chickenfeet

The idea of the "Learning Organization" has been fashionable for a while now but I wonder if there isn't a flaw in the basic thinking. The idea of capturing and reusing knowledge is obviously useful, particularly in an organization (hospital, consulting practice) where in many ways "knowledge" is the product. However, does knowledge reuse really allow the organization to learn? Surely, in organizational terms, learning implies behaviour change. How does the availability of knowledge to lower level managers and workers create change if they operate in a more or less rigidly controlled policy and process environment? Could it be that the true Learning Organization can only be realised in the context of a complex adaptive organisation incorporating some of the insights from complexity theory.*

Just my thought for today...

*"Complexity science is not a single theory. It is the study of complex adaptive systems - the patterns of relationships within them, how they are sustained, how they self-organize and how outcomes emerge." - A Complexity Science primer