Learning Organization (KM Book Review)

15 May 2011 Leave a Comment

by rahmawatibagaslokardatika in article, Journey

Sekalian nulis review buku Knowledge Management by Pak Jann  untuk tugas Knowledge Management..

Multitasking Mode: ON

TRANSFORMATION INTO LEARNING ORGANIZATION

 

Development of human civilization was influenced by science’s development and the increasing ability of humans to adapt to these changes. Human have been faced alot of changes in his/her life. Who can survive? The one who can survive is a human who are ready and able to cope with the change.

Humans have 7 skills, later on called “the 7 tools” by Sinamo (2005). Perceptional-rational thinking ability, creative-imaginative thinking ability, critical argumentative thinking ability, the power of choice, the power of independent will, the capacity of emotional feeling and the capacity of moral response.

Change that happened in the life cycle of human civilization also affect to the organization or company’s life cycle. Company can be likened to human. Companies/organization that survive until a hundred years is an organization that is always ready in facing change and its not an easy job to do. One way for the company can continue to survive and thrive is by transforming it from traditional company/organization into learning organization. Leaders are the most important actors in determining whether the company/organization is ready to deal with changes or not.

Leaders have a big role/impact in Indonesian society that embrace paternalistik working system. Leader is considered as a way of life and as a role model. Problems that exist in Indonesia today is crisis of leadership. This nation have to faced difficulties to have leaders who are brave and willing to face change. Indonesia’s current leader is too scared to out of their comfort zone and were unprepared for the changes. Leaders in indonesia are still bound and overshadowed by the success of the new order and also because of colonialism factors. Leader who are willing to change in accordance with the development of civilization would be able to bring the organization to be more stronger and can withstand any difiicult situation.

Other factors that will make the transformation success is employee’s commitment. Employees have important roles in the transformation because they’re the subject who transform the organization from traditional into learning organization. Every process in the company is done by them and each employee has different ability or skill with another employee that’s why company have to engange employee’s commitment. Problems will occur when this main employee have to retire or resign from the company. Company’s performance will be affected if the key person retire or resign without transfering their knowledge or their skill to other employee who replace her/him. To make sure that this problem not occur in the future so that’s why companies/organizations should have a process/method/system that allows employees to change their tasit knowledge into eksplisit knowledge. Company have to make sure that transfer knowledge process run and well documented. Becoming learning organization is not an easy job to accomplish. Many company only able to encourage their employee to store their knowledge but not using it so the transfer knowledge not happened.

Peter senge explain that to be a learning organization company should be able to implement  profound change. Organizational changes can be done by combining inner shift and outer shift.

TRANSFORMATION FROM TRADITIONAL INTO LEARNING ORGANIZATION

Changing traditional organization into learning organization have to follow several steps in order to make the changes sustain. Before getting start, there are several items that must be considered by the organization; learning organization formula and obstacle.

LEARNING ORGANIZATION FORMULA

There are

two learning organization formula:

Formula 1:

Learning organization = leadership x learning foundation x learning skill x learning facility x learning discipline

Leadership is the most important factor in implementation process of learning organization and should be existed in the beginning. Most organization in Indonesia is paternalistik organization. In paternalistik organization leader is the role model, as a figure who define the organization’s vision and mision strategy. Leader have to make sure that the organization can meet with its vision and mision.

First step is preparing leadership readiness. Leader should be prepared to be faced with society/employees maturity level. Strategy for each maturity level will be different. There are two maturity level in the society/emloyees:

Unmature Society

Unmature society will be devided into two types; society that act like baby and society that act like teenagers

1. Society that acts like teenagers always need guidance, not responsible, right always comes first rather that responsibilty, always copy every single move made by the leaders. This society type need leader who can give guidance, always in fron of them, becaoming thier role model (Ing ngarso sung tulodo). In Ing ngarso sung tulodo, leader position always one step ahead than his/her followers. Society will copy every single move he/her made.
2. Society that acts like teenagers is society that cann’t differentiate which one is right and which one is wrong, labile, not confident, and tend to blam others. This society need leaders who are willing to embrace them, mingle with their employee and willing to discuss about company’s vision and future target with employees. Ing madyo mangun karsa leader is perfect for people who’s in the so-called teenagers society look a like. Leader together with his/her employees set company objective and at the same time accomplish all company’s programs.

