Learning Organization

Theres lots that has been written about this subject ... More than i could ever read. Though, i came across an interesting question over at linkedin ... About How we can enable an organization to learn faster. The question is quite simple ... What caught the attention was the responses that this generated.

My take ... the learning of the organization is essentially the collective learning of its people. Though, what distinguishes one organization to another is the willingness of the organization to work out an understanding of the collective learning, and to be able to apply this at multiple levels ... both in terms of strategic thinking, as well as in operational terms.

There was an interesting idea that came through ... Bryan Lund gives an interesting thought ... when he says ...

The trick, if I may is to stop assigning knowledge management to "someone" or a department so that they can run it like a project.

This is an interesting thought. And, something which is applicable to a large number of organizations. To what extent should KM be an externally applied initiative, and to what extent should it be driven by the people in the organization. Ideally, KM should be driven by the people in the organization itself, and i think, this is where some of the web 2.0 technologies could play an important role. More so because they are more about giving the capabilities to the user, with the user choosing how they are going to leverage them, and build upon the capabilities provided. And, like i have written before, this is where the technology folks have an important role, although slightly different from the way it is today, to play.