LEARNING ORGANISATION: LEARNING FROM FAILURES

OVERVIEW:

Though there is no universally acceptable definition for learning that satisfies the mental curiosities across the limitless schools of thoughts; but for the purpose of this article, learning is depicted to mean - “a complex process of acquiring knowledge, understanding, skills and new values in order to be able to adapt to the changing environment of one’s existence”. In it’s parlance, comprehensive learning underpins the amount, quality and rate of take-up of learning which ultimately depends on - 

(a) the innate intelligence and motivation of the learner;

(b) the skills of the teacher; and

(c) the conditions in which the learning takes place with relevant learning aids.

Without any literal complications, the term ‘Learning’ refers to the processes and activities of acquiring new knowledge, ideas and know-how about a thing, concept, process or an issue. To learn is to update one’s knowledge-base with newer layers of understanding. Understanding a thing is to be able to interprete, appreciate and re-organise a strand of knowledge of a thing. Derived from understanding is the term – ‘WISDOM’ which in it’s entirety remains the ability to deploy, use and apply what is known at the appropriate time for the most rewarding purpose.

Thus – learning is the foundation base for knowledge, while knowledge breeds understanding whose profitable application ultimately denotes wisdom to the owner, lender, beneficiary and benefactor of ‘what is known’. To learn is the practical demonstration of the commitment to knowing a new thing for whatever purpose; but when not displayed – many people and organisations exist at the mercy of mediocrity.

LEARNING AND ORGANISATION:

Entrenching learning through his book – ‘How the mighty fall’, Jim Collins outlined that, “declines can be avoided” (if all necessary steps, learning and strategies, continuous improvement are in place); “decline can be detected” (if unavoidable declines set in as a result of failureS of the organizations and business to take appropriate proactive and holistic measures to guide its business decisions and actions); ‘decline can be reversed’ (with appropriate insights, measures and lessons learnt from failures, an immediate turn around, transformational initiatives, interventions can quickly restore business into its rightful position).

LEARNING FROM FAILURES-CORPORATE LESSONS:

Learning from failures is part of life and business experience, but outright failures can lead to complete devastation-which is no good a case study for positive emulation and impact. Global leaders and business giants have succeeded using failure as an experiment at the early part of their businesses and as they confront the brutal facts for breakthrough and expansion. Their failures were not outright extinction from relevance, rather, an experiment with improvements, insights and better ways of delivering efficiency, value, investment strategies and growth. They take calculated, measurable, well and carefully evaluated decisions.

The consolidation of Nigeria’s commercial banking brands by Nigeria’s CBN(Central Bank of Nigeria) in the past two decades continually resonates the imports of learning to the going-concern status of corporate organisations. For the consolidation fatalities, Nigeria and Nigerian banking customers are still wagging in the unprecedented demise and corporate obituaries of banking giants like Oceanic International Bank and Intercontinental Bank Plc.

Not necessarily for liquidity epilepsy or banking operation failures, the failures, inabilities and naivety of the owners of the affected banking brands to quickly learn and understand the ‘Politics of Nigeria Banking Business’ caused them their corporate generational crash, the recovery from which may survive both their biological existence and generational passage. Their sudden but painful corporate demise and extinction critically substantiates the need to really and carefully learn what is ‘Critical, Material and Timely’ both as a corporate organization and also as owners/directors of corporate brands.

In his publication, Chijioke Nelson, (the Assistant Editor, Finance/Economy, Guidance Newspaper, of 24th December, 2018) outlined the “intrigues, lapses, losses and causes of Diamond Bank Plc’s Fall.” In his analyses, the Writer noted some acts of compromise; corporate governance failures; fatal financial indiscretion; corporate incompetencies; and weak control systems, amongst others in the defunct Pascal Dozie’s Diamond Bank Plc. Concluding, the author lamented how painful it was to watch Diamond Bank Plc towered down from her brilliant performance point and dwindled until it became insolvent and hugely indebted for a take-over bid by even a relatively weaker but strategically willing banking brand (Access Bank Plc).

