Creating A Learning Organisation

This article is about creating a Learning Organisation. I am writing it at 36,000 feet which is a good place to have a new perspective on life!

At what stage does a learning organisation become a ‘Learning Organisation’?

Creating a ‘Learning Organisation’ has to come from the heart of the organisation. It is not something that you can expect of people without the leaders being prepared to take a stand and lead the way.

Learning Organisations take a view on things that are long term and not short term.

This month I ordered some new furniture for the studio. It was not a single order from one supplier but rather we used a number of suppliers for various things. From one of these suppliers I ordered two small units at a cost of £130. At the point of placing the order I established that they would deliver in 5 to 10 working days and that they had the items in stock so there should be no reason for a delay.

I was slightly surprised that a stock item would take 5 to 10 days but as long at it did get to me in ten days, it would be in time for the launch. On the day before the 10th working day I decided to phone the company and check that the goods would be delivered the next day.

As you can imagine, I was stunned when I was told that they were planning to deliver the following week (another three working days). I pointed out to them that they had assured me that they would deliver in ten working days “maximum” and taken my money already, making it a legally binding agreement.

At first the company went into denial and did everything they could to persuade me to take delivery next week. I stood firm. I will save you the endless conversations that took place but finally I spoke to the Director of Distribution who tried one more time to get me to accept delivery next week and finally I got a call to say that they would deliver the next day and would even send a fitter to install the units.

The Customer Services Manager (who I have to tell you was extremely professional at all times) gave me a ring to make sure that I had been told what had been decided and if I was happy. This guy had spent a lot of his time battling to get me my goods. It was obvious that the company saw this as a £130 order and that sending a driver out especially to deliver to me (a round trip of 120 miles) was going to cost more than the value of the order.

However Craig had seen the bigger picture! Craig had seen that the issue here was not my order but rather that the company was making promises and then not informing the customer when they were running into problems. He recognised that if the company had phoned me up a few days before the agreed maximum date for delivery and explained the problem, I may have been unhappy but I would have been able to work with them to find a mutually agreeable solution. But leaving it for me to find out because I had phoned them the day before, was not acceptable. The Customer Services Manager said “we have to stop reacting to issues with customers and start being proactive in talking to customers”.

Now that is taking the learning opportunity from the situation! The Customer Services Manager suddenly didn’t see the possible loss of £200 on this sale as a cost. He saw this as probably the cheapest training session the company had ever spent money on.

That mental shift in the customer services manager is the shift an organisation needs to make if it is to become a ‘Learning Organisation’. The sad part of the story is that in this case the Customer Services Manager was appeared to be seen as not senior enough in the organisation to have an impact on shaping the business. So I worry that the leadership in the organisation will not embrace the learning and instead develop a new process or procedure after the head hunt has been carried out.

If an organisation is to become a real ‘Learning Organisation’, the shift must come from the leadership. In this organisation it was taking place too low down the ranks to make an impact on their business.

So my questions for this month are:

• How good are you at taking the learning out of every situation? If you can’t be a learner, then you won’t be any good at leading the process in your organisation!

• How good are your management team at taking the learning out of every situation? Don’t expect your people to take time to learn when they are so busy covering up the problem or finding a way to shift the blame!

• Do you allow (even encourage) your employees to point out the learning opportunities? I don’t know when the Customer Services Manager recognised that this problem was a symptom of the way the company was running it’s business, but without the credibility and power to speak up he will be unable to help the business harness the learning.

I hope these ‘Thoughts on Leadership’ and the questions I pose will help you develop your leadership ability.

For my part I will continue to think what I have to learn from the fact that I allowed an organisation the opportunity to learn from me and I didn’t get paid!

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