Organisational learning in the workplace

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Rishat A. Ishmuratov

Организационное обучение на рабочем месте

Р.Д. Ишмуратов,

факультет бизнеса и менеджмента, Лондонский университет королевы Марии

В статье рассматривается проблема обучения в контексте организации и то, что организация может сделать для упорядочения обмена информацией между своими сотрудниками. Все больше микро- и малых предприятий вынуждены закрываться, не справляясь с потоком знаний и информации, не умея привнести инновации во все сферы своей деятельности, главным образом в отношении выпускаемой продукции и предоставляемых услуг. Многие даже не имеют понятия о концепции организационного обучения, которая также объясняется в данной статье. В целом, компании, осознавшие ценность организационного обучения и важность его использования для успешного ведения бизнеса, являются крупнейшими игроками на международном рынке. В особенности это касается ИТ-компаний, таких как Apple или Google, поскольку в этой сфере использование соответствующего потока информации - это способ кристаллизации новых идей отдельными сотрудниками, либо сообществами специалистов в составе компании, позволяющий эффективно внедрять инновации. На основе целого ряда популярных теорий в статье обосновывается не просто желательность, но необходимость организационного обучения в современном бизнесе.

Ключевые слова: одинарный цикл обучения, двойной цикл обучения, тройной цикл обучения, сообщество специалистов-практиков, традиционная теория познания, теория ситуативного обучения, инновации

Rishat A. Ishmuratov

ORGANISATIONAL LEARNING IN THE WORKPLACE

This article raises the question of organisational learning and what business can do for normalization of informational exchange between employees. More and more micro and small businesses are closed due to the informational and knowledge flow, as they are not able to innovate to all aspects of their business actions, mainly looking towards to the products and services that this organisation is providing. Many businesses do not even know the concept of the organisational learning which I explain in this article as well. Overall, companies which got the gist that organisational learning is very important and should be used for organisational success, these organizations are now biggest players on the international market, especially IT companies such as Apple or Google as in such business the proper flow of information is the way for the individual employees and communities within the business to create new knowledge with which they are able to innovate. With use of many popular theories I will explain why Organisational Learning is not needed but required in the modern business.

Key words: Single Loop Learning, Double Loop Learning, Triple Loop Learning, Community of Practice, Traditional Cognitive Theory (TCT), Situated Learning Theory (SLT), innovations

employee organizational learning business

Introduction

In the modern world everything changes with unimaginable speed, this includes the environment of all organisations, so in order for organisation to keep up with the unstopping train of changes organisations have to learn how to adapt to be relevant in our lives. In this essay, I will explain what exactly Organisational Learning is and why it is important for business.