Elon Musk of Tesla (the electronic car giant) says, “Shoot for the moon, even if you miss, you will still land amongst the stars.” While priding himself as having volatile ‘resume of failures’ Bezos wrote, “failure comes part and parcel with invention. It is not optional. We understand that and believe in failing early and iterating until we set it right.” In his 2016 shareholder letter, Bezos also wrote thus - “One area where we are the best especially distinctive is failure. I believe we are the best place in the world to fail, we have plenty to practice.” Explaining further,  he stated that - “We will continue to learn from both our successes and our failures. In his letters to Shareholders, he says. In another vein - Thomas Edison (the great and iconic researcher) narrated to other prominent scholars, inventors and researchers that – “learning is part of discovery, inventions and better outcomes”. Learning is a tool for both natural and artificial entities; thus – as Individuals learn, so also do corporate businesses. In his words – ‘LEARNING IS THE MAJOR CORPORATE LUBRICANT OF EVERY UPWARDLY MOBILE BUSINESS BRAND’. They learn from both the past and the present in order to reach an ultimate, better future. Even as individuals - we learn from failures and past successes; we learn from the past and the present; we learn from our experience and those of others; we learn from far and near; we learn from employees and line managers; we learn from investor and the customers; we learn from competition and product innovations. However, the outcomes of learning both from failures and appreciable successes are to produce more refined and dependable outcomes; better results; stronger outcomes; visible efficiency and effectiveness without trails of repeated failures and process scratches.

The happenings in the corporate world with regards to enormous failures and outright brand extinction necessitate and compel businesses to learn as much as individuals. As an organization, every future-seeking business must learn from failed and failing corporate giants; they must learn from their own mistakes as they unfold; they must learn from the market, industry and global expectations; they must learn from the ever changing business landscape; they must learn from the offering of technologies and impact of social changes, customers, employees, etc. All human and environmental interactions propel and produce LEARNING. Organizations that fail to respond to learning from both failures and visible success of others are doomed for extinction.

LEARNING ORGANISATION IN RETROSPECT:

Peter Senge, a professor at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT), popularized the term learning organization in his best-selling book The Fifth Discipline. He describes a learning organization as “a group of people working together to collectively enhance their capacities to create results that they truly care about.” A practical interpretation of these ideas results in the following definition. A learning organization is one that proactively creates, acquires, transfers knowledge and that changes its behaviour on the basis of new knowledge and insights.

Learning organizations actively try to infuse their organizations with new ideas and information. They do this by constantly scanning the external environments, hiring new talent and expertise when needed and by devoting significant resources to train and develop their employees. Next, new knowledge must be transferable throughout the organization. Learning organization strive to reduce structural, process, and interpersonal barriers to the sharing of information, ideas, and knowledge among organizational members. Finally, behaviours must change as a result of new knowledge. Learning organization are results-oriented. They foster an environment in which employees are encouraged to use new behaviours and operational processes to achieve corporate goals.

Senge has had a great impact on the way we conduct business today. He believed in the theory of systems thinking which has sometimes been referred to as the ‘Cornerstone’ of the learning organization. System thinking is the process of understanding how things influence one another within a whole. In organization, system consist of people, structure and processes that work together to make an organization attain its goals or fail. System thinking has been defined as an approach to problem solving, viewing ‘problem’ as parts of an overall system, rather than reacting to a specific part (department, functions, unit).

Buchanan and Huczynski (2010) describe the learning organization “as an organizational form that enables individual learning to create valid outcomes such as innovation, efficiency, environmental alignment and competitive advantage.”   

Senge suggests that the discipline of the learning organization are based on five converging strategies that he term ‘component technologies’ which can be summarized as follows:

1.     System thinking—developing a conceptual frameworks that see organizations as comprising various interrelated activities and grouping, which together make up more than the sum of the part; this represents an organic and intuitive view of organizations.

2.     Personal mastery—this is the ability to produce results consistently as well as proficiency, and assume a high degree of personal commitment to learning; Senge sees it as an ‘essential cornerstone of the learning organization’.

