In his book “The Fifth Discipline Fieldbook” Peter Senge et all identifies the core of this organisation being based on five learning disciplines:
· Personal Mastery-
Learning to expand our personal capacity to create the results we most desire and creating an organisational environment which encourages all its members to develop themselves toward the goal and purpose they choose.
· Mental Models-
Reflecting upon, continually clarifying, and improving out internal pictures of the world, and seeing how they shape our actions and decisions
· Shared Vision-
Building a sense of commitment in a group, by developing shared images of the future we seek to create, and the principles and guiding practices by which we hope to get there.
· Team Learning-
Transforming conversational and collective thinking skills, so that groups of people can reliably develop intelligence and ability greater than the sum of individual member’s talents.
· Systems Thinking-
A way of thinking about, and a language for describing and understanding, the forces and interrelationships that shapes the behaviour of systems. This discipline helps us to see how to change systems more effectively, and to act more in tune with the larger processes of the natural and economic world.
Having defined the above as the goal how does one go about doing this in an organisation? Since 2002 the writer of this paper has been engaged in the awareness making of people to Key Leadership principles. The biggest obstacle to this are in fact other “Leaders” that find themselves on the first level of leadership as suggested by John Maxwell i.e. Positional Leadership and therefore there is no encouragement given to the very valuable principles that would encourage the Personal Mastery.
Group after group of up to 50 participants leave a three day programme having been convinced that “Leadership is a Decision and not a Position” only to disappear into an organisation of 1600 people that have mostly done the similar programme at some time and that found upon their return ,that the language of change is not encouraged , not spoken and often times ,at the highest Leadership level ,not even recognised ,as the daily priority of ticking the boxes does not allow time for three days of wasted effort to develop leaders and effect some modicum of culture change.
People leaving the organisation frustrated at the lack of development become a statistic just to show that in fact all have been replaced without any attention being given that the level of replacement at least in some way matches the loss of the previous disillusioned leaver.
Enter The Learning Organisation.
The Programme that was run at JD Consulting had the following critical success factors.
- The whole organisation attended every session. There was no exception to this and the directors attended every Module.
- The business was closed for one day every time a Module was presented. Yes, emergencies were handled but only during the break and everybody rejoined once the break was over.
The first Module, Personal Mastery also included the ever important Laws governing Leadership.21 Laws are handled some in more detail than the others. The 5 levels of Leadership are introduced and they all support the key principles:
* Leadership is a Decision not a Position
* Leadership is influence.
The Platinum Rule-do unto others as you know they wish you to do is introduced and is based on the careful analysis using several tools of what the individual styles are like.
Personal Mastery is the fulcrum of the wheel that has as spokes all the other four key aspects of The Learning Organisation. With this in place the flywheel can start being pushed to gain momentum.
Over an extended period, due to business pressure, each module was completed.
Mental Models emphasised the skills of engagement and Balanced High Quality
Advocacy and Inquiry, Ladder of Inference and left Hand Column were new to most but quickly became skills in extended exercises where discussions become very frank and all are challenged as one would expect in an environment where personal mastery is encouraged and agreed to.
Shared Vision, Creative tension and Current reality are introduced very early in the programme and spoken about often. The organisation is challenged to talk frankly and openly about the Current Reality and with the new found skills of engaging others the Module on Shared Vision extends to a Group think tank due to the confidence that has been growing to speak your mind but in a skilful manner. The participants are invited to determine the congruency of their own vision with that of the organisation that they have just participated in.
The development of departmental vision became a parallel activity and by all accounts formed the basis of a group discussion on key aspects of the Shared Vision and a realistic assessment of the current reality.
How to progress? The investment in time was truly huge and the organisation needs to capitalise on this investment. Team Learning was the last Module and was aimed at getting an understanding on the key Laws that support winning teams.
The outcomes are overwhelmingly positive and are testimony to the solid basis of the theories espoused by the likes of Peter Senge and John Maxwell but also of cardinal value the commitment made by a whole organisation which has to be a pre requisite for The Learning Organisation. Truly a remarkable case study of leadership development.