Seven Basic Quality tools documents
Definition of Quality Management -- it is a method for ensuring that all the activities necessary to design, develop and implement a product or service are effective and efficient with respect to the system and its performance. It is also a principle set by the company to endure the continuous advocacy of quality services and products, or the further improvement of it.
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ORGANIZATIONAL
LEARNING by Doreen Warren
Operating Management 345 For Dr.
Foster
orginal text on
http://www.freequality.org
Organizational
Learning is a process to enable organizations to better use the knowledge of
their members to make business decisions.
In a conventional organization, decisions are often based on management
perspective without taking into account the other members of the organization.
A business using Organizational Learning recognizes the value added by
including all of its members in the decision making process.
Organizational
Learning has developed into a methodology by which businesses facilitate
collaboration within the organization to concentrate on continuous
improvement. Organizations that adopt
this philosophy are referred to as “Learning Organizations.” A Learning
Organization recognizes that a business consists of people and it takes a
commitment from all in the organization to best obtain the organization’s
goals. Through Organizational Learning
an organization gains knowledge and develops skills to empower its members to
work as a cohesive team. The following
table identifies some of the key differences between a Conventional
Organization and a Learning Organization.
Conventional Organization
|
Learning
Organization
|
Locked
into management’s views of methods and goals. |
Flexible and open to new
ideas. |
Makes
decisions based on what currently best fits the organizational structure. |
1.
Willing to disregard the status quo in favor of innovation. 2.
Management encourages all members to continuously rethink what they do, how
they do it, and how they might do it better. |
Adapts
and/or reacts to change. |
Anticipates
the future and strives to create services and products before others are able
to perceive the needs. |
IMPLEMENTING ORGANIZATIONAL LEARNING
The
first step in implementing Organizational Learning is to encourage all members
of an organization to continually learn by rewarding the members for increasing
competence. An understanding of how
people learn is key to implementing an effective
system. Adaptive learning describes the
learning process that is reactive to change and is based on rules and
structure. In contrast, proactive learning goes beyond being reactive and
occurs when changes are made willingly. Implementation of Organizational
Learning requires that there be incentives to encourage proactive learning.
The
second step in implementing Organizational Learning is to implement Team
Learning where people are willing and able to work together to build new
mindsets and transfer knowledge throughout the organization.
In
the third step, Organizational Learning requires that the organization use the
increased knowledge to create new market opportunities.
According
to David Garvin, Cizik Professor of Business
Administration at Harvard Business School, developing Organizational Learning
requires creating, acquiring, transferring, and retaining knowledge and
modifying current behavior to increase efficiency.
Knowledge
is found in many sources within and outside an organization. People working in the organization understand
the day-to-day requirements and have the knowledge base needed to assist
managers when trying to resolve issues.
Tapping into the people resource along with the manager’s ability to
recognize and interpret knowledge is critical.
It is also important for the knowledge transfer to occur when people
leave the organization so that the knowledge is retained and not lost.
It
is not enough to have knowledge.
Behavior must be modified within the organization to make it
efficient. Managers must be willing and
able to solicit and use the information relayed to them by employees. All members of the organization must become
part of the decision making team.
Peter
Senge, director of the Center for Organizational Learning
at the Sloan School of Management, Massachusetts Institute of Technology, has
identified five disciplines crucial to the successful implementation of
Organizational Learning and creating a Learning Organization:
- Personal Mastery
– Managers must go beyond knowing what is important to achieve, they must
have the ability to clarify and relay their message to others within the
organization.
- Shared Visioning
– Managers who share their vision with others in the organization are more
likely to get feedback on the vision.
A shared vision is more likely to receive commitment from the
people needed to implement the goals set by management. If people feel they have been involved
in the process they are more likely to be committed to the entire process.
- Mental Modeling
– Managers must be able to explain the reasoning behind decisions made,
while being open to suggestions from others and being able to handle
criticism without being defensive or judgmental.
- Team Learning
– Managers should be able to align and develop the capacity of the team
members in order to obtain the team’s desired results. Team learning
builds shared vision and personal mastery because a talented team will
consist of talented individuals.
- Systems Thinking
– Managers need to look at issues as they interrelate with other processes
within the organization.
AN
EXAMPLE
Boeing provides an example where a company
used the learning process to avoid bankruptcy by using Lessons Learned analysis
to solve the problems with the production of the 737 and 747. By comparing successful projects with the
failed production of the 737 and 747, they were able to adjust their projects
for the successful production of the 757 and 767.
WHERE
TO FIND MORE INFORMATION
Information
on Organizational Learning is available through many sources on the Internet as
well as in literature. Some notable
experts in the field include: Chris Argyris and
Donald Schon, authors of Organizational Learning:
A Theory of Action Perspective; and Peter Senge,
the author of The Fifth Discipline, The Leader’s
New Work: Building Learning Organizations.
Degrees in Organization Learning are also available through many
institutions including Sloan School of Management and George Mason University.
REFERENCES
Senge, Peter. The Fifth
Discipline: The Art and Practice of the Learning Organization (1990)
Garvin,
David. (1997, November) How To Build a Learning Organization. http://www.european-quality.co.uk/articles/garvin.html
Karash, Richard. (1995) Groupware and Organizational Learning. http://world.std.com/~rkarash/GW-OL/
Santos,
Aldo. Review of Peter M. Senge, "The Leader's New Work: Building Learning
Organizations," in Sloan Management Review (Fall 1990), pp. 7-23.