3.     Mental models—what Senge is thinking of here is the importance to a learning organization of developing people’s awareness of their assumptions and prejudices, so that they may be examined for their continued relevance and usefulness as well as maximum corporate business impacts.

4.     Shared vision—this means developing a framework and set of processes which allow a common vision and purpose to emerge around which people at every level can find a sense of destiny, purpose, shared mindset and shared vision.

5.     Team learning—the discipline involved in this strategy is that of engaging in dialogue with colleagues; Senge defines dialogue as “the capacity of members of a team to suspend assumptions and enter into a genuine ‘thinking together’…dialogue …. involves learning how to recognize the pattern of interactions in teams that undermine learning.

Characteristics of a learning organization

Characteristics of a learning organization introduced with Fundamental characteristics the

following:

1) In Learning organization "information" runs smoothly at all levels of the organization;

2) Learning is done simultaneously at four levels of individual, group, intergroup, and

Organizational;

3) Staff due to continuous training and delegating that be given to them, with creating

of numerous teams and doing group discussions to pay their information and ability

improves.

4) Learning organization has bright and consensus visions about the future, growth

and development of the organization and the employees.

5) Learning organization is types of reflective thinking and insights about people,

organization and management.

In practice, effective learning requires that trainees adopt a flexible style, sometimes serialist, sometime holistic. However, this may not be possible for many people. The implication of different learning styles for course designers is that training methods should be varied to meet the differing approaches of their members-on the job, off-the job, leadership, strategic, conceptual or specialty, as may be informed by the business needs and corporate capabilities, new business direction, innovations. Thus, although trainers themselves may wish to use an experiential and participative forms of training, these may not always be welcomed by their trainees, who may prefer to opt for traditional methods, or situational learning method that best impacts.

PECULIARITIES OF LEARNING ORGANISATIONS

Peter Senge, a professor at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, popularized the term learning organization in his best-selling book - ‘The Fifth Discipline’ where he described a learning organization as “a group of people working together to collectively enhance their capacities to create results that they truly care about.” From this, a learning organization is one that proactively creates, acquires and transfers knowledge that changes its behaviour on the basis of new knowledge and insights. Learning organizations actively try to infuse their organization with new ideas and information. They do this by constantly scanning the external environments, hiring new talent and expertise when needed and by devoting significant resources to train and develop their employees. Next, new knowledge must be transferable throughout the organization. Learning organization strive to reduce structural, process, and interpersonal barriers to the sharing of information, ideas, and knowledge among organizational members. Finally, behaviour must change as a result of new knowledge. Learning organization are results oriented. They foster an      environment in which employee are encourage to use new behaviour and operational processes to achieve corporate goals.

Senge has had a great impact on the way we conduct business today. He believed in the theory of systems thinking which has sometimes been referred to as the ‘Cornerstone’ of the learning organization. System thinking is the process of understanding how things influence one another within a whole. In organization, system consist of people, structure and processes that work together to make an organization attain its goals or fail. System thinking has been defined as an approach to problem solving, viewing ‘problem’ as parts of an overall system, rather than reacting to a specific part. In his positions, Senge availed what he termed ‘Component Technologies’ of Learning organisations as follows:

System thinking—developing a conceptual framework that see organizations as comprising various interrelated activities and grouping, which together make up more than the sum of the part; this represents an organic and intuitive view of organizations.

Personal mastery—this is the ability to produce results consistently as well as proficiency, and assume a high degree of personal commitment to learning; Senge see it as an ‘essential cornerstone of the learning organization’.

Mental models—what Senge is thinking of here is the importance to a learning organization of developing people’s awareness of their assumptions and prejudices, so that they may be examined for their continued relevance and usefulness.

Shared vision—this means developing a framework and set of processes which allow a common vision and purpose to emerge around which people at every level can find a sense of destiny.

Team learning—the discipline involved in this strategy is that of engaging in dialogue with colleague; Senge defines dialogue as “the capacity of members of a team to suspend assumptions and enter into a genuine ‘thinking together’…dialogue …. involves learning how to recognize the pattern of interactions in teams that undermine learning.

