Mgt 426 Article Review

Article Review

John B. Elias

MGT 426

August 3, 2015

Sandra Walsh

Introduction

        According to the business dictionary, Learning Organization is defined as an organization that acquires knowledge and innovates fast enough to survive and thrive in a rapidly changing environment (www.businessdictionary.com, 2015).  This assignment was to review an article that defines the learning organization, the author’s conclusion, my conclusion, and how it applies to my organization.  

Article Review

        The article selected for review was “Is Yours a Learning Organization?” from Harvard Business Review 2008 (www.hbr.org, 2015).  The article explained the key ideas and provided an overview of how some of the concepts work in practice.  An organization with a strong learning culture faces the unpredictable skillfully.   There are no solid methods in how an organization learns or steps that would help it learn better.  A new survey instrument that was created by Professors David Garvin, Amy Edmondson, and Francesca Gino of Harvard Business School, allows an organization to understand their strengths and weaknesses to help aid in the organization on becoming a learning organization.  

         The three factors that are essential for organizational learning and adaptability are a supportive learning environment, concrete learning processes and practices, and leadership behavior that provides reinforcement.  A supportive learning environment is an environment that supports learning and has four distinguishing characteristics such as psychological safety, appreciation of differences, openness to new ideas, and time for reflection.  A concrete learning process and practices, includes experimentation, information collection and analysis, and education and training.  The last factor is leadership behavior that provides reinforcement.  All three building blocks complement each other and provides an opportunity for leaders to behave in ways that foster a learning environment and allows others to cultivate the same behaviors.

Author’s conclusion or recommendation

         The author's recommendation is the use of the surveys to allow an organization to examine all the particulars, scores each of them and provides a framework for detailed comparative analysis.  This will allow leaders to understand their organizations strengths and weaknesses and to paint an honest picture of their cultures and leadership.  The authors believes that the organization survey is best used not merely as a report card but as a diagnostic instrument or tool to foster learning (www.hbr.org, 2015).