Building Learning Organizations

Times of India invites practitioners to have a webchat at Timesjobs.com. It was my turn to answer questions on 1st Feb 2012. I wish there was a way to have a "conversation" and not a Q&A. On second thoughts that may be hard to do with 2500 people at the same time. Several people had difficulty signing on and the server was down for a while during the chat. These technical hassles apart, this was fun.

Raghavendra: What is a learning organization?

Abhijit : Hi Raghavendra - a learning organization is one that has the capability to continuously learn to adapt to internal and external changes.

Neha: What essential things should be kept in mind while building a learning organization?

Abhijit : Hi Neha - The organization does this by creating processes and systems that encourage people to calibrate the assumptions that govern business and people. Every assumption is a hypothesis that can be tested. That can be something pertaining to customers, the product or service or its employees... It can be anything.

Rati: Which organizational functions are responsible for turning an organization into a learning one?

Abhijit : Rati - The onus is on every employee. Each function plays a role in keeping the organization nimble. Unless every function brings in their expertise, one part of the company will fall behind.

Ratikanta: My question would be what is the key attribute of a learning organization? How do we measure the transformation?

Abhijit : The attribute would be how tuned in the organization is to the shifts in business opportunities, the environment, the skills needed etc. The ability to ask the right questions is the first sign of learning. Transformation would be measured in the long run. Today many organizations are notoriously short-lived.

Satish: What are the challenges/issues/problems in creating a learning organization?

Abhijit : Hi Satish, success is the biggest enemy. When an organization is successful, it is hard for them to question their assumptions. Successful organizations progressively become inward looking that makes it hard for new ideas to take root. It is hard for people coming in from other companies to be heard. The old culture acts like a filter.

Mithun: Would a learning organisation provide benefits on a global scale?

Abhijit : A learning organization has the ability to succeed on a global scale because they can navigate the new markets better. They will know which learnings from their old world can apply in the new country and what wont.

Ranjan: Hi, I run a start-up. Continuous upgradation of the human resource to make a learning organization involves too much of cost. How can I optimize the process?

Abhijit : : Ranjan - Continuous upgradation has more to do with the mindset than with resources and the least of all - with training programs. MIT makes its courseware available to everyone for free. In the same way there are links one can follow on twitter. This keeps people tuned to what is happening. Within the organization create a culture where people can speak their mind and bring in new ideas. Get the younger/ least experienced/ newcomers to speak first in any meeting. Above all you can be a role model.

Eilesh: Hi, How important is it to have dedicated learning department in organizations?

Abhijit : Eilesh - A dedicated learning department helps in getting some resources across. But I believe that a learning organization uses learning outside of a classroom as much as it does its training program. Learning from peers and novices is as important as learning from experts. Play is as important a form of learning as studying. All it needs is someone who has a curious mind. (Ranjan - also an answer to your question)

Rimjhim: What are the challenges for a company like Wipro? How does learning play into meeting those challenges? How does learning play into helping Wipro?

Abhijit : Rimjhim - We have to continuously unlearn what made us successful. That is always hard. It is hard to let go of the very assumptions that have made us so successful in the past. So learning is a challenge for everyone. The ability to remain relevant to every stakeholder is the best measure of where we are doing well and where we need to improve.

Mithun:Hi Abhijit, Is building a learning organisation structured or does it evolve with the way business is conducted?

Abhijit : Mithun - I believe that the biggest challenge organizations face is to question the very ideas that they have worked with over the years and succeeded in the market place. For example: Even after research has shown that ulcers are caused by bacteria, (A nobel prize has been given for that discovery as well), we still believe that they are caused by stress or spicy food.

Shantanu: Why do companies not find employee training & learning critical and spend little when compared to spends on other areas?

Abhijit : Shantanu - Today we live in a time when we have more resources available to us as individuals than ever before. With a cell phone and a broadband connection the world is at your command. What we need to do is to stop thinking of a classroom as the only place where we learn. So stop waiting to be sent to a training program. When people learnt to play the guitar in college - so many learnt it by asking their friends and peers to teach them. Today you have thousands of sites that will teach you anything... I mean anything and for free. We need to find the time and the persistence to see it through.

