Is Your Company A Learning Organisation?

Really? Is it for real, or all PR talking? Spinning is a skill, and it’s okay to admit that your company puts in a healthy budget toward developing its people, or not. Training and people development investments may be a luxury during hard, economic periods and these amounts get diverted to more important areas that are bleeding.

Peter Senge coined this term in his landmark 1990 book, ‘The Fifth Discipline’ now embraced as a textbook for human resources practitioners, trainers and OD practitioners. Senge clearly explains that in the long run the only sustainable competitive advantage is your organization’s ability to learn faster than the competition. Better, stronger and faster. Move from survive to strive to thrive.

Here is a report on how accounting giant PricewaterhouseCoopers LLP applies the learning organization through its successful leadership development program.

Today’s paying audience is discerning, knowing their consumer rights from their individual rights. The paying audience has learnt quickly from experiencing disappointments and buyer’s remorse to become more demanding. Today, the concept of rights has extended beyond consumers to humans to animals. We have learnt how to apply what we have learnt, ensuring that we continue to get quality and value for money.

Consumers can express their concerns yet there are sensible and reasonable ways to exact their demands, as requests. When we shift from face-to-face communication to the hidden-panels of Facebook, we can rear our ugly side. Freedom of speech becomes mired with emotional impulsiveness that reflect us as lowly members of the lynch mob. The mob gathers membership, steam, and momentum and allows others to ‘suffer the slings and arrows of outrageous fortunes’. Fools suffer gladly. Let us learn from other people’s mistakes and not repeat them in creative ways. Learn, live and let live.

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I was surprised with the results of Sunday’s half-marathon. I expected to place in the top-five, a mild improvement from last year’s sixth in the Masters’ category. I learnt that I was first, with the faster runners disqualified because of technical issues; even Poon, who I paced with for the first half of the race, was disqualified due to missing a timing-mat. After Sunday’s race organization falling short of expectations, I was glad there was no mention of an awards ceremony. I would have found it awkward to collect a prize. I earned two personal best times: one for the course, and another for my best 21K finish. I considered it a great training day, where I did not exceed the prescribed distance due to poor marshaling and ignorance of the course. The organizers did apologise immediately after the race, and subsequently provided a solution that was an attempt to right their wrong. We cannot change the past, but ensure the future does not include reckless repetition.

My plantar fasciitis condition is stable after two days of rest, and I hope to recover soon with rehabilitation and strength-training to prepare for my next local long-distance triathlon. I have withdrawn from Ironman Canada, and am focused on marathons for the rest of the year until next year’s IM New Zealand. [Update: I learnt from the emcee, Ros that there was a prize presentation and I was absent during the callout. My mistake for glossing over my performance. Anyway, nice to know that my dry spell may be over.]


Photo-credit: Franxis Yong