Learning and Changing

7/30/2019 Learning and Changing

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MASTER OF BUSINESS ADMINISTRATION

AWARDED BY NOTTINGHAM TRENT UNIVERSITY

ASSIGNMENT SUBMISSION FORM

Note: Students must attach this page to the front of the assignmentbefore uploading to WECSERF.

For uploading instructions please see the help file online

Name of Student: Zubair Saleem

Student Registration Number: KL102047

Module Name: Learning & Changing

Module Number: WEC-MBA-09-0306

Assignment Title: A thorough understanding of learning and changingconcepts and strategies Submission Due Date: August 16, 2009

Student’s Electronic Signature: Zubair

Plagiarism is to be treated seriously. Students caught plagiarizing, canbe expelled from the programme

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EXECUTIVE SUMMARY

This piece of work is written to analyze and evaluate the concepts and strategies of continuous learning and change management as basic needs to problem solving in

critical situations within the organizations to improve the efficiency, quality, customer

satisfaction and innovation and other KPI of the competitive advantages of

organization to achieve best possible goals of the organization.

To be more specific we will start the analysis, synthesis and evaluation of the

concepts of learning, its outcomes by having a thorough review of different domains

of learning.

Looking on the domains of learning we will show the basic three domains of learning

by Benjamin Bloom and his taxonomy of learning.

These basic concepts of learning will lead to understand more clearly the organization

learning and the importance of learning within a complex and sensitive industrial

working environment.

After having the brief review of learning and its concepts we will be looking on the

process of learning to understand how an organization can create a learning

environment.

Kolb’s learning styles then will more clarify the styles of learning which organization

adopt or try to adopt to be continuous learning and innovative.

Organizational learning leads to organizational development and the models followed

by the organizations to increase KPI of its competitive advantages to sustain and

remain competitive in the global competitive market.

Yunus Textile Mills as an industrial organization is a very complex and sensitive

working environment, which always follow the business goals of the organization on

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Assignment Form

MBA Jan04



priority and have many driving and restraining forces to create a learning environment

and apply the change strategies.

Therefore it is important to have a review of the KPI of learning and development in

internal and external environment of the organization which also helps to apply and

implement the change strategies more effectively.

The most common and famous change strategy by Kurt Lewin is then thoroughly

discussed as need of Yunus Textile Mills to unfreeze, move and then refreeze its

learning environment to achieve the best possible results of the change applied.

On the basis of concepts, analysis and strategies of learning, development and change

required by Yunus Textile Mills, we will conclude the overall requirements by the

organization to be a learning organization and implement change as its basic need.

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CONTENTS

Executive

Summary-----------------------------------------------------------------------03

1.0 Introduction------------------------------------------------------------------------ 05

2.0 Learning and Its Outcomes------------------------------------------------------ 07

2.1 Domains of Learning-------------------------------------------------------- 07

2.2 Benjamin Bloom’s Taxonomy--------------------------------------------- 08

2.3 Lorin Anderson’s Revised Cognitive Domain--------------------------- 09

3.0 Organizational Learning And Its Importance--------------------------------- 10

4.0 Process Of Learning-------------------------------------------------------------- 114.1 Kolb’s Learning Styles------------------------------------------------------ 12

5.0 Organizational Development---------------------------------------------------- 14

5.1 Burgoyne Ladder Model Of Organization Development--------------- 15

6.0 Change And Its Strategy------------------------------------------------------- 17

7.0 Change Strategies----------------------------------------------------------------- 18

7.1 Kurt Lewin’s Force Field Analysis---------------------------------------- 19

7.2 Kurt Lewin’s Change Model----------------------------------------------- 21

8.0 Conclusion------------------------------------------------------------------------- 24

9.0References-------------------------------------------------------------------------

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1.0 INTRODUCTION

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“The difference between a “Human” and an “Animal” is only that human always keep

changing in terms of his practices, mental capabilities, relations to others etc and

animal doesn’t. But a person becomes successful only when these changes are

positive” (My father, Khair Muhammad Laghari, 2008)

Almost all the organizations always focus on there basic financial, social and

economic goals and to achieve these goals many of inputs like man, machine,

materials, policies, facilities etc are engaged by them but question arises that why

some of them become successful and some not.

