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
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
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