Strategic Human Resource Management: A Guide to Action

(Rick Simeone) #1

toring process initiates action to redefine the ‘governing variables’ to meet
the new situation, which may be imposed by the external environment.
The organization has learnt something new about what has to be achieved
in the light of changed circumstances and can then decide how this should
be achieved.


LEARNING ORGANIZATION STRATEGY


The process of organizational learning is related to the concept of a learning
organization, which Senge (1990) describes as an ‘organization that is contin-
ually expanding to create its future’. It has been defined by Wick and Leon
(1995) as an organization that ‘continually improves by rapidly creating and
refining the capabilities required for future success’, and by Pedler et al(1989)
as an organization that ‘facilitates the learning of all its members and contin-
ually transforms itself’. As Burgoyne (1994) has pointed out, learning organ-
izations have to be able to adapt to their context and develop their people to
match the context.
Garvin (1993) suggests that learning organizations are good at doing five
things:



  1. Systematic problem solving, which rests heavily on the philosophy and
    methods of the quality movement. Its underlying ideas include relying
    on scientific method, rather than guesswork, for diagnosing problems –
    what Deming (1986) calls the ‘plan–do–check–act’ cycle and others refer
    to as ‘hypothesis-generating, hypothesis-testing’ techniques. Data rather
    than assumptions are required as the background to decision making –
    what quality practitioners call ‘fact-based management’, and simple
    statistical tools such as histograms, Pareto charts and cause-and-effect
    diagrams are used to organize data and draw inferences.

  2. Experimentation– this activity involves the systematic search for and
    testing of new knowledge. Continuous improvement programmes –
    ‘kaizen’ – are an important feature in a learning organization.

  3. Learning from past experience– learning organizations review their
    successes and failures, assess them systematically and record the lessons
    learnt in a way that employees find open and accessible. This process has
    been called the ‘Santayana principle’, quoting the philosopher George
    Santayana, who coined the phrase ‘Those who cannot remember the past
    are condemned to repeat it.’

  4. Learning from others– sometimes the most powerful insights come from
    looking outside one’s immediate environment to gain a new perspective.
    This process has been called SIS for ‘steal ideas shamelessly’. Another


180 l HR strategies

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