To solve this question many of the organizations have always tried to keep sight and

find the root causes of problems which lead to the solution.

Organizations now have accepted that the information, education, technology,

thoughts, understanding and demands of consumers, entrance of new companies in

markets, implementation of the best possible strategies and many other factors are

continuously improving.

If we go more deep, trends are changed from local to global, Environmental

conditions are always changing, WTO is trying to implement globally free market

trade rules, information communication technology (ICT) is continuously improving,

Standard operating procedures (SOP)are continuously improving, manufacturing

industries have changed their strategies from formal to Lean, Kaizen and Six sigma,

Workforce caliber is day by day increasing, Consumers are more liberal rather than

communist, and many other factors brought us to the thought of not only improving

but continuously improving organization systems and strategies.

To achieve these all competitive advantages, being customer oriented and innovative

organizations need continuous focus on their processes and operations and to be very

much alert in today’s very much turbulent, competitive, innovative, and consumer

based markets.

Being always organizations try to achieve the status of continuously “learning

organization” so as to avoid any missing of information, achieve highest possible

expertise, continuous improvement and changing their process and strategies.

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This all is done to propose the right strategy on right place at right time to achieve

best possible economic, social and financial goals of the organization.

As I have been working for four years as Textile engineer in Yunus Textile Mills,

Pakistan so I will try to work and elaborate the main consequences of this piece of

work for on the same industry to look on the issues more precisely.

Yunus Textile Mills is one of the leading industries of Pakistan and is producing

fabric for many of the multinational companies and global warehouses like Wall mart,

Target, 3 Suisses, and Dan River etc.

As a global supplier of the fabric the quality and customer focus are the main

strategies of this industry but this industry is loosing its customers and market shares

day by day because of many factors like high prices due to increase in gas and

electricity prices, old machinery, continuous increase in defects, poor management

strategies, non-risk oriented strategy, increase in recruitment budget due to no

trainings and development of employees, loosing expertise due to increase in

workforce caliber with constant salary packages, extra usage of capacity, and many

other reasons.

Therefore Yunus textile needs many changes in its strategies, SOP, technology,

information management system (IMS) etc which we will try to evaluate below.

2.0 LEARNING AND ITS OUTCOMES

“Live as if you were to die tomorrow, Learn as if you were to live forever” (Gandhi)

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SKA (Skills, Knowledge, and Abilities) are three main characteristics which increases

organizations competitiveness and enhance its ability to sustain and competitive in the

global markets.

These are three main competitive advantages which make an organization able to

obtain its all other required competitive advantages to sustain and remain competitive

in the global market.

Individual learning can refer to his religious, philosophical, psychological and

observational view. Obviously organizations are run by humans and individuals are

responsible for improvements.

2.1 DOMAINS OF LEARNING

Learning in over all view can be divided into four main domains as given below.

Source: http://www.elearnspace.org/Articles/ldc.htm

2.2 BENJAMIN BLOOM’S TAXONOMY

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http://www.elearnspace.org/Articles/ldc.htm




Benjamin Bloom (1956) more clearly describes learning by dividing it into three main

categories as Cognitive (Mental skills/ Knowledge), Affective (Growth in feelings/

Attitudes) and Psychomotor (Manual or physical skills/ Skills).

Bloom defined all these three domains much thoroughly but as industrial operations

and management is more deeply concerned with Cognitive Domain of learning as

defined by Bloom, so we will discuss only this domain of learning to be more

specific.

In Cognitive domain of learning Benjamin Bloom gave taxonomy by dividing it into

six main categories from lower to higher skills of thinking of an individual as given

below.

Source: http://www.nwlink.com/~Donclark/hrd/bloom.html

Different people got different views about learning but in fact learning tends to a

positive approach of continuous improvement and constructive continuous process

which leads the organizations to sustain and compete in the competitive markets.

2.3 LORIN ANDERSON’S REVISED COGNITIVE DOMAIN

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Lorin Anderson was former student of Benjamin Bloom and he revised the taxonomy

of Cognitive domain by changing and re-arranging the categories as given below.

