OB assignment essay on: Learning process in organization-organization learning
INTRODUCTION
An organization along with all its components contribute and divulge in the learning process whether they chose to or not, consciously or unconsciously. Some organizations intentionally incorporate organizational learning; with training programs for their employees to help them grow as an individual and develop potentials that help them achieve their objectives. Some organizations on the other hand make no effort to provide such an intellectual environment thus in process acquiring practices that may seem counterproductive in the long run. However, one must address the question of how an organization learns. Individuals learning process could be brought down to one word that being “communication” (Innovativelearning.com, 2011). With the overwhelming rat eat which technological advancements be it in the kind of products that are now being developed, or advancement processes or organizational upgrades. The competitive challenges that the global economy imposes on the learning process of an individual or an organization are immense. The pressure to withstand such competition and continue the unending process of learning to adapt to the dynamic nature of our environment makes individual and organizations both appreciate the importance of communication. An organization learns through its individuals and that is why it is important to understand the theories on individual learning to understand the concept of organizational learning (Elkjaer &Wahlgren, 2006).
BODY
The significance of Individual learning could be summed up in a sentence, which would state that an organization is nothing but a group of individuals. And thus, individual learning will in turn lead to organizational learning. An organization may not get affected by the learning of a single individual but the organizational learning process is not independent of all the individuals when put together. Jean Piaget and Kurt Lewin are on of the few theorists who have provided an insight on our learning process as individuals and in groups (Kuepers,2008).
Learning can be defined in two ways to incorporate most of its meanings (1) the acquisition of the skill to produce some action, (2) acquiring the necessary know-how, to be able to conceptualize the theory of an experience linking thought with action. Basically, one can conclude there are two levels of learning first being the operational and second being the conceptual. An experience for an individual starts a chain of process, which leads to some kind of action, reflection, and retention, which leads to another experience beginning another process of learning (Torres, Preskill et al. 2005). However, organizational learning is not just a step above individual learning, a huge level difference exists. Organizational learning is a complicated and a dynamic phenomenon when a compared to a single individual learning. The complex nature of this learning increase as one shifts from the learning process of a single individual to a large collection of diversely brought up, individuals with a vast set of individual working belief systems of their own. The learning process fundamentally changes at the organizational level, however, the meaning of the term “learning” discussed above remains more or less the same as what it was, in the individual’s case. One of the most significant dimensions of organizational learning is time which can be interpreted as the mode of succession indicated by clocks etc, it allows events to be reconstructed as earlier or later. In the dynamic business environment how, individual efforts may be required to bereconstructed, but the same individual effort may lead to a different organizational action (Elkjaer &Wahlgren,2006).
Coordination and integration of individuals however, form an important aspect of the organization as both of the processes are required when a group of different individuals have to work together for a common set of goals or objectives. It forms the cementing force of a successful organization. As the operations diversify and become complex or the number of operation rises, the need to coordinate rises with it. In a large organization the number of individual employed are also large. If the efforts and activities of these individuals is not coordinated this may lead to a cross purpose of their work and even the several layers of occupational hierarchy or authority causes problems of communication (Elliott and Turnbull, 2005). Personal contact or one on one attention to every project by the head of the organization is not possible and there is a need to constantly to put in efforts to maintain harmony and a pleasant working environment for the individuals. Due to the multifarious nature of the tasks and the lack of uniformity, specialization and diversification of works takes place. The organization forms smaller departments within, themselves with their own specific goals employing people specializing in the specific tasks that department specifically performs. The greater the horizontal and vertical differentiations the greater the need for coordination; division of labor is inevitable; efforts have to be effectively integrated (Kuepers, 2008).
Another important problem that arises due to emphasis of individual learning over organizational learning is the clash of interests, individuals form a part of an organization to meet the organizational goal only if in the long turn they are able achieve their personal goals. Personal goals of an individual may differ from fame, to social acceptability, to increase in income or betterment of lifestyle (Groth, 1999). However, one cannot undermine the importance of an individual’s personal goal with comparison to the organizational goal. The achievement of organizational goal is an end process and the achievement of one personal goal just leads to invention of another goal. They may pursue their own specialized interests at the expense of the organizational goal. Integration of such individual effort to make them realize that how achievement of the organizational goal may in turn help them achieve their personal goal is very important for the success of both the individual and the organization (Senge, 1990). Capacity, talent, and speed of people differ widely. It becomes almost imperative to reconcile the differences in outlooks, targets, efforts of different departments to secure a unity of action. Coordination becomes difficult due to these differences in working styles or the different attitudes of people towards a single goal to secure unity of action. For the successful functioning of an organization, the organization depends on the interdependence of the units as James D (Webster-Wright, 2010). Thompson differentiated interdependence when it comes to an organization as (i) pooled, (ii) sequential, and (iii) reciprocal. Pooled is when the various departments of an organization do not depend on the working of any other department in their day to day working and work as autonomous units. As the word sequential explains for itself, the working of each department forms a progression or a sequence, the second department cannot begin with its work until and unless the first has successfully finished with their. The level of interdependency is the highest when it comes to reciprocal interdependence as in such an organization each department works simultaneously together all different units are reciprocally related and have to have a relationship between them. Human nature subsides ones personal interest over that of his co workers or workers that function beneath him/ her (Rebernik and Bradač, et al, n.d). Conflicts tend to rise in such cases successful coordination makes space for successful resolving of such conflicts. If the organization consists of a small group of people perhaps, the term organizational learning may be considered synonymous with individual learning. As the organization grows the need for a system to capture the learning of an individual to in turn aid the process of organizational learning evolves (Habermas,1984).
Conclusion
An organization clearly learns through its individual members and, therefore, is affected directly or indirectly by individual learning. However, the difference arises when that learning process leads to an action. An individual with his own system of beliefs will perform his/ her function in the organization. This action when seen collectively comprising of the efforts of all the individuals in an organization will lead to an organizational action, which in turn will produce some kind of environmental response. The cycle completes when this environmental response in turn affects the individual belief. Theories of organizational theories for a very longtime have been based on individual learning. However, if in an organization learning would only take place at an individual level, the organization would become a chaotic diverse actions glossing over organizational complexities. It will be very difficult for the organization to come together as one. Though, if individual learning altogether is ignored the actual learning process would die leading to stagnation of the organization. Thus, one can conclude that individual learning is a part of the organizational learning process, and it is a very important and crucial part however, its not the only learning process. Organizational learning has five main features; systems thinking, mental modes, shared vision and team learning. Individual learning may constitute as a unit of all of these features but it does not constitute the whole of organizational learning. However, as a learning organization is described as the sum of individual learning, there must be mechanisms for individual learning to be transferred into organizational learning (Torres, Preskill et al. 2005).
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