerns whether creativity and innovation are valued and rewarded, whether calculated risk-taking is encouraged, and whether there is openness to new ideas. To what degree does management encourage suggestions for improvement? Are people punished for trying new ideas or questioning existing ways of doing things?

Planning: Does the organization emphasize long-term or short-term planning, and is planning proactive or reactive? To what extent are the strategy, goals, and vision shared with employees? Is the planning process informal or structured? To what degree are employees committed to achieving the business strategy and other organizational objectives?

Leadership and Learning Organizations

Teamwork: This dimension relates to the amount, type, and effectiveness of teamwork within the organization. It includes the amount of cooperation among different departments, the level of trust between different functions or units, and the level of automation used to support work processes. An atmosphere of teamwork does not, in itself, necessarily mean that formal teams should be used; for instance, research scientists may foster an atmosphere of collaboration while operating quite independently.

Management Practices: This final dimension measures the fairness and consistency with which policies are administered, the accessibility of management to employees, the degree to which management provides a safe working environment, and how well management encourages diversity.

While there remains some lack of consensus about certain facets of learning organizations, virtually everyone agrees on the need for the organization's executive leadership team to create the type of corporate culture that will complete the transformation. For instance, according to Gilley and Maycunich, "One of the most recent and widely accepted notions is that of the learning organization, characterized by a culture, pervasive throughout the firm, dedicated to improving workers, their productivity, and overall business performance via continuous lifelong learning" (2000, p. 5). Unlike a number of management fads that have come and gone, the move toward becoming a learning organization appears to have become a mainstay among leading companies in recent years. Gilley and Maycunich note that, "In recent years, several business leaders have begun to focus attention on organizational learning. In companies such as General Electric, Motorola, and Levi Strauss, leaders have concluded that managing, controlling, directing, and facilitating learning is a key role of management" (2000, p. 15).

To make the successful transition from the traditional to the learning organization, a company's top leadership must:

To achieve the foregoing steps, organizational leaders must concentrate on developing and improving the capacity of their organizations to learn, as well as promoting self-directed learning behaviors among all employees (Gilley & Maycunich 2000). Many authorities also agree that truly effective leaders tend to engage different styles of leadership depending on what the situation demands, and transforming an organization would appear to call for transformational leadership. For instance, Dubinsky and Yammarino note that, "Organizations are assisted along the path to becoming true learning organizations by effective transformational leaders. Intellectual stimulation is actively encouraging others to look at old methods in new ways, fostering creativity, and stressing the use of intelligence" (1999, p. 789). The transition to a learning organization is also facilitated by transformational leaders because these leaders tend to pay close attention to individual employee concerns by providing personal attention to them, thereby making each individual feel particularly valued and appreciated and ensuring that all employees recognize that their contributions are important to the ultimate success of the organization (Dubinsky & Yammarino 1999).

While the debate over nature versus nurture continues, many authorities seem to agree that some people are better at being transformational leaders than others, as characterized by their commitment to solid values and ethical behaviors. For instance, Ciulla notes that, "Transforming leaders have very strong values. They do not water down their values and moral ideals by consensus, but rather they elevate people by using conflict to engage followers and help them reassess their own values and needs" (1998, p. 15). Likewise, Avolio and Bass suggest that transformational leaders naturally possess the "right stuff" needed to motivate employees to superior performance. "Transformational leaders," Avolio and Bass note, "motivate others to do more than they originally intended and often even more than they thought possible. Such leaders set more challenging expectations and typically achieve higher performances" (2002, p. 1).

As can be seen in Table 3 below, leading the transformation to a learning organization will inevitably require a significant amount of time and effort on the part of the executive leadership team. The learning organization exists at the top of a continuum of quality process management improvement techniques; in addition, depending on the unique circumstances of the organization, it also requires the most time of any of these approaches to business redesign.

Table 3: Quality Process Management Method Comparison (Source: Vancelette 2002)

Streamlining: Desired results include mid-level cost reduction and decreased cycle time. Speed of results: 1–3 years. Process orientation: Low. Change capacity: Low (Mechanistic). Risk tolerance: Moderate.

Idealizing: Desired results include mid-level cost reduction, quality improvement, and decreased cycle time. Speed of results: 2–3 years. Process orientation: Low. Change capacity: Moderate (Product or Holistic). Risk tolerance: Moderate.

Benchmarking: Desired results include quality improvement. Speed of results: 2–3 years. Process orientation: Low. Change capacity: Moderate (Product or Holistic). Risk tolerance: Moderate.

Total Quality Management: Desired results include continuous improvement. Speed of results: 3–5 years. Process orientation: Moderate. Change capacity: Moderate (Product or Holistic). Risk tolerance: Low.

Reengineering: Desired results include drastic cost reduction, high quality improvement, and decreased cycle time. Speed of results: 3–6 years. Process orientation: Moderate. Change capacity: High (Holistic). Risk tolerance: High.

Learning Organization: Desired results include continuous improvement and a corporate culture shift. Speed of results: 2–6 years. Process orientation: High. Change capacity: High (Holistic). Risk tolerance: High.

Conclusion

The research showed that learning organizations are defined in various ways, with the common themes being the need to improve business processes in a continuous fashion and to promote a corporate culture that facilitates lifelong learning on the part of all employees. The research also showed that although a significant amount of time and effort is required to transform a company from a traditional organization into a learning organization, the payoff is worth it because, in some cases, it may be the only way for organizations to develop and sustain a competitive advantage. These are important considerations during any type of economic climate, but they are particularly salient during periods of economic downturn when many companies must lay off employees as a short-term cost-saving measure. In the final analysis, the research was consistent in emphasizing the need to communicate the goals and visions of the organization's top leaders in creating a learning organization, and to ensure that everyone understands why such a transformation is in their best interests.