Learning Organisations

Implementation Strategies

Any organisation that wants to implement a learning organisation philosophy requires an overall strategy with clear, well defined goals. Once these have been established, the tools needed to facilitate the strategy must be identified.

It is clear that everyone has their own interpretation of the "Learning Organisation" idea, so to produce an action plan that will transform groups into Learning Organisations might seem impossible. However, it is possible to identify three generic strategies that highlight possible routes to developing Learning Organisations. The specific tools required to implement any of these depends on the strategy adopted, but the initiatives that they represent are generic throughout. These initiatives are ably described using Peter Senge's Five Disciplines of Learning Organisations (Senge, 1990). The three strategies are:

Accidental

For many companies, adopting a learning organisation philosophy is the second step to achieving this Holy Grail. They may already be taking steps to achieve their business goals that, in hindsight, fit the framework for implementing a Learning Organisation. This is the accidental approach in that it was not initiated through awareness of the Learning Organisation concept.

Subversive

Once an organisation has discovered the Learning Organisation philosophy, they must make a decision as to how they want to proceed. This is a choice between a subversive and a declared strategy. The subversive strategy differs from an accidental one in the level of awareness; but it is not secretive! Thus, while not openly endorsing the Learning Organisation ideal, they are able to exploit the ideas and techniques.

Declared

The other option is the declared approach. This is self explanatory. The principles of Learning Organisations are adopted as part of the company ethos, become company "speak" and are manifest openly in all company initiatives.

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