Learning in itself is a way to gain new knowledge not only in expressed way as studying but also as revising and questioning yourself both on successful acts and mistakes. This also applies to all organisations. Organisational Learning mainly gives improvement in long term as it takes some time for the employees to get used to change in the way they behave on the workplace. Many people may mistake thinking that there is no difference between the Organisational Learning and Learning Organisation, when the Organisational Learning is a tool as well as the process. In the view of P. Senge (1990), Learning Organisation is «Organization that is continually expanding its capacity to create its future» [1], whereas in the view of C. Argyris (1977), Organisational Learning is a tool that gives organisation ability to uncover the truth and correct those mistakes in different areas and the business for it to become successful [2]. P Senge (1990) also says that the main way for organisation to become better is reflecting on the success of the business, and the main driver of knowledge for the organisation is to learn from mistakes [1]. Usually people in organisations do not bother to think about their failures, which not only reduce the success of the company in terms of losing opportunity and creating costs, but also affect the organisation in long term as not reflecting on your mistakes can only create more and more mistakes. C. Argyris gives an example that in one big organisation there was a lack of effective communication between their employees especially on their mistakes. This made Organisational Learning impossible as they were not able to discuss with each other ways how to turn a mistake into success by gaining knowledge what caused the error, Thus, this led to an unsuccessful product which created more problems for the business rather than benefits just because the information did not go to the right hands at the right time [2]. With that in mind, we can say that if the employees shared their concerns and questioned themselves about the product this would not lead to such an outcome. C. Argyris called it Double Loop Learning [2]. In his words, double loop learning is when people are not only able to check for the problems and errors within the organisation's policies and goals (Single Loop Learning), but question these policies and goals. In his words, humans are able to think critically when, for example, thermostats cannot question themselves should the temperature be 50 degrees or 60, so the humans have to decide for it. With that being said, when the people use the Double Loop Learning they can correct the error if an action was deemed as successful. After planning, verifying and adjusting they will be able to revise it. This will give an assumption that actually it is wrong and make employees understand the cause of the problem and the way for its solution. Lack of Double Loop Learning can cover in the people themselves as some have their own ways of doing certain job by their own theory of actions which can be useful, but not always or they just feel uncomfortable as they are not on the same level or they feel pressured from other team or their manager, so they will hide errors and emotions to look more professional and successful. C. Argyris divides them in 2 models. In Model 1 people do not share full information with each other as they are controlled by a single person who has his own theory of how things work. Due to this, employees use more defensive relationships among them not saying when there are mistakes as that person do not expect for his theory to fail. So they do not reflect on it and cannot use Double Loop Learning [2]. In Model 2 people share information and there is a feedback between them, which makes Double Loop Learning possible in the workplace. As the control of the employees is more spread, people feel more free to tell the information to each other. In the view of M. Easterby-Smith (1997), Triple Loop Learning exists in the form of `questioning the organisation as a whole.' For example, the managers do not even want to hear that there is a problem, but they want to hear the solution to the problem as soon as possible. This can cause a problem as the managers who have their goals set up too high start to question the principles of the organisation itself. Thus, when the third learning loop exists, employees can change the way they think going deeper and deeper into the problem, as they are able to get the big picture of the problem [3]. There is also another approach to learning proposed by Lave and Wenger (1991) called Communities of Practice, when practitioners devise knowledge based on personal perspectives of their everyday environment [4]. They set up a problem they need to solve commutatively by regularly interacting with each other. As a team of specialists in one or other line of their work, they face similar problems to be resolved. It is voluntary to become a member of such a community, as they join to practice problem solving and gain actual knowledge. In the workplace, when people learn with the right knowledge, they boost the performance of the project they are working on as well as the business as a whole.

There are different theories of learning. The most popular one is called Traditional Cognitive Theory (TCT) and the less known is called Situated Learning Theory (SLT). TCT is a more individualistic approach to learning, whereas SLT is more community-based. TCT is considered to have a more official approach, so that knowledge is checked through examination, whyereas in SLT you have to just participate in the community's activities.

Organisational Learning is important for managers. As the world changes, it brings many new innovations which not only change the way that customers think, but, what is more important, the way that employees behave, interact with each other and work. As an example, I would like to introduce the problem that Kodak faced when they did not want to innovate to digital cameras. The company was afraid that they might lose the share for their film-based cameras and did not want to risk. There was a problem in Organisational Learning as the information delivered by the creator of digital cameras in Kodak did not reach the top properly and they used neither Double Loop Learning nor Triple Loop Learning. They did not question the whole idea of digital cameras and this made them believe that the market would not change if digital cameras were introduced later.

There is a lot of pressure on the shoulders of managers, as they not only have to point out the needed knowledge toward innovations but they also have to make sure that knowledge will not create problems toward the actual creation and storage of the information needed. Organisational Learning is a source of new ideas, products or ways to work but, generally speaking, it is a source of innovations for our world. It is not easy to innovate. The organisation requires both resources and, more importantly, knowledge, as the organisation may face an obstacle which is also knowledge. As we know, there are three loops of learning (C. Argyris 1991 [2] and M. Easterby-Smith 1997 [3]). These loops not only help resolve the problems, but also bring innovations after rethinking certain aspects, for example, a new product or the way it is supposed to work, which can lead to an increase in the employee performance.

Likewise, Communities of Practice can greatly induce and create innovations within the business, as knowledge needed for certain communities is more specific and shared more easily.

As J. Swan (2002) says, when the organisation is divided into different communities, the managers no longer have to use a big amount of wide knowledge. They can be more specific with the knowledge they provide to the people within communities. This improves the manager effectiveness and leads to much-needed innovations, as the communities' participants will have better access to useful knowledge when cooperating. Sharing knowledge they create the new based on the ideas generated [5]. P.A. Carlile (2002) tells about syntactic and semantic approaches toward knowledge within the business. He also presents the third approach called pragmatic, saying that “knowledge and knowing cannot be separated from an individual's engagement in “practicing” their practice.” This means that people engage with the practices in their own individualistic way, and without their tacit knowledge the organisation do not get tacit characteristics of the knowledge itself [6]. These approaches apply different categories of boundaries leading to different characteristics of boundary objects. They are used to share knowledge among the people, so that all parties can understand it in order to resolve the problem, as knowledge in practice is localised. This means that knowledge is built around specific problems, remains tacit and invested in to practice, i.e. knowledge is gained from participating in Communities of Practice. When the organisation creates something new, this may bring problems because of the absence of experience, In the research performed by P.A. Carlile (2002), two employees from two different departments are working towards a shared goal of developing and manufacturing to a high volume of 3,000,000 a year, which this organisation has never had before [6].

