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** Plans for Building the Learning Organization ** ** (200 points) **
 * Assignment 2: **

Conduct a literature review on learning organization, diagnose your organization's ability to learn and change, and create action plans to help your organization become a learning organization.

2. What is a learning organization? (20 points) · Definitions (including your own definition): //We believe a learning Organization is an organization that continues to transform itself through the facilitation of learning for all members. The organization encourages change through well thought out visions and maintaining levels of innovation throughout the learning process.Learning organizations allow employees to no longer be in a passive mode where they are simply told what to do.Each member in a learning organization is able to unleash their full potential by being an active participant in the workplace philosophy.// //According to Peter Senge// //founding chairperson of Society for Organizational learning and a senior lecturer at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology//, // learning organizations are: "organizations where people continually expand their capacity to create the results they truly desire, where new and expansive patterns of thinking are nurtured, where collective aspiration is set free, and where people are continually learning to see the whole together" (Smith, 2009). Helen Rheem from Harvard Business Review, further explains a learning organization as " an// //environment wherein people can "create the results they truly desire," and where they can learn to learn together for the betterment of the whole" (Rheem 1995,10).//
 * Content**
 * 1. Introduction (10 points)

//Peter Senge explains that there are five disciplines that need to be mastered in a learning organization.//


 * 1) //**Systems Thinking** - This is the ability to see the big picture of things and see how the daily operations can be improved through a unity of all memebers in the organization.//
 * 2) //**Personal Mastery-** This addresses the ideas that all members of the organization need to become lifelong learners and have a focus on striving to achieve personal goals in the organization as well as goals that show a commitment to the organization as a whole.//
 * 3) //**Mental Models**:This discipline addresses reflection of individual practices as well as belief structures of individuals and how it effects the learning organization as a whole.//
 * 4) //**Building Shared Visions:** the organizations visions begins with the personal visins of individual employees and must have an alignment in order to maintain a cohesive commitment to the organization.//
 * 5) //**Team Learning:** This discipline is important because it stresses the importance of learning as a team. If team members can not come together and learn then the desired results may not be achieved ( Smith, 2009).//

//In summary, " a learning organization does away with the mentality that it is only senior management who can and do all the thinking for the entire corporation. It challenges all employees to tap into their inner resources and potential, in hopes they can build their own community based on principles of liberty, humanity, and a collective will to learn" (Mason 2010).//

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· Characteristics 3. Creating the learning organization (50 points) · Building blocks of the learning organization //To transform your company into a learning organization, Garvin recommends mastering five activities:// //Woven into the fabric of your company's daily operations, these activities help your organization make enduring improvements that translate directly into measurable gains--including superior quality, better delivery, and increased market share.(Garvin, 2008.)//
 * //Solving problems systematically//
 * //Experimenting with new approaches to work//
 * //Learning from past experience//
 * //Learning from other companies and from customers//
 * //Transferring knowledge throughout your organization//

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Although many businesses only reimburse employees for coursework related to the business, some offer education reimbursement for coursework in any discipline as a way to enhance their employees' interest in learning. =====

//· Best practices // //Our Learning Organization needs to provide best practices within the organization. Among these are three key areas: Administrative Skills, Interpersonal Skills and conceptual Skills. //

// Administrative skills deal with addressing and managing people as well as understanding and listening to employee’s suggestions and feelings towards ideas and innovations. It requires the participation in upcoming events for management training as well as allowing employees to complete tasks requested without micro-management of every task. It is vital to hire skilled employees that will function as part of team and manage resources in order to reduce the budget when appropriate. Technical competencies need to be addressed so that employees Understanding how to troubleshoot current and new technology such as training employees on the technology products brought in, using current Microsoft Office Technology to minimize workloads and effectively using e-mails and mail merge features in outlook. //

//Interpersonal skills within our organization needs to address being socially perceptive to staff members needs by creating a suggestion forum for employees as well as administration taking time to conference with employees in order to address personal feelings, how the effect employees and how to make changes to improve the working environment. //

//Conceptual skills involve addressing problem solving within our learning organization in order to take corrective action. This involves delegating responsibility to the appropriate person to fix problem the most effective and fastest way, identify problems when they arise and determining the cause. Moreover, strategic planning is essential in creating a vision with employees as a “Team” as well as Challenging employees to be a part of our Vision they have helped create. //  4. Is [your organization] a learning organization? (50 points)

