A Learning Organization, Today

What if organizations could actually learn???Not in a metaphorical?sense,?used by Chris Argyris and other giants of management thought of decades past,?I mean more literally, the way that humans learn.

Of course, companies can learn to do things they cannot do today by simply acquiring other companies that can.??But learning is almost never a primary motivation in this case; competitive positioning is.??

And that is definitely not how humans learn.??We almost never attach a new head to our body in order to learn how to ride a bike.??There are far less expensive ways to do that.

So, how do we learn to ride a bike???We start off by focusing all of our attention on managing the coordinated process of turning things with hands and feet, and leaning our bodies and shifting our weight.??Who does not remember concentrating on this process so much, there was literally no attention left for people and objects in our path!

But as we persevere through bruises on our legs – and, occasionally, on those of passers-by – we gradually start riding the bike more competently.??The key point, we get more attention back, to spare on avoiding the obstacles and appreciating the views.??What has happened???The complex coordination process got automated somewhere in our cerebellum, and our neo-cortex, the seat of our conscious attention. It is now free to concentrate on other, even more complex and enjoyable things!

This is exactly how modern organizations learn.??They automate complex but predictable coordination processes using intelligent automation so that neo-cortexes of their employees can concentrate on even more complex, creative and enjoyable tasks.

So next time you ask yourself: “How will my company learn to do things it cannot do today,” think about intelligent automation first and corporate acquisition, second.