According to Lorin Synthesis or creation (New thought or structure) must follow the

Evaluation (judgments).

From this also we can analyze that understandings of learning and its processes may

vary from people to people whether they reside in same region or have same way of

thinking and education.

3.0 ORGANIZATIONAL LEARNING AND ITS IMPORTANCE

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As we have already discussed SKA (Skills, Knowledge and Abilities) are the main

factors for the improvement and innovation of the organizations.

This term SKA (Knowledge, Skills and Abilities) is not only bound to individual

learning but this refers to organization SKA where organizational knowledge is not

only knowledge in tacit form in a human mind.

This refers to organizational knowledge, its skills and its abilities to manufacture the

products and services and compete in the global market.

“Organizational knowledge” is embodied in physical artifacts (Equipments, Layout,

Database), Organizational structure (Roles, Reward system, Procedures) and People

(Skills, Values, Beliefs, Practices). (L&C Handbook, Nottingham Trent University, P-

04, 2009)

Textile industry is completely based on customers and produce consumer based

products but due to global competition Yunus Textile Mills needs a lot of competitive

advantages.

To sustain in the global competitive markets and attain competitive advantages Yunus

Textile Mills have to follow the KPI (Key performance indicators) of Competitive

advantages.

These KPI of being competitive in the market are Organization’s Efficiency, Quality

of Products, Customer Satisfaction and Continuous Innovation.

In thorough view an organization can only achieve these competitive advantages on

its competitors when it has SKA (Skills, Knowledge and Abilitites).

As we have already discussed that the global markets are improving day by day and

the competition is increasing continuously due to innovations and improvements in

many of “internal and external factors” like ICT, Re-engineering, Morale, Workforce

caliber and many other factors.

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In this continuously innovative market environment organizations need to train and

develop their expertise on continuous basis rather than once or discontinuously to

achieve the best possible SKA.

This continuous learning makes organization more competitive and due to this

continuous learning with openness of learning, communication etc organization is

termed as “Learning organization”.

4.0 PROCESS OF LEARNING

After the World War II almost all the fields of organizations management, production

of products and strategies of the organization were changed and people started

thinking from a complete opposite angle, diverse concepts and vital understanding.

Likewise Learning and SKA (Skills, Knowledge, and Abilities) also take over the

concept of “More money creates more power”.

Many of the psychologists, physiologists and management oriented people gave

different theories and concepts to avoid past mistakes and bad experiences.

Some main names in the field of changing the concept of organizations to operate

customer based and create continuous learning organization are Howard gardner,

Fernald, Keller, Gillingham, Montessori, David Kolb, Honey & Monfords, John

Burgoyne, Kim and many others.

Here we will be discussing only David Kolb’s four learning styles which are

concerned to our organization because Yunus Textile Mills is not a learning

organization and to start its learning process, it is preferable for this organization to go

through this method.

4.1 KOLB’S LEARNING STYLES

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David Kolb (1984) developed a learning style model which then gave birth to Kolb’s

experiential learning theory (ELS) and Kolb’s learning styles inventory (LSI).

Kolb’s experiential learning theory and Kolb’s learning styles gives a cycle of

learning in four stages for organizations to learn and achieve the competitive

advantages or key performance indicators of those competitive advantages.

The four stage learning cycle derived by David Kolb is as given in following figure.

Source: http://www.businessballs.com/kolblearningstyles.htm

1. Concrete Experience (CE)

This style of learning basically refers the organizations to engage with those personnel

who know the importance of learning and change.

In this phase the organizations and its employees are motivated for the importance

and making them to feel the importance to implement strategies of learning and

development to increase their competitiveness in the global market.

2. Reflective Observation (RO)

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This phase makes organizations to understand the concepts and theories of learning

and development and its models with practical understanding and review the past

practices by organizations.

3. Abstract Conceptualization (AC)

This phase is the motivational phase for management and employees to be motivated

and start thinking and accepting the needs of learning environment and its practices.

This phase make management to achieve best possible participation of employees in

the learning practices.

4. Active Experimentation (AE)

Before the implementation of learning and development strategies organization must

analyze and experiment the results of the strategies from internal and external factors.