Sambhavna:Mention some new-age ways, methods and techniques to build a learning organization?

Abhijit : Create immersion experiences. For instance to teach a group of our business leaders the art of storytelling we went to the Jaipur Lit Fest to give them an immersion experience to learn from the masters. Ask employees to create the course content - maybe apps for the phone that allow people to learn new stuff. Ask people who do not know the subject (novices) to advice the experts - reverse roles. I have seen that the novices can give simple solutions that elude experts because they simply know too much :) LOL! It costs nothing to have people who are curious. And everyone is naturally curious. Organizations have to learn to get out of the way of people's ability to learn naturally from informal sources. Too much emphasis is placed on formal training programs. Time to break that mould - peer learning, social learning, leveraging social media eg twitter, slideshare is the key. When I read something on twitter that I find useful, I pass on the link to others. You are welcome to join me @abhijitbhaduri or try slideshare.net for presentations on any topic. For that matter wikipedia is getting better and better as experts spend their time improving the contents. Learning is no longer about having access to resources. It is about being able to have a curious mind and to filter the information that is gushing all around us. So we must learn how to sift the information and contextualize it.

Shreeyash: What is the major difference between "Training & Development function" and "Learning & Development function" in an organization?

Abhijit : Shreeyash - Training focuses on telling people the single correct answer. Learning is about helping people to ask the right questions.

Aditi: What do you suggest organizations should resort to: internal training & development programmes to enrich their human resources or external workshops and seminars? Which of the two is more effective and cost efficient?

Abhijit : Aditi - I believe that we need to get the inputs from the external world. Calibrate it with our own internal research and then create learning around that model. Sending people to generic training programs without a specific learning goal in mind is of limited value. Either case that is not something that can be scaled. Giving people regular feedback is an underutilized tool. That in itself can improve learning.

Richa: Hi, how can one transform the manual working L&D organization to process oriented, as employees show lot of reluctance to change?

Abhijit : Change is equally hard for everyone. We often try to change one part of the organization without looking at how to create the supporting adjacencies that will make the change stick. The L&D department needs to leverage technology to make learning fun, easy and accessible. Renaming a training department to calling it L&D deptt does nothing unless the approach to learning is changed.

Prashant: How do you build up a learning organisation - is it a top down approach or a bottom up approach?

Abhijit : Leaders need to be role models of the behavior. The junior employees should be leveraged to examine the organization from a fresh pair of eyes. The organization has to celebrate people who are able to help the others calibrate themselves with the changes in the external world. Also if people use learnings on the job and feel the difference it acts as a motivator to keep learning. Applying learnings is the very key.

Varnika: Why there is a gap in individual and team learning as organization's size gets larger?

Abhijit : Hi Varnika - It is for the same reason that a fat person finds it harder to exercise. As the organization grows larger, it is important to continuously check if the processes are making it hard to listen to the signals from the field (or customers/ consumers). Does the organization have processes to check for the external trends?

Rimjhim: Hi Sir, In Indian companies top management often ask human resource Department about the 'return on investment on learning - show me the money'. what will be a chief learning officer's response?

Abhijit : Rimjhim: It is easy to show the return on skill training. So that's an easy one to answer. But when you are looking at learning, it is harder to show the learning. I have a link to suggest to you for this http://www.abhijitbhaduri.com/2011/03/roi-of-leadership-development/. But when do we say that learning is effective? When we learn it or when we use it? Or when we combine what we learnt with what we knew and blend it with suggestions from others. So it is harder to do ROI calculations for learning.

Sambhavna: Should employee learning and receptivity to better ideas be linked to their performance?

Abhijit : Sambhavna: There are two conditions to be met: One is that I should learn something. The second condition is that I should have an opportunity to use it (assuming the problem can be solved by whatever I have learnt). If I have learnt to drive well, I should be able to drive in heavy traffic. But then I have seen the best of drivers get flummoxed when they have to drive in a country where they drive on the other side of the road. Learning is about being alive to possibilities. So it should improve performance.

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Read the full chat transcript here <click here>