Organisation development Essay

Organisations are human communities, which are formed by bringing people together to communicate, intact and build ties to help each other to create meaning together. Information plays an important role in building these societies and providing knowledge about the task people perform. The information networks created by the organisations help the people to adopt the environment. Build and develop communication networks, improves learning process, develops sense of understanding and sharing between the people, provides a platform to discuss discoveries and innovations, provide the people with chance to learn after making mistakes. A learning organisation intentionally designs the structures and strategies in order to enhance and maximise the learning of its employees. (Dodgson, 1993) With the changing environment of business and advancing technology the notion of the Learning organisations has gained much more importance. Learning has become an important characteristic of an organisation in order to compete in the global business. Learning is a volatile and dynamic concept through which the process of updating in an organisation takes place. With the growing size of the corporations and continuous innovations in the field of technology the individual learning has transformed to the notion of the organisational learning. The notion of learning plays an important part in the progress of an individual just like that the learning on the organisational level plays an important part in the growth of an organisation. The organisational group of people can define the organisational learning as the sum of the learning activities of the individual, which takes the shape of combined effort (Dodgson, 1993; Fiol & Lyles, 1985). An organisational learning program should be designed in the way that it is not lost when the members of the organisation leave the organisation. The learning system of an effective learning organisation not only serve the purpose of the present employees but also cater the needs of the future employees by the accumulation of histories, experiences, norms, and stories. In the highly competitive environment of the business in today’s high pace changing business environment enhancing the learning capabilities of business is the solution of half of the problems (Prahalad & Hamel, 1994). Equally important is the creation of an unlearning organisation which essentially means that the organisation must forget some of its past. Thus, learning occurs amidst such conflicting factors (Dodgson, 1993). Most of the leading companies of the world like Shell were among the first to embrace the notion of learning. In Shell Arie de Geus described learning as the only strategy to compete effectively. Hence learning organisation can be defined as â€Å"The essence of organisational learning is the organisation’s ability to use the amazing mental capacity of all its members to create the kind of processes that will improve its own† (Dixon, 1994) A Learning Company is an organisation that facilitates the learning of all its members and continually transforms itself† (Pedler, Burgoyne & Boydell, 1991) â€Å"Organisations where people continually expand their capacity to create the results they truly desire, where new and expansive patterns of thinking are nurtured, where collective aspiration is set free, and where people are continually learning to learn together† (Peter Senge, 1990) The following are the important characteristics of the learning organisations: †¢ Learning organisations adopts the external environments. They are flexible and continue the process of change. †¢ Depicts the combination of individual and collective learning. †¢ Keeps on learning with the outcomes. Learning can be done in two ways. 1) Single loop 2) Double loop In single loop learning people learn in a way prescribed to them by the organisation. In double loop learning people, people not only learn in a prescribed way but also can question and can change the framework. The ability to use double loop learning is a key to success for today’s organisations. Motorola puts great emphasise on the learning of its employees. It has created a strategic partnership with the ACS corporation in order to gain is tent expertise in learning and HR so that all the HR and training activities world-wide can be improved and modernised. The $650million contract has created a new business unit, which will play part in improvement of the HR and learning of employees. The step has been taken in order to gain world class management of administrative and transactional function related to HR with training and development. Many of the Motorola’s former employees provide virtual end-to-end HR capabilities. This is done in order to retain control over strategic areas. Developmental needs and assessment: Motorola has brought dramatic transformation in its training policy by shifting its rigid training hours of classroom training to a relatively flexible learning program individually designed for an employee. Motorola aims at improving the careers of its former employees. It is estimated that the people who focus only on training as a career are more enthusiasts rather than those in support function. The arrangement will put emphasis on the IT oriented skills development of employees at Motorola. (Harris, 2003)