This phase make them able to implement the strategies of learning and development

more effectively.

5.0 ORGANIZATIONAL DEVELOPMENT

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“Knowing is not enough, we must apply. Willing is not enough, we must do”(Goethe)

Organizations are always based on its tangible and intangible assets and put their best

possible inputs to achieve best possible outputs.

Before this transformation of inputs to outputs organizations try to plan all the

procedures and strategies to gain the high edge of competitive advantages. But in

some unwanted situations organizations strategies may fail due to any internal or

external effect.

This unwanted situation not only happens due to mistakes and wrong implementation

of procedures and strategies but many external factors like PEST (Political,

Economical, Social and Technological), competitors strategies, market growth,

market fall, and environmental factors etc may also cause such failure of “Planned

strategies”.

In failure of the planned strategies organizations try to sustain the processes and

recover the losses and for this cause many “Unplanned strategies”.

Planned and unplanned strategies are basically based on the situations and company

position.

Analysis of situations and company position of Yunus Textile Mills is a big task, so

based on my experience I have evaluated that yunus textile Mills is not a learning

organization as I was working there for more than three years as a Textile Engineering

and was tacitly and explicitly analyzing the company from top to bottom.

Also Yunus Textile Mills is a fabric manufacturing industry and situations can be

changed any time in such industry and company can highly be effected due to all

PEST factors and unplanned strategies can only be suggested and evaluated on the

time situation changes or planned strategy fails.

For the organizational development basically two main models are being used as

planned strategy approach i.e. Burgoyne Ladder Model and Ash Ridge’s 4 F model.

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These both models are basically used for HR (Human resource) development which

leads an organization to its SKA (Skills, Knowledge, and Abilities) keeping the

Human as main planning and strategy implementing resource of the organization.

Yunus Textile Mills is still not on the right path of learning and keeping human as

main resource of the organization, I will suggest Burgoyne Ladder model for

organizational development.

5.1 BURGOYNE LADDER MODEL OF ORGANIZATION DEVELOPMET

John Burgoyne (1988) suggested a model which leads to the human and management

development of the organization.

Basically the Burgoyne Ladder model used nowadays is the refined model of original

Burgoyne model. The original model was refined by the colleagues (Pedler et al,

1991) of John Burgoyne.

Following are six stages of Burgoyne Ladder model from bottom to top in which the

first stage is kept as lowest learning level of an organization.

Stage 1: No systematic Management Development

This stage shows that organization doesn’t follow at all for its employee and

management development. Or in other words company completely relies on Laissez

Faire.

Stage 2: Isolated / Tacit Management Development

In this stage organization is following some steps regarding development but the

development is not according to business needs and steps are only taken when

employees inform or show their needs.

In other words management activities are only set for the general local problems and

crises.

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Stage 3: Integrated structural and development activities

“Most executives and managers would rather be in an “earning” organization than

in a “learning” organization” (Anders Hermre, CEO, Inter Knowledge

Technologies)

Structural development activities are done only when a manager is directly concerned

and activities take place for his needs.

Or employees are motivated to achieve the organizational goals but no any

development actions are taken for individual needs.

Stage 4: Management Strategy to implement corporate strategy

Learning, training, education and other development strategies are implemented to

attain the corporate goal of the organization or to implement corporate strategy more

effectively.

Stage 5: Management Development as an input to corporate strategy formulation

Employees and management development process contributes to corporate strategy

formulation. But Human resources policies act as barrier because of Personal

management focus of HR.

Stage 6: Strategic Development of Management of Corporate Policy

In this stage Human resource management becomes the foundation of whole

organization and corporate policy is being enhanced by the human resource for which

they are willing to contribute in achievement of organization goals.

Yunus Textile Mills is now on the 3rd stage of this model where employees are

motivated to achieve the organization goals efficiently and give quality production but

they are not trained for the long term achievement of competitive advantages.

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6.0 CHANGE AND ITS STRATEGY

“The dogmas of the quiet past are inadequate to the stormy present. The occasion is

piled high with difficulty, and we must rise with the occasion. As our Case is new, so

we must think a new and act a new” Abraham Lincoln

Change is basically meant by making difference and the management of processes

and strategies implementation to make this difference/ change is known as Change

Management.

