Posted by Bruce Gold, MPA student University of Victoria on July 31, 1998 at 17:54:40:

In Reply to: Re: Knowledge Management and Learning Organizations posted by Yogesh Malhotra on February 26, 1998 at 01:31:39:

Greetings

I have some difficulties with how the term "learning organization" is being used. First, it is a reification. There is no such thing as a "learning organization", organizations don't learn, only people learn hence we should be referring to "organizations with a learning culture" not "learning organizations". This may seem to be nit-picking but I think it's an important distinction that emphasises the people based social/cultural nature of learning.
If we approach this with Senge's terms of adaptive and generative learning we can see two types of culture. The adaptive learning culture (coping culture), which almost by definition implies a loss of initiative and strongly implies imposed learning. Hence an imposition of assumptions, viewpoints, issues, criteria etc. It is questionable whether this is really learning or merely "being trained". Generative learning on the other hand implies a pro-active culture that seizes the initiative to create its own knowledge and hence the ability to frame that knowledge in creative ways, which is an application of the old insight that "the question shapes the answer".

I also have some difficulties with Senge's idea of "continual change". First, chaos is not structure, it's an absence of structure. A learning culture that is generative is by definition pro-active which implies deliberate, intentional change (more of a co-evolutionary emphasis rather than a "start bailing now" emphasis).
This is particularly important because Senge gives the impression that change is so fast that all structures are obsolete on implementation. This is a viewpoint with serious drawbacks. Organizations (being human structures) have considerable amounts of "inertia". It takes time for people to learn, re-organise and adapt. This is especially true of larger organizations were networks and interconnection are used to deal with complexity. Change must be a balancing act between ineffectiveness by loss of relevance and ineffectiveness by internal turbulence.
How rapidly things are changing is also an issue especially when we ask the question "changing for whom?". For example computer chips are "changing" dramatically fast which has implications for chip designers but the impact of this change for hardware production is slower and the impact for end users is even slower still. For example; chip designers may face incremental change at very fast speeds and breakthrough change at a slower random interval pace. Hardware manufacturers (dealing in actual fabrication and production) experience this at an even slower speed and end users only encounter it when new machines actually reach their business where the impact of revolutionary change might be minimal. (How much was your secretary effected by upgrading her word processor from a 486 to a Pentium II?)

--- Bruce Gold

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