Behavioural Characteristics of a Learning Organization

·        Information runs smoothly at all levels of the organization

·        Learning is done simultaneously at four levels of – 1) Individual, 2) Group, 3) Intergroup and 4) organizational.

·        Learning organization has bright and consensus visions about the future, growth

·        and development of the organization and the employees.

·        Learning organization thrives on ‘Reflective Thinking’; Deep Insights about people, organization and management.

·        Trainees (or employees) adopt a flexible style which can be serialist or holistic in resolving mental issues.

As Businesses learn so do individuals; as top Management learn so do lower cadre employees. But the sum total of an organisation’s learning is the aggregate of all her employees’ learning abilities that will result in organizational capabiltities. When properly entrenched, the quality of business decisions and outcomes of business activities of a firm is a direct reflection of the learning capabilities of the employees of the firm. Organization learns when its leaders are able to set clear intellectual directions and goals; anticipate completion; support efficiency; eliminate bureaucracy; build transparency; promote lifelong learning support system that enables and promotes candour, honesty, and debate profitable directions on ideas.

Below are some Operational Peculiarities of Learning Organisations -

1                   Learning organization promotes reviews of strategies and allow employees to be part of the decisions making since they will be assessed and also evaluated based on the outcomes.

2                   Learning organisations allow their system to create room for failures provided lessons can be learnt from the failures to move forward and advance the cause of the corporation.

3                   Learning organizations promote brainstorming and critique every issues, generating sufficient impacts, ideas, and contributions.

4                   Learning organisations allow and enable leaders to adjust and adapt quickly when the need to change directing becomes inevitable and are constantly reviewing the business climate to align with realities.

5                   Learning organisations build leadership brand that promotes simplicity, flexibility, adaptability, profitability, acceptability, credibility, simplicity, reality and possibility.

6                   Learning organisations do not just talk, they walk the talk.

TYPES OF LEARNING –

           1         CORPORATE LEARNING

Organisations learn to foster sustainable organizational growth; increased productivity; incremental profitability; robust and seamless processes; and enlarged market dominance. With more emphasis on corporate entities, learning, training and intellectual development may be considered at many levels within an organization for diverse purposes; but at the end of it all – every learning is aimed at improving efficiency, productivity and profitability. Learning updates knowledge, processes and production capabilities. Strategically, some organizations may appear as focusing on cultural issues; they may seek to align their corporate development with their outlined corporate strategies. Of vital importance however is the moral support provided by the firm for learning and knowledge advancement in every strand of her corporate life by - creating a learning-friendly climate in and around the firm to the glare of employees, shareholders, customers and other stakeholders. Learning represents the conscious acquisition and execution of new ideals, skills and strategies that have great impacts on the company’s shelf life. 

Organizations that drive continuous learning by its employees invariably roller-coasts an unconscious but continuous improvement psyche by everyone to repositioning the ways and means of her corporate existence. 

Learning impacts organizations; it shapens cultures and repositions priorities; it builds and improves corporate capabilities; it fulfills vision and mission statement commitments; it drives core values; and helps a great deal to judge from the past, present and future anticipations. From idea generations to reality, learning aligns an organisation’s work flow and deliverables; Learning connects new talents and passions; it projects expectations and outcomes; it rediscovers and sustains customers and their businesses with the firm. As much as learning impacts competencies (Technical or behavioral, leadership or conceptual, strategy or relationship), it comes absolutely from experience, comparison, acquisition and ongoing improvements. Learning organizations subjects its processes, products, policies and practices to constant review, appraisal and mutual evaluations by all stakeholders and process owners. A learning organization seeks to simplify her operations; eliminate process bureaucracies; drives unity of purpose; realign its cultures and enables its organization to win in the larger market space. From competition to customer expectations, labour issues, employee’s engagement, investors’ confidence, public, government and environmental demands, e.t.c learning remains the valiant corporate tool to keep a firm relevant and deliver expected values. However – organisations do not exist in vacuum or through spirits, people make the firm; thus – the learning by any organization is achieved mainly through her workforce which ultimately makes ‘Individual Learning’ the key consideration here. Though the firm is important, but since the policies and processes of the firm are implemented by the persons in the firms, both the firm and the persons in the firm cannot be separated whenever learning is mentioned, as being done here!!!

