134 Leading with NLP
organizational learning
Organizational learning is slightly different from individual
learning. How can organizations learn apart from the peo-
ple within them? Organizational learning seems to emerge
as something greater than and different from the individual
learning that makes it up; it seems to arise through the com-
plex interactions of the people together. People know more
in a group than the sum of their knowledge, because a sum
is addition and learning is multiplication.
A learning organization is a useful shorthand for an
organization that constantly changes and experiments
using the feedback of its results to change its form and
processes in ways that make it more competitive and more
successful.
Organizational learning is like a rainbow – something dif-
ferent and unexpected that emerges when all the elements
are in the right place. When people in an organization are
themselves learning and they are put in a challenging situa-
tion, then you have organizational learning.
Knowledge and Information
Organizations prosper depending on how well the people
work together to use the knowledge they have. There are far
more combinations of water droplets and light that do not
make rainbows than that do, and there are far more ways
that organizations can fail than succeed.
We often talk of knowledge but knowledge is built up
slowly from many sources. Business is inundated with data.
Lots of facts all clamour for attention and people must sort
through them for information– relevant data that make a dif-
ference to the business. They extract this information from
the overwhelming amount of facts, opinions and analyses
that are present in the market.
Business goals set up the filters that turn data into infor-
mation. They create order from chaos. So the information is
only as good as the goals and values that the organization
has created. Then this information is co-ordinated and