· Description of [your organization or group] //Our learning organization is an Independent School District. We believe that as educators and administrators we should all be leaders in different capacities and working towards becoming a complete learning Organization. The leaders in a Learning Organization should be teachers as well as effective leaders All educators as well as staff members are responsible for leading the students in a goal driven direction with a purpose and Vision for both themselves as well as the Vision of the School District. It is important that in order to create an environment that is more of a learning organization, as per the definition that we be more willing to become a facilitators of learning and develop a vision for our students in order to help them to develop their own vision in order to work together towards a common goal. We believe that our organization is on the right track to becoming a learning organization. Although it is a school system, which should be a learning organization by definition, in some respects there needs to be some changes in order for it to grow more effectively. Leadership does have a vision, and in that area we are on the right track. Sharing that vision and helping the educators by allowing them to help create that vision would encourage us to move towards a common vision and most likely make it easier to get everyone on board in the same direction. Our organization is very good about showing its staff members in what direction we are trying to go, however I believe that simply saying we are doing this and actually getting the employees to get on the bus in the right direction can be more difficult of a task. We also believe that as educators that are working towards a learning organization capacity that we all need to be willing to expand our own knowledge through learning in order to share that experience with our students, fellow workers, parents and the community .If we are not willing to learn new ideas and ways of doing things, especially with the ever-changing technology age, then we may be in the wrong business. Those that are unwilling to do things differently may get lost in the shuffle along the way. //

· Assessment approaches · Assessment results

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//We believe that our organization is not a successful learning organization at htis point in time however the organization is trying to be a learning organization. Our evaluation score was mainly below the median score in most areas.Our organization wants us to learn, but doesn’t give the employees any say in what they are going to learn. The organization does try new approaches and concepts, but we aren’t told why these concepts were chosen. We are expected to blindly accept what is given to us. Also, once we have speakers come in and we have days of training on the concept, it is never mentioned again. We never hear about results, successes or failures. Another big problem is the fact that miracle results are expected from whatever new concept is tried. If it doesn’t fix the problem in one year, another concept is found and implemented. After a while, it gets to the point that long-time employees don’t try too hard to implement the new learning, because something new will take it’s place next year. I think that if my organization would let their employees be more involved in the decision making process, then the organization would be more likely to be successful as a learning organization.//======

5. Action plans for [your organization] (including what leaders should do) (50 points) //Setting the Tone more effectively in our organization involves several key factors in order to become a better learning organization.// //1. **Learning Organizations**// **//Provide Structure://** **//As educators, w//**//**e**// //can help communicate with co-workers and administration what our goals are in order to give a clear picture of where our organization is heading. . Organizing groups for special tasks within the individual schools and encouraging the staff participation in these areas will help provide structure.// **//2.//** //**Learning Organizations**// **//Clarify Norms://** //As leaders in the district all teachers and staff members could observe what the normal operating procedures are for group meetings and then as a group we could set some standards as to when we want to meet, who brings what to the meetings and how the meetings will be conducted. Having procedures in place that have the input from various perspectives of employees will provide for less misunderstanding.// **//3 .Learning Organizations//** **//Build Cohesiveness//**//: As educators we could encourage group member that are not as actively involved to participate in the groups organized. We could discuss with the group how they need to share the responsibilities of leadership and each person take an initiative to complete their portion of the group projects assigned. We could also help individual group members if they are struggling to achieve their goals through question and answer session and encouraging group discussions.// **//4.//** //**Learning Organizations**// **//Promote Standards://** //The skills// **//and//** //strength of the individual staff members needs to be defined as projects are broken up into special Task Groups. Having group members define what they want to accomplish from the project and clarify in writing what their group expectations are would be essential to success.//

//One of the major obstacles that our organization is confronted with is low involvement. It is true that having a voice in what happens in an organization is very important. In our organization we believe that there could be more groups organized in order to get particular tasks done. If people felt like they were part of the decisions then they would be more inclined to support them. By opening up the some of the decision making processes to allow the educators to be involved in more decisions we believe we could become a better learning organization.// // Another obstacle that our organization faces is unclear goals. This is something that we believe that administration is working on in order to establish a vision. However, we believe that many times the goals are so broad that they do not allow the staff members to take them as their own. We believe that our organization could better itself if the goals were not tangled in competing goals and that staff members were allowed to share more in the goals, this would allow them to feel a part of the entire vision. //

6. Conclusion (10 points) 7. References (10 points)

· 7 - 10 double-spaced pages (excluding references) · The length should not exceed 10.
 * Length**

· APA style o [] o [] · Appropriate use of headings, subheadings, and white space
 * Paper** **format**


 * Due date**: August 8, 2010

References

Smith, M. K. (2001) 'Peter Senge and the learning organization', //the encyclopedia of informal education.// [[|www.infed.org/thinkers/senge.htm]. Last update: September 03, 2009] http://www.solonline.org/aboutsol/who/Senge/

Garvin, D.A.(9/19/2008). //Building a Learning Organization.// Retrieved from http://www.bnet.com/cp/building-a-learning-organization/190908 Rheem, Helen. (Mar./Apr. 1995). //The learning organization//. __Harvard Business Review__ vol. 73, no. 2: 10. Mason, Moya ( 2010). //What is a Learning Organization// retrieved from http://www.moyak.com/papers/learning-organization.html Simpkins, L. (5/18/2004). //Creating a Learning Organization. Retrieved from http://www.gaebler.com/Creating-a-Learning-Organization.htm//