Shipulski On Design

The people within companies have development plans so they can learn new things and become more effective.  There are two types of development plans – one that builds on strengths and another that shore up shortcomings. And for both types, the most important step is to acknowledge it’s important to improve. Before a plan can be created to improve on a strength, there must be recognition that something good can come from the improvement. And before there can be a plan to improve on a shortcoming, there must be recognition that there’s something missing and it needs to be improved.

And thanks to Human Resources, the whole process is ritualized. The sequence is defined, the timing is defined and the tools are defined. Everyone knows when it will happen, how it will happen and, most importantly, that it will happen.  In that way, everyone knows it’s important to learn new skills for the betterment of all.

Organizational learning is altogether different and more difficult.  With personal learning, it’s clear who must do the learning (the person). But with organizational learning, it’s unclear who must learn because the organization, as a whole, must learn. But we can’t really see the need for organizational learning because we get trapped in trying to fix the symptoms. Team A has a problem, so let’s fix Team A. Or, Team B has a problem, so let’s fix Team B. But those are symptoms. Real organizational learning comes when we recognize problematic themes shared by all the teams. Real organization learning comes when we realize these problems don’t result from doing things wrong, rather, they are a natural byproduct of how the company goes about its work.

The difficulty with organizational learning is not fixing the thematic problems. The difficulty is recognizing the thematic problems. When all the processes are followed and all the best practices are used, yet the same problematic symptoms arise, the problem is inherent in the foundational processes and practices. Yet, these are the processes and practices responsible for past success. It’s difficult for company leaders recognize and declare that the things that made the company successful are now the things that are holding the company back. But that’s the organizational learning that must happen.

What worked last time will work next time, as long as the competitive landscape remains constant. But when the landscape changes, what worked last time doesn’t work anymore. And this, I think, is how recipes responsible for past success can, over time, begin to show cracks and create these systematic problems that are so difficult to see.

The best way I know to recognize the need for organizational learning is to recognize changes in the competitive landscape. Once these changes are recognized, thought experiments can be run to evaluate potential impacts on how the company does business. Now that the landscape changed like this, it could stress our business model like that. Now that our competitors provide new services like this, it could create a gap in our capabilities like that.

Organizational learning occurs when the right leaders feel the problems. Fight the urge to fix the problems. Instead, create the causes and conditions for the right leaders to recognize they have a real problem on their hands.

Image credit – Jim Bauer

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