Knowledge Management- Building a learning organization summary Essay

Knowledge Management- Building a learning organization summary - Essay Example These five areas are considered as necessary in order to build a successful learning organization. This paper will therefore review this article and summarize it and present the point out the specific ideas presented in the paper. Confusion about the concept of learning organizations Even though organizations as well as the academics are aware of the significance of the concept of learning organization however, it is still considered as a source of confusion for many. The initial paragraph therefore sets the tone as to how the organizations in a fast changing environment and industries such as semi-conductor industry can adapt to the increasing complexity of doing business through learning and acquiring knowledge. Till now the efforts to define a learning organization have been based upon stating it in a relatively philosophical position with little or no actionable implementation of the subject. The author therefore has suggested that there is a need to develop a more actionable and practical definition of learning organizations. Author also highlights the practical implication of the same for the management of the organizations as it is suggested that the management must have an operational definition which can be put into action. Further, the current definition of the learning organizations also lack the measurability viz a viz measuring the rate at which an organization can actually increase its learning over the period of time. Learning Organizations Though the author has outlined different views of other authors regarding defining the concept however, Garvin has outlined following definition of learning organizations â€Å"A learning organization is an organization skilled at creating, acquiring, and transferring knowledge, and at modifying its behavior to reflect new knowledge and insights.† (Garvin) According to the author, above definition has taken into consideration the practical aspects of actually implementing the knowledge within an organiz ation. The above definition is therefore considered as something which is actionable and limits the number of organizations which can actually be considered as the knowledge or learning organizations. Building Blocks According to author, there are five different building blocks which are essential for organizations to become truly learning organizations in nature. The first building block discussed is the excellence at achieving the capability of systematic problem solving. Learning organizations must adapt the new and more objective ways of analyzing the information for the purpose of problem solving. The more emphasis should be placed upon dealing with the problems through logic and data rather than relying extensively on guesswork and other methods. Experimentation is another building block for the learning organizations as it is suggested that the learning organizations must continue to search for and new ideas and knowledge in order to become more competitive. It has been stres sed that the experimentation should be done in two different phases wherein the on-going continuation program should be in place to allow small programs of experimentation to run through the time. The one-off programs for experimentation purposes have also been discussed to suggest that the organizations must develop capabilities to successfully execute such programs. It has also been discuss