Organization operations are always followed by some procedures and strategies and

these strategies can be deliberate or emergent strategies of the operations and can be

planned or unplanned depending upon the situations and circumstances.

Organizations always try to implement the planned strategies and control the

processes and factors effecting to avoid any unwanted situation which reflects in

defects, losses and losing of market shares.

Sometimes these planned strategies can fail because of many internal and external

factors and in the situation of failure organizations go for emergent strategies.

To control the organization operations is sometimes found to be difficult because of

these same internal and external factors or uncontrolled way of managing the

processes.

When the processes go out of control, organizations take the corrective actions and

implement some change strategies to control the processes and operations of the

organizations.

Also in the global market many of the factors like WTO rules, globalization, ICT,

increase in competitions, customers knowledge, etc have made the organizations to

must implement some changes and improve their operations to remain sustainable and

competitive in the markets to achieve their business goals.

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7.0 CHANE STRATEGIES

Change strategies can be of two main types i.e. Evolutionary and Revolutionary

change strategies.

i) Evolutionary Change Strategies

Organizations suggest and implement Evolutionary change strategies when they need

continuous improvement and when situations are under control in terms of their

business goals.

These evolutionary strategies are implemented to improve the operations to achieve

the business goals more efficiently or if organization feels any expected negative

change or requires innovation internally or externally.

Evolutionary strategies include many types of organization development strategies

suggested by many of the philosophers and operations managing personnel.

But Yunus Textile Mills is already in the critical condition and is facing lot of

problems like day by day reducing number of orders, increasing defects, employment

of personal management instead of Human resource management, non-learning

working environment etc.

Therefore for this organization it is better to implement Revolutionary strategy to

perform a change in the operations and management of the organization.

ii) Revolutionary Strategies

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When organizations face any problem which is against their corporate strategy or any

critical situation which may lead to loss or even liquidation of the organization then

organizations go for the Revolutionary change strategies.

Revolutionary strategies may require lot of budget and less time of implementation

but this is the only way for the organizations when they face such situation.

The most famous and our organization related revolutionary change strategies may be

Action Research and Kurt Lewin’s change strategy. But the conditions of Yunus

Textile Mills prefer the Kurt Lewin’s 3 steps change model.

But before we go to the strategy, it is important to have a view of positive and

negative forces applied on the change strategy

7.1 KURT LEWIN’S FORCE FIELD ANALYSIS

Kurt Lewin introduced force field analysis to calculate the Driving forces and

restraining forces of the change strategy.

Before the suggestion and implementation of change strategy organizations analyze

the internal and external environment of the organization to calculate the driving and

restraining forces of the change strategy as given and explained below.

Source: http://home.att.net/~nickols/changing.htm

Driving Forces

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Driving forces are those forces which help organization to successfully implement the

change strategy.

These forces can be termed as the positive forces for the change strategy like strong

leadership, team work, learning environment, motivated workforce etc.

Restraining Forces

Restraining forces are the forces which create barriers in implementation of change

strategy.

The forces like poor leadership, non learning environment, self interest, uncertainty in

workforce, lack of motivation etc causes the failure of the change strategy.

Organizations try to reduce the restraining forces and increase driving forces or

reduce efficiency of restraining forces and improve efficiency of driving forces to

avoid barriers in implementation and control of change strategy.

7.2 KURT LEWIN’S CHANGE MODEL

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Kurt Lewin (1890-1947) was an American psychologist and his hard working gave

us many new concepts of management like team building, experiential learning,

action research and 3 stages change model etc.

According to Kurt Lewin an organization can not implement change if he is not

unfreezing its first implemented strategies and operations.

Kurt Lewin described his change model in three main stages i.e. Unfreezing,

Transition of change, and Refreezing of strategies and operations as given in

following figure.

Source: http://www.flickr.com/photos/david_jones/3350260757/

i) Unfreezing

Organizations follow their process routes and procedures very carefully and are

mostly emphasizing the continuous working environment.

But to implement change in this stage they must remove all previous practices in the

area where they need to apply change.