There are three types of leadership that leaders must be prepared by ing madya mangun karsa and ing ngarso sung tulodo leader:

1. Visioner Leadership
2. Sinerjestik Leadership
3. Transformasional Leadership.

 Mature Society

Mature society needs tut wuri handayani leadership style which is able to nurture and support their employees. People in this society already know what they have to do, have responsibility, and able to create conducive working environment so sharing knowledge process will be able to run.

Next step is developing learning foundation. Learning foundation is needed to create conducive atmosphere in learning organization. There are two important things in developing learning organization; mutual trust and learning culture. Mutual trust is the basic foundation in sharing knowledge process. Each person should be able to trust other people so they will be able to absorb every knowledge from other people and give their knowledge to others. Without mutual trust sharing knowledge can not run effectively and cannot give any output for employees and company. Besides mutual trust, sharing knowledge process also need learning culture.  Learning culture underlying attitudes and daily behaviour of employees and also directing the importance of sharing knowledge between colleagues and business partners.

The last step is developing learning skill. What skill? Skill that need to be develop by employees are problem solving skill and skill to implement eksplisit knowledge that they have. Various training can be followed by employees to improve their learning skill. How to make sure the success of this process? Successfully accomplish company’s project by implement those eksplisit knowledge and using those knowledge to solve problems that occur in the project.

Formula 2:

Learning organization = leadership x performance x knowledge sharing x explicit knowledge x implementation.

Guideline for learning organization

1. In this formula, leader still have important role in creating learning organization. Leader should be able to perform its roles in accordance with society matturity level. Whatever position adopted by the leaders, the main task that must be done is to maintain mutual trust and learning culture, able to develop learning skill within the company, so that the vision and mision will be consistenly running.
2. Learning organization should have performance measurement system based on target for every program to make sure the organization still run based on its vision or mision as an organization guideline. Besides system, organization also need tools to calculate organization performance  and doing gap analysis between plan and target.
3. After that, learning organization also needs mecanism for sharing knowledge process. Sharing knowledge is key process in the implementation of learning organization. Key suceess in sharing knowledge process are wilingness for sharing between each member and also depend on the availability of information technology supporting facility.
4. Output from learning organization is eksplisit knowledge. Eksplisit knowledge is an output from learning process or innovation due to sharing knowledge process. Eksplisit knowledge can overcome operational problem and bring more innovation.
5. In the end, the success of learning organization is depend on the implementation of the explisit knowledge.

There are also several obstacle that should be faced by an organization:

1. Personal obstacle
2. Weak support from realtional study factors
3. Weak support from managerial level
4. Weak study infrastructure’s support.

GETTING START

The important step to build learning organization is defining the pilot group. Pilot group has several principal and task to follow. Group pilot is cross functional team which working for special project that is favorable and urgent for all member with informal working relation. Each member should have supporting attitude and behavior in order to be productive and successful to accomplish the project. The first step to be done by pilot group is select a project or problem that really need to be solved.

IMPLEMENTATION STEPS

Picture 1. Change process to be learning organization

Based on Peter Senge’s steps to realizing profound change to be learning organization, there are three steps known as R1, R2, and R3.R1: develop individual learning skills to produce personal mastery (develop inner shift and outer shift) R2: develop team learning skill to improve the effectiveness of the sharing knowledge process among members. R3: develop organizational learning skill to generate human capital.

After all steps are completed the next step is continuous improvement, preparing new innovation to be implemented and keep digging the new knowledge. Indicator that all employees have reached the mature stage is when the process of learning and change has become a habit and is done in a sustainable manner, leader should change his/her roles to motivate his/her employee.

PROFOUND CHANGE PROCESS IN EACH STAGE.

Picture 2. Change process to be learning organization step 1

Picture 3. Change process to be learning organization step 2

Picture 4. Change process to be learning organization step 3

To check the readiness of the organization in making changes, leader can  made ​​several tests/diagnosis as following below:
1. Test habitat quality learning
2. Change readiness test.

There are eight causes of failure of a process of organizational change:

1. No sense of urgency
2. No agent of change
3. No clear vision and mission
4.  No intense socialization
5. Failure in removing barriers of change
6. No consistency and not systemic
7. Too easily satisfied
8. Failure in creating culture.

To remove all of these troublesome acts, a good vision in value maximizing for organization aspect with learning organization as its basic foundation is needed.

Advertisement