2.4 PRINCIPLES OF LEARNING ORGANISATION (SENGE) AND CREATING A POSITIVE CULTURE FOR CHANGE

Question 1

WHAT IS LEARNING ORGANISATION?

Answer 1

LEADING ORGANISATION a business that facilitates the growth of its members and continuously transforms itself to adapt to changing environments.
- For this to occur, businesses need to discover how to tap the capacity and ability of people to learn
- The learning organisation is one where people continually expand their capacity to create results that they truely desire and where they are continually learning together to transform the business
- People recreate themselves as they learn - adaptable/flexible
- There are 5 disciplines of a learning organisation and each is necessary if the business is to learn

Question 2

WHAT IS PERSONAL MASTERY?

Answer 2

Personal mastery is the ongoing commitment of an individual to undertake continuous learning.
- Where the business will only learn through individuals that learn.
- Personal mastery can be acquired through employee training and development, however, it is more thank simply learning new skills.
- Individuals are encouraged to create a vision for themselves and pursue that vision.
- Develops positive culture where employees are encourages to learn and grow
- A business that has a workforce that learns faster its competitors can gain a competitive advantage.

Question 3

WHAT IS SHARED VISION?

Answer 3

Shared vision us where all people within and organisation are inspired to achieve its future goals.
- There is a shared value that everyone truely believes in.
- Creates positive culture where employees are more likely to embrace change.

Question 4

WHAT IS TEAM LEARNING?

Answer 4

Team learning is the process of building and developing the capacity if a team so they share their experiences and knowledge and therefore learn from each other.
- Builds on personal mastery and shared vision.
- People working together build skills faster
- Team learnings creates an environment where problem solving is improves as knowledge and experience is shared amongst the team.
- Open communication required.

Question 5

WHAT IS MENTAL MODELS?

Answer 5

Mental models are the deeply ingrained assumptions and generalisations that influence how we understand the world and how we respond to it.
- Mental models as a principle challenges the current beliefs, values and behaviours.
- Encourages openness to change.
- Challenge the models - replace with more open values and attitudes
- Creating a culture of openness, inquiry and trust can empower employees to create something new and better than before.

Question 6

WHAT IS SYSTEM THINKING?

Answer 6

Systems thinking is a concept that integrates the other core disciplines.
- Systems evaluate the business as a whole, rather than as separate parts.
- Allows individuals to understand the interrelationships between different parts of the business.
- Manages understand how change in one area may affect other
- Also understand how the business is connected to structures outside of it.

Question 7

BENEFITS OF SENGE

Answer 7

• Boosts levels of creativity, thinking, innovation and business competitiveness
• Continuously striving to improve
• Adaptable, flexible, the business responds quicker to issues in the future
• Staff motivation should increase, boosts skills and empowerment
• Improving quality of outputs at all levels
• Improving corporate image by becoming more people oriented – employer of choice

Question 8

ISSUES TO CONSIDER WITH SENGE

Answer 8

• Requires cultural change which can take time
• Large businesses can struggle to share ideas and knowledge between all the members