This phase make them able to start their change process by firstly removing all

strategies implemented before to be able to accept the new changed practices and

strategies.

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In this phase the situation plays a very important role and organization try to evaluate

the following main analysis.

Cost/benefit analysis of the organization and change strategy.

Marking the end result or ensuring that change team can concentrate and implement

the new ideas instead of the old one.

Planning of the change and its process.

ii) Transition/ Move

In this stage the change is implemented and employees are continuously motivated to

participate and follow the change.

Mostly employees cause barriers because of disturbance, uncertainty, and self

interests and in this phase organization apply push and pull strategies to make them

able to understand the situations and accept the change.

The main focuses in this stage to accept and implement the change are as given

below.

Creating the complete understanding for tasks of each individual.

Acting or making each individual to perform his task.

Follow up and evaluation of individuals tasks on completion

Ensuring the tasks are complete and closing the loose ends.

iii) Re-Freezing

In re-freezing stage organizations accept the changed system or strategies as their new

system implemented.

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In this phase organization or change agent need to complete the following tasks.

Marking the new beginning and creating new rules and policies.

Celebrating and ensuring the energy of new daily work and making future plans.

Evaluating the final results of the change as a whole.

CONCLUSION

Changes and innovations in global conditions, market improvements, environmental

conditions like global warming etc, strong competitiveness in global free markets

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have made it must for every organization along with Yunus textile mills to be a

learning organization and make improvements by application of change.

Being a textile manufacturing industry Yunus textile mills is dealing with world

giants and the requirements of consumers living across the globe are also

continuously increasing.

To overcome the today’s problems and avoid any risk in future, Yunus textile mills

must implement change towards innovation in its workforce, information, planning

and technology sectors.

During my job I have felt a lot the non-learning and non-risk oriented environment in

the organization which is very sensitive situation for such organization.

World is modifying day by day and Yunus textile mills is still following the old

strategies with old machinery with lack of management control practices.

These conditions bring us to the conclusion that in this condition company must go

for continuous learning and for the development of the employees.

The leadership as an important KPI of learning, change and development is also very

important to focus which in Yunus textile mills has to be proactive but in this industry

it is reactive.

The human resource department of the mills must be replaced with personal

management so as to achieve the training and development strategies to improve the

SKA (Skills, knowledge, and abilities) of the industry.

For change company must apply the Kurt Lewin’s change model by unfreezing,

changing and refreezing the system and strategies after the internal and external

analysis of the driving and restraining forces of the industry.

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REFERENCES

1. Peter, Senge et al (1994), The fifth Discipline Field book: Nicholas Brearley.

2. Straker, D et al (2005), Changing Minds: Syque Press. .

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3. Di Bella (2001), Learning Practices: Assessment and Actions for

Organizational Improvement: Pearson Education.

4. Smith, E.M et al (2005), The Handbook of Organizational Learning and

Knowledge Management: Blackwell Publishing.

5. Nonaka and Takeuchi (1995), The Knowledge Creating Company : Oxford

press.

6. Brinkerhoff, R., & Gill, S (1994), The learning alliance: Systems thinking in

human resource development. San Francisco: Jossey-Bass.

7. Schank, R. (2005). Lessons in learning, e-learning and training: Perspectives

and guidance for the enlightened trainer. San Francisco: Pfeiffer.

8. Smith, E.M., Burgoyne et al (1999), Organizational Learning and the Learning

Organization: Developments in the Theory and Practice: MCB University Press.

9. Rosenberg, M. (2001). E-learning: Strategies for delivering knowledge in the

digital age. New York: McGraw-Hill.

10. http://www.change-management.com/tutorial-2007prep-strategy.htm,

Loverland, Co, USA, 1996.

11. http://www.elearnspace.org/Articles/ldc.htm, George Siemens, elearnspace,

2005.

12. http://www.nwlink.com/~Donclark/hrd/bloom.html, Big Dog, Little Dog and

Knowledge jump productions, may 2009.

13. http://www.businessballs.com/kolblearningstyles.htm, business ball, 2003.

14. http://home.att.net/~nickols/changing.htm, Fred Nickols, 2000.

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Learning and Changing