2         INDIVIDUAL LEARNING

Organizations attract talents to carry out its business activities; but no organisation eternally relies on the entry-level knowledge of her employees to run her affairs till retirement or resignation/employment cycle. From time to time, organisations expect improvement in the mental and technical contents of her employees so that the extant processes and strategies can be improved-upon on an ongoing basis. This expectation cannot but be defeated if the on-boarded employees do not enhance, improve and heighten their knowledge levels after joining the organization. Hence the increasing cost of training and retraining by employers almost all the time for her employees, knowledge sharing forum, team bonding, or critical and brainstorming sessions as well as strategy sessions. This also gets complemented by several employees who fund their trainings themselves in order to jack-up their productivity. From talent attraction to talent development, learning must constantly position employees for effectiveness, efficiency, speed, collaboration, leverage and ultimate satisfaction. Individual learning comes from skills, experience, involvements, experimentations, skills transfer, and knowledge management by respective employees either with personal or corporate funding.  Coaching and mentorship sessions have recently been adopted globally as a modern ways of facilitating better improvements in personal learning.

Individual learning is the employee’s functional competencies and ability to adapt, adopt and deliver from time to time as the scope of business expectations rise in the course of the employment contract. Learning must be commensurate with all these expectations at all times, else – intellectual commitment by employees might all be shambles!!! As individual grows in his/her career, the proficiency of work execution and culture of discipline repeatedly propel his/her learning. This – to a large extent helps both the employee and the firm to review, audit and evaluate workflow and processes; and helps to effectively eliminate distractions and associated wastages embedded in the system. Learning is meant to shore-up obvious skill gaps in all categories of employees, functions, roles and responsibilities so a seamless set of productive and profitable activities can be in effect.

When opened to learning, an individual integrates critical learning points from past experiences into the present for better output. Learning employees seek to grow on their technical, social/behavioral, Intellectual, leadership and strategic skill composites in order to meet the ever dynamic business needs, improve delivery process, better outcomes, fashion out better ways of execution. Concerted individual is often wired through system-based thinking (an amalgam of work couched from understanding the business processes, operations, approaches and peculiarities). This enables organizations to carefully evaluate their lines of operations and how best they can leverage on further capabilities to add value. System-based thinking reviews the entire organizational processes in order to effect better and cheaper ways of growing, identifying the obvious weakness and leveraging on best interventions to remedy notable gaps from time to time.

Through performance management, scorecards and other measurable criteria, organization think and rethink; shape and reshape; post and reposition her functional resources by ensuring that collective stakes and activities yield maximum results which obviously can help the business learn, grow, improve and come out stronger, better and more positioned than yester operational circles. On the other hand, individual employees must be willing and must demonstrate the passion and motivation required to learn and constantly aim for the best for the organization.

OPPORTUNITIES OF LEARNING

Learning can be inferred from knowledge sharing sessions, onboarding, networking, strategy sessions, conferences, retreats, seminars, distant and online coaching and reading; idea generations and sharing; cycle of involvements and learning curves, etc. sustainable learning must bear the following opportunities –

·     Learning must be benchmarked and thus measurable with ROI. If learning does not produce expected results, then the organization is nowhere near her desired results.

·     Learning must therefore measure more of outcomes (deliverables) than activities.

·     Learning helps to expand individual’s ability and foster corporate capabilities (the

totality of every employee’s ability).

·     Learning enhances the elasticity of knowledge, skills and performances.

·     Learning improves delivery and it facilitates product and process improvements.

·     Learning enhances values and growth.

·     Learning enhances stakeholder’s delivery and supports operational efficiency.

·     Learning enables shared vision as the outcomes of the total is more productive and better than individual’s perceptions. 

When corporate bodies learn from failures and can ably apply same within the frameworks of their entities, certainly and without doubt, they will witness notable growth, expansion and durable existence in the ever changing, dynamic and competitive business world. All stakeholders and shareholders will be profitably served with rewardable outcomes-better insights, better ways, better executions.