The world is speeding up, as it gets more wired and as people get more demanding - I want exactly what I want, and I want it now. But I might want something different tomorrow. As markets fragment and change accelerates, business has to keep up or die. That’s why the continuous improvement[link to ‘total quality management’] that started on the factory floor is now reflected in the notion of continuous change, company-wide. The ability to rethink, continually, your purpose and methods is the most important single source of competitive advantage [link to ‘the five forces of competition’], says Dutch writer and ex-corporate planner Arie de Geus. But individuals can only change through learning, which makes learning the capital of the future.
Hence the evolution of the ‘learning organization’, which is not entirely the same as one that trains its people well - though it does that too. The organization itself learns and keeps learning, over and above its individuals. MIT lecturer Peter Senge has made much of the running in this sphere. His 1990 work, The Fifth Discipline: The Art & Practice of the Learning Organization, describes them as “organizations where people continually expand their capacity to create the results they truly desire, where new and expansive patterns of thinking are nurtured, where collective aspiration is set free, and where people are continually learning to see the whole together”. Sounds good. How do you do it? With difficulty.