As he mentions, the knowledge is localised, but Mick and Vaughn simply do not understand each other, as knowledge in one community can differ, even if the employees are working on the same project. They have different goals due to the difference in their problems. For example Mick has to devise a plan how to make the OVRV in a way so that they will be able to achieve an output of 3,000,000 a year. Vaughn has to implement all features the customer requested. Thus, they have to decide how to get the knowledge which covers their problems. The ever-so-slight difference in their knowledge makes them just not understand each other as professionals. As they work on different parts of the new product, they have different tacit knowledge which is understood when you are closer to one of them. If Mick has had past experience of what Vaughn is working on, he would be able to understand him due to shared tacit knowledge. Even if they are participating in one project, they have different communities of practice from which they gain different knowledge. In order to reduce the difference in their knowledge, they have to exchange the knowledge and skills. They have to introduces a cost and time consuming boundary object, CAD (updated assembly drawing), to standardise and transform the knowledge they try to share with each other, So they both will understand how to deal with these two problems.

The whole point of this example lies in the fact that the managers should use organisational learning to deal with the problem. In this case it is knowledge that both parties are unable to share and understand working on the same project, and this can stall or `destroy' the innovation.

In the innovation sphere disagreement happens all the time. To reduce its effects on business managers one has to make sure that all parties understand each other and find a compromise. he view of P.M. Leonardi (2011) on disagreements within the organisation is that they happen due to cultural differences. This means that people perceive information differently even if they are working towards the same goal. They will have some similarities, but their strategy of action will be different. In the organisation in which the employees had to create car crash simulation app, a problem arose.When the application was presented, different people in different departments wanted other features from what the group proposed [7]. P.M. Leonardi (2011) says that the `innovators' were blinded, as all of them did not want to reflect towards the problems arisen from the presentation and failed to understand why the features proposed by the focus group were necessary. After many attempts the application was still not approved due to the blindness of the innovators and focus group team who wanted more different features [7]. Both parties had the same cultural resources, but their cultural frame was not completely the same, so that each party had different vision of the project. When the departments disagreed, it not only made the product stall, but also aggravated the relations among personnel more and more. The problem was solved by injecting the ambiguity that made the project reorganise the boundaries previously set, and the project started to work. This ambiguity gave a second goal to the project shared with another similar project allowing the standardisation of the views and knowledge between the two teams in terms of the project.

Managers need TCT or SLT theories, as they form the basis of any learning in the organisation depending on the type of a company the manager is working in. The managers can understand how to structure the control and give knowledge to the people. Not only TCT gives the basis of learning. People use technological innovations within their communities, and an innovation happens when someone creates something new after acquiring knowledge.

Conclusion

In the modern world organisations rely more and more often on Organisational Learning, as nowadays it is harder to understand each other with proxies surrounding us. When managers use Organisational Learning, they are able to manage the flow of knowledge, uncover the errors that can be made, etc. If Organisational Learning is implemented, the organisational health becomes better both in short and long term, but in the modern world it must be regularly updated.

References

1. Senge P.M. Sloan management review. ABI/IN- FORM Global, 1990, vol. 32, no. 1, pp. 7-23.

2. Argyris C. Double-loop learning in organizations. Harvard Business Review, 1977, no. 55(5), pp. 115-125.

3. Easterby-Smith. Disciplines of organisational learning: contributions and critique. Human Relations, 1997, vol. 50, no. 9, pp. 1085-1113.

4. Lave J., Wenger E. Situated learning. Cambridge, Cambridge Univ. Pr., 1991, pp. 63-82.

5. Swan J., Scarbrough H., Robertson, M. The construction of 'communities of practice' in the management of innovation. Management Learning, 2002, no. 33 (4), pp. 477-496.

6. Carlile P.A Pragmatic view of knowledge and boundaries: Boundary objects in new product development. Organization Science, 2002, no. 13 (4), pp. 442-455.

7. Leonardi P. Innovation blindness: Culture, frames, and cross-boundary problem construction in the development of new technology concepts. Organization Science, 2011, no. 22 (2), pp. 347-369.

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