The Learning Culture Of The Organisation

What are the Characteristics of an Organisation?

The pre-requisite for learning is new ideas. To infuse new ideas into the organisation, they must:

• Scan the external environment constantly.
• Hire new talent and expertise when needed.
• Devote significant resources to training and development of the employees.

New knowledge must be transferred throughout the organisation. Information, ideas and knowledge must be shared among all employees.

Behaviour must change as a result of the new knowledge.

What is the Current Status of Learning and Development in the Organisation?

Before an organisation can start to promote a learning culture, the current status of that organisation must be known.

In order to find out what the current status of your organisation is, you can use the following sources:

• Your training and development plans.
• All reports on training and development of the past.
• Interviews that were done and new interviews.
• By observing your employees.

Most organisations or companies are already involved in skills development activities. They give opportunities to employees to attend training interventions so that the employees can develop. The management team (supervisors and managers) must support the employees and encourage them to develop. Only when this is happening you can claim that your organisation has a learning culture.

However, you do get organisations and companies who do not have this development taking place.

Although the Skills Development Act forces us to develop WSPs, it is not always implemented. By implementing your WSP, you are forced to let training/learning take place.

If a positive learning culture exists in your organisation, it will be easy to implement your training and development plans.

If you do not have a learning culture, the SDF and the HR department will have to put all effort in to get your employees to attend the training activities of your organisation.

Elements of a Learning Culture

Leading management thinker, Peter Senge, has identified five discipline of a learning culture that contributes to building a robust learning organisation.

Personal mastery: An environment that encourages personal and organisational goals to be developed and realised in partnership.

Mental models: An awareness that a person’s “internal” picture of their environment will shape their decisions and behaviour.

Shared vision: A sense of group commitment that is built by developing shared images of the future.

Team learning: Transformed conversational and collective thinking skills, so that a group’s capacity to reliably develop intelligence and ability is greater than the sum of its individual member’s talent.

System thinking: The developed ability to see the “big picture” and understands how changes in one area.