Design for Organizational Learning and Adaptation

John Pourdehnad

Why do corporations, on average, have shorter life spans than the people who populate them? Because, say the theorists, people are more capable of learning from experience than corporations are.

With change the only constant in today's economy, the key to competitiveness is the ability to adapt to changes we can't control and to learn about the ones we can control. The decline of some well-established firms and the diminishing competitive power of others have made learning an essential competence for organizational success.

But too many organizations are unable to learn from their mistakes; they fail to adapt to customer needs and haven't improved their processes to meet rising competitive standards. As a result, they eventually lose market share and drop out of the race.

For the organizations that do learn, it is often by accident rather than a deliberate attempt to deepen knowledge and understanding.

Research indicates that most organizations are deficient at learning because 1) they lack systematic processes that would facilitate learning and, 2) have an anti-learning bias, specifically a political bias to conserve the previously successful ways of thinking and seeing.

The literature also reveals the need to develop a good understanding of the words "organizational" and "learning." Discussion about organizational learning often fails to make useful distinctions between "organizational learning" (OL), which typically means learning by individuals and groups in the organization, versus the "learning organization" (LO), which means learning by the organization as a total system.

Accordingly, Ackoff's "systems thinking" approach to organizational learning and adaptation (L&A) as a "meta" conceptual framework is being developed to specifically link strategic decision making with organizational sense-making and knowledge networking at organizations.

The operating system for L&A relies in part on an information technology infrastructure. This computer-based system will use information technology enablers such as collaborative technologies, organizational memory, and knowledge discovery tools. All subsystems will support the decision-making process by providing the decision makers with relevant information, knowledge, and understanding based on experiential learnings. It will also serve as an integrating framework for numerous other management initiatives.

For more information see Above and Beyond Knowledge Management (Oxford University Press).