What makes a Great Learning Organisation?

In 1990, Peter Senge published “The Fifth Discipline”,
in which he suggested theories and methods to convert
companies into ‘learning organisations’.

Senge proposed five disciplines: Shared Vision, Mental Models,
Team Learning, Personal Mastery and a fifth discpline, System
Thinking, to bind all others together.

Much of Senge’s book is still relevant but it describes a time
before the World Wide Web (the Mosaic web browser was
released three years after the book), and the author could not
have forseen the explosive growth of technology, information
and knowledge sharing that would totally reconfigure the
learning landscape.

So has Senge’s definition of a ‘learning organisation’ changed
as a result? Has technology’s influence made the learning
organisation of 2020 different to that of 1990?

We, at The LPI , asked people to complete an online survey with just one question:

“What traits, technologies, capabilities and cultures make a company a great place to learn?”

There was no limitation on the length of the answer. As an open-ended
question, we expected the responses to be varied so each response was
reviewed and categorized by theme/topic. Where individuals covered
more than one topic in their answer, these were separated out into their
respective categories. Synonyms of words were treated as belonging to the
same category i.e. leaders and managers. We also used text analyzers to
scan for the most commonly used words and phrases to help identify broad
categories of responses.

In total, we collected 481 individual responses ranging from single
sentences to several paragraphs — giving a dataset of over 16,000 words.
Opinions were provided by people working at all levels in L&D — students,
trainers, consultants, managers, global heads, and commercial directors all
contributed.

What we found was that, despite the incredible technological advances
since 1990 (many of which have been utilised in workplace L&D) almost
all respondees talked about the learning organisation in human terms. Less
than 1% of responses mentioned a particular technology or thought of it
as an important contributor.

Instead, the respondees mentioned space to reflect, freedom to fail,
leaders as role-models, and shared goals as just some of the characteristics
that defined a great learning organisation.

Let’s look at the most common characteristics…

Collective Responsibility

28% of respondees suggested that a Great Learning
Organisation (GLO) shifts the responsibility of learning away
from a central team to the company as a whole.
While this may sound like the death-knell for L&D, it is actually the
opposite. Firstly, not every employee will have the maturity and
independence to be responsible for their own learning.

There will always be those who prefer the pedagogical safety of an instructor-led course. Secondly, self-directed learning approaches rely on a
supporting infrastructure of people, process and environment, and
easily available technology and information.

L&D is therefore uniquely positioned to help — by providing the
scaffolding, guidance and incentives that make employees feel
valued (and recognised) from the investments they make in their
own learning. By creating an environment where people are
encouraged to explore and push their own limits of performance,
L&D can move from a training ‘cost-centre’ to a collaborative agent
of true behavioural change.

Practical suggestion: Investigate ways to encourage self-directed
learning and user-generated content.

Freedom to Fail

34% of those surveyed believed that a Great Learning
Organisation tolerates failure and allows people to learn from
their mistakes.

The most common phrase in this category was ‘learning from
mistakes’ and the word ‘blame’ appeared in nearly half of the
responses, suggesting that some of the respondees had personally
experienced this in the workplace.

The extent to which this behaviour can be encouraged depends on
the organisation. Some industries tolerate the risk of failure better
than others. People working in banking, insurance, pharmaceuticals
or defence, for example, will generally encounter a more risk-averse
culture than those working in advertising, creative, education or IT.

Nevertheless, any organisation that fosters a culture where failure
is accepted (and expected), where people can openly share their
mistakes or misjudgements for the wider benefit of others, and where
blame is discouraged, will be well on the way to becoming a GLO.

Practical suggestion: Instigate regular team meetings where people
talk about their failures and mistakes — and how they overcame or
corrected them. Focus on the circumstances that led to the mistake
and the decisions that were made at the time. Explore alternative
approaches.

Leaders as Role Models

Almost a third of responses (29%) suggested that a GLO has
leaders who are role-models; ambassadors of learning.
Such leaders set examples by sharing stories (including their own)
and by supporting, championing and defending learning in all its
forms.

This characteristic would start with the CEO and percolate
down through layers of senior management, with each demonstrating
a commitment to learning and performance, implementing it as
a collaborative partnership between themselves and their teams,
improving the whole culture of the organisation along the way.

One surprising dimension emerged from the responses: not everyone
defined their leaders in a hierarchical sense. In fact, 22% of responses
suggested a leader could be anyone in the organisation — an
accountant in Finance, a receptionist at the front desk, a recently hired digital marketer, or a consultant out on the road.

