SM

WEI Jiang

School ofManagem’t

Mike PedlerJohn BurgoyneTom Boydell

SM

WEI Jiang

School ofManagem’t

• Definition: A learning company is an organization that facilitates the learning of all its members and continuously transform itself.

• Learning Organization Vs. Learning Company

Organization: mechanical sort of word, somewhat abstract and lifeless

Company:one of the oldest words for a group of people engaged in a joint enterprise, collective endeavor and not to identify to a particular legal form or ownership pattern

• Who are our companions? Employees, owners, customers, suppliers, neighbors, the environment and even competitors• Action in the Learning Company, two purposes: ----To resolve the immediate problem ----To learn from that process• How do companies come to be the way they are? Three perspectives: ---- Ideas: companies are a product of the visions and images that their founders sought to create, and succeeding generations try to recreate. ---- Life stage: companies need to be of a form and behavior appropriate to its age or stage. ---- Era: companies are shaped by, and fit in with, the economic and cultural context.

SM

WEI Jiang

School ofManagem’t

SM

WEI Jiang

School ofManagem’t

Primal Phase: The Pioneer Organization ----characterized by excellence and winning

Rational Phase: The Differentiated Organization ----characterized by order, structure, systematic

specialization, shake-up, improvement communication

and/or self development

Developmental Phase: The Integrated Organization ----typically TQM (by Deming), characterized by unity,

systematic meaning, purpose, ethics, cooperating,

morality, ecology.

SM

WEI Jiang

School ofManagem’t

P1 P2 P3 P4

S1 S21 S3 S4

Lack of skilled

workers

Alienation, anger,no transfer of

learning, trainingbureaucracies

Not getting the organization any-where, too many

changes

What about morality and spirituality inorganization?

S23

S22

Self-development

action-learning

Excellence

Systematictraining

OrganizationDevelopment

OrganizationalTransformation

the LearningCompany,

TQM

1955 1965 1975 1985 1995

From systematic training to the Learning Company

SM

WEI Jiang

School ofManagem’t

SM

WEI Jiang

School ofManagem’t

1 Learning approach to Strategy

2 Participative policy making

3 Informating

4 Formative accounting & control

5 Internal exchange

6 Reward flexibility

7 Enabling structures

8 Boundary workers as environmental scanners

9 Inter-company learning

10 Learning climate

11 Self-development for all

STRATEGY

LOOKING IN

STRUCTURES

LOOKING OUT

LEARNINGOPPORTUNITY

THELEARNINGCOMPANY

Learningapproachto Strategy

Participative policy making

Informating

Formativeaccounting& control

Internalexchange

Rewardflexibility

Enabling structures

Boundary scanners

Inter-company learning

Learning climate

Self-developmentfor all

STRATEGY LOOKING IN

LOOKING OUTLEARNING OPPORTUNITY

THELEARNINGCOMPANY

SM

WEI Jiang

School ofManagem’t

SM

WEI Jiang

School ofManagem’t

Step 1: Small group of people that should be the whole company, could be the board of directors, could be a group representing all the main parts of the company.

Step 2: Each member to consider where they think the company is now as figure 1 and to put a master chart on the wall and ask each to put a cross on the line that expresses the view.

Step 3: Checking on your own interpretation of where the company is now and establishing some consensus on the question of where you are on the lifeline.

Step 4: Focusing on the past and considering some of the events and decisions that have made the company what it is today.

Step 5: Using ‘U curve’ method underlying the activities in the company biography activity, in the curve, the diagnosis of present state is dealt with Learning Company Profile.

Step 6: Moving down to the future-focused right-hand side of the U-curve, starting with abstract ideas and visions and ending with the first step.

SM

WEI Jiang

School ofManagem’t

1

6

7

5

4

2

3

The infant company

The pioneercompany

The rationalcompany

The establishedcompany

The wilderness company

The transforming

company

The dying

company

Figure The Life Stages of A Company

SM

WEI Jiang

School ofManagem’t

Events

Diagnosis: how dowe wish to change?

Phases

ThemesVisions andintentions

Strategies, optionsand alternatives

First steps

Past:analysis

Present:diagnosis

Future:direction

Figure The U curve of company biography

SM

WEI Jiang

School ofManagem’t

SM

WEI Jiang

School ofManagem’t

• Work with the board of directors• Work out from the human resources department• A joint union and management initiative• Set up a series of task forces• Run a consciousness-raising development programme• Work with the strategic planning cycle• Begin with diagnosis• Start with a community conference or teach in• Start with one department• Major on one of the key dimensions (e.g. informating ideas, technology and software through organization)

SM

WEI Jiang

School ofManagem’t