Learning Organisation: Why Is It Important to Organisations
Learning Organization: Why is it important to Organizations? By Subodh Shakya Learning is at the heart of a company’s ability to adapt to rapidly changing environment. * John Browne (CEO, British Petroleum Company)
Introduction of Learning Organization
Learning, today, has become the essential part of our life. People who fail to learn new things, skills or acquire new knowledge have limited probability to success. The same applies to the organizations also. Organizations that fail to learn new skills and acquire new knowledge, are being out of sight from this cut-throat, highly competitive business world. They are bound to improve themselves continuously or else bound to fail. In today’s dynamic environment, no organization can boast for being the best among the others until and unless they are continuously involving themselves in learning processes and preparing themselves to cope with the changes.
At this point, it will be fair enough to mention about learning organization–a practice in which people at all level in an organization are continuously learning new skills and knowledge to enhance their capabilities in order to achieve the desired results. The concept of learning organization was first introduced by Peter Senge (Senge, 1994). He once stated in an interview, that a learning organization is a group of people working together to collectively enhance their capabilities to create results they really care about1 and popularized the concept of learning organization in his book “The Fifth Discipline”. Organizations, in present context, face huge and uncertain threat from factors of external environment. As a result, they have started to feel the need of creating the learning organization to facilitate the learning of their employees. However, it is vital to know about the importance and need of learning organization.
Importance of Learning Organization
With the perennial rise in competition and the constant changes that occur,
Introduction of Learning Organization
Learning, today, has become the essential part of our life. People who fail to learn new things, skills or acquire new knowledge have limited probability to success. The same applies to the organizations also. Organizations that fail to learn new skills and acquire new knowledge, are being out of sight from this cut-throat, highly competitive business world. They are bound to improve themselves continuously or else bound to fail. In today’s dynamic environment, no organization can boast for being the best among the others until and unless they are continuously involving themselves in learning processes and preparing themselves to cope with the changes.
At this point, it will be fair enough to mention about learning organization–a practice in which people at all level in an organization are continuously learning new skills and knowledge to enhance their capabilities in order to achieve the desired results. The concept of learning organization was first introduced by Peter Senge (Senge, 1994). He once stated in an interview, that a learning organization is a group of people working together to collectively enhance their capabilities to create results they really care about1 and popularized the concept of learning organization in his book “The Fifth Discipline”. Organizations, in present context, face huge and uncertain threat from factors of external environment. As a result, they have started to feel the need of creating the learning organization to facilitate the learning of their employees. However, it is vital to know about the importance and need of learning organization.
Importance of Learning Organization
With the perennial rise in competition and the constant changes that occur,
References: 1. Fulmer, Robert M., Keys, J. Bernard. (1998). A Conversation with Peter Senge: new developments in organizational learning. Organizational Dynamics, 33-42. 2. Shakya S. Learning Organization. KDBC Convergence. November 2011. pp. 2. 3. Aggestam, L.2006.Learning Organization or knowledge Management: which came first, the chicken or the egg? Vol.35, No. 3A. 4. Edmonson, Amy C. The Competitive Imperative of Learning. Harvard Business Review. July-August 2008. pp. 65. 5. Hübner, S. Building a Learning Organization. January 2002. pp. 16.