So, in a GLO, anyone with expertise in their field is allowed to take
the lead and share knowledge, when practical and relevant, regardless
of where they are in the hierarchy.

Practical suggestion: Identify and encourage leaders to contribute
their knowledge via video or self-produced content — widening their
field of influence and sharing their wealth of wisdom throughout the
organisation.

Shared Vision and Goals

22% of respondees said that, when they understand their
purpose, the organisation’s purpose, and how the two support
each other, there is an increased desire to contribute more
through personal development and innovative thinking.

The GLO, then, is explicitly clear about its mission, vision and goals,
and consistently aligns its learning strategy to support them. By
putting employees at the heart of its business strategy, and creating
a clear career path for everyone, the GLO builds a culture of
transparency and trust that is universally beneficial.

Another viewpoint was that ‘a desire to learn’ should itself be
included as an organisational value, written into the company’s
mission statement and actively recruited for.
This makes sense: technical skills and knowledge come and go,
but employees with an aptitude to learn new skills will always be
valuable.

Practical suggestion: Set an expectation for employees to develop
themselves, share that knowledge and have a culture and processes
which drive and reward that behaviour. Recruit for those attributes.

Space

In today’s “always-on” world, almost a quarter of respondees (23%)
mentioned various types of space as a desirable characteristics in
the great learning organisation. Here are the most common ‘spaces’
referred to in the responses.

Permission Space

Psychological safety was a common phrase. A GLO has a culture that
allows people to freely express their views and make suggestions for
improvement without fear of reprisal.

Psychological safety is a group-level construct and, although it is by no means a new phenomenon,
the advent of social media communities, remote working and
distributed teams means it may be harder to achieve than before.
Employees who thrive in face-to-face meetings may find less
permission space in a team WhatsApp group, for example.

Leadership Space

It was suggested that leaders within a GLO create enough space
for teams to carry out their tasks unimpeded by technological
restrictions, micromanagement, or overly strict processes. Whilst
some level of control is necessary, especially if projects are complex,
leaders who step back and encourage independent work and
decision-making in their teams may find benefits to both themselves
and their people.

Exploration Space

Curiosity, exploration, and experimentation are attributes that have
been responsible for nearly all discoveries and progression in human
history.

The GLO encourages people to explore and bring in new ideas,
new concepts and varied points of view. When employees are free
to learn as they do in the outside world, removed from workplace
training schedules, mandatory compliance and rigid programmes, they
rediscover their curiosity and find things that spark their interest. The
GLO knows this and makes every effort to encourage and leverage
these behaviours in corporate learning.

Physical Space

The GLO has real, physical 3D space and time for employees to think,
reflect, and develop themselves. Quiet rooms, relaxing spaces and
time away from the workplace for self-development — and a culture
that rewards the utilisation of such space — can have dramatic effects
on the mental health of employees.

Practical Suggestion: Consider changing the way you validate how
people are developing by moving them from an instructor/course-led
model (how many courses they’ve done) to a self-creative model (how
many ideas they’ve contributed).
Create inviting physical spaces for people to decompress and explore
ideas.
Look for ways to improve psychological safety in teams and social
communities where face-to-face meetings are impractical.

Collaboration and Sharing

40% of respondees (the highest percentage overall) mentioned
collaboration and sharing in their response.
Collaboration across all functions and levels was suggested — interns
working with CEO’s; contractors working with marketing; first-line
support staff working with product designers — cultivating a respect
and an understanding of how each person contributes to the success
of the organisation.

Rather than passively expecting collaboration to happen organically,
the GLO actively develops communication and teamwork skills in
its people through targeted learning. Beginning with communities
of practice and regular knowledge sharing sessions/forums where
individuals connect with peers and experts to learn and share, the GLO
eventually builds a culture of collaboration that is simply the way the
company does business, written into its DNA.

Practical suggestion: Encourage and reward the sharing of stories,
lessons learned, knowledge, skills and content — not just across teams
and departments but further afield to customers and partners.

In summary, since Senge’s 1990 publication, it is irrefutable that the
technological landscape has changed beyond recognition.
Yet, despite a plethora of online platforms, virtual communities,
devices and algorithms that enable us to find and share
information faster than ever before, the human challenges of
workplace learning remain steadfastly unaffected.

Technology may be an enabler of performance but it is not
the entire answer. People and the environments in which they
work are equally important.
As technological innovations continue to delight and astound
us, we must pay equal attention to the development of our
human attributes, for it is only in the balance of the two sides
that true performance can be achieved.