Learning as an Experience for Organizations

I think I have spent enough time in different organizations to say what a “good” organization looks like. Of course, this is in my understanding of good.

First thing first: They are very rare. Also to be clear: A company =! Only one organization. A company can consist of multiple organizations (as departments, teams, etc.) Because of that a “good” organization is a status that is hard to reach.

Reasons why it is hard:

• Influence from outside can be overwhelming
• Not having enough autonomy in terms of being in charge of how things can be done
• Internal conflicts that create just politics and disagreements

These are just a few, but at least the main ones in my opinion. Especially, if the influence from outside is really overwhelming, internal balance can easily be shaken and the belonging to the organization maybe is gone. People can get the feeling of working somewhere else or working for someone else.

This brings me to the first point for a good organization: Internal integrity.

When I say integrity, I don’t mean harmony. Too much harmony is also damaging. No, what I mean by that is being aware that you are part of an organization and that organization has certain values, a vision, a mission, certain traits that are built over time, and its own characteristics. These points and maybe some other things you can add creates the integrity of the organization. It takes time to build these things, structure them, set them up, and live up to them.

Thus, learning as an experience is a crucial value for organizations to become good. To be good at communication, to be good at creating structures or hiring, performance reviews, and many other processes that can make life miserable for people.

How? Ever heard of iterative product/software development? It looks something like this:

No, no. I am not saying use scrum, just the presentation of the idea.

With all the processes you have, you should start small. Aim for the bare minimum, do a test run, then iterate. Simply learn from your experience and then bring in the next iteration. Now compared to the direct method, on the surface, this approach takes more time. Because getting to the end result can take many iterations, and each iteration means time and effort as well as money.

I am not saying you should never use a direct approach. Even if you go with a direct approach, you can still apply the iterative approach. As long as you collect feedback, observe the behavior of people, and make changes to your approach; you are simply learning and that is the path to becoming a good organization.

What does learning consist of and why it is an experience?

Learning is:

• Adapting to change
• Observation of behavior
• Understanding surrounding
• A new experience for individuals

Now the experience part. Each time we learn something, we create new pathways in our brain. One way or another, things we learn have implications for us. Thus, how we learn things and what we make of them is really important. Learning should not be punished, it should not be hard to achieve or it should not be a privilege. At the same time, this does not mean that at the end of a learning experiment there won’t be any failures. The important part is what you get out of that experiment. If you failed, why? can you improve the experience? Can you change the variables?

Having those in mind; Learning without a plan will most likely end up in failure. To be better prepared, start with:

• Having an end goal: What do we want to learn? and why?
• Time limit: If you take it slow or rush it, the experience will not be as rewarding.
• Also expectations. Setting goals is different than having expectations. One is the end result and the other one is parameters about how to get there. Be sure to share them on time.

Failures will be inevitable. One thing about it is, how failures are perceived. I have been in organizations where even the word “failure” is a no-go. But failures are part of our lives and we sometimes have to accept the fact that we can fail. It will be a big part of learning as an experience journey. Because you will see people failing more often than succeeding. When you see that people are hesitant about failure try to understand the why behind it. Most of the time, it turns out to be cultural. Meaning, that people can’t live with the burden of being a failure. They are afraid of being judged and so on.

Even on a personal level, in order to be able to learn something:

1- There has to be a need
2- There have to be the required sources
3- There has to be the right environment for learning

The first two points are easy to achieve. What matters is the third point and leaders of organizations should first focus on setting a safe environment. What safety is, is another post for the future. In general, learning can be a great activity for the people in your organization and a refreshing experience for loyalty.