Domain Of Enduring Change
A. T. Ariyaratne is one of the world's most successful community organizers. His organization, the Sarvodaya Shramadana, has mobilized millions of people in Sri Lanka in successful grass roots initiatives, with lasting benefits for Sri Lanka's economic and community development.
Ariyaratne reminds us that it is easier to begin initiatives than to bring enduring changes to fruition. At the early stages, excitement comes easily. Later, after you begin to make progress, opposition develops- which can actually mobilize your efforts. People see themselves fighting "a noble battle" against the entrenched forces preserving the status quo. A few small initial victories establish confidence that more progress is just around the corner. Eventually, the initiative is treated with respect: the "enemy outside" begins to espouse all the same goals, objectives, and ideals as those instigating the change. At this point, it is easy for people to think that the work is over. In fact, it may be just starting.
Today, there is a groundswell of interest in learning organizations. But in times of "respect," it becomes more important than ever to think and act strategically. Otherwise, all the talk about "learning organizations" will amount to little more than another management fad.
Thinking strategically starts with reflection on the deepest nature of an undertaking and on the central challenges it poses. It develops with understanding of focus and timing. Focus means knowing where to place one's attention. What is truly essential? What is secondary? What cannot be ignored without risking the success of the enterprise? Timing means having a sense of an unfolding dynamic. Although every organizational setting is unique, all organizations develop learning capabilities according to the same generic patterns. Some changes are intrinsically long term; they cannot be achieved quickly. Others can be started relatively quickly, but only assume lasting importance in concert with slower- occurring changed. Some changes can be achieved directly; others occur as by-products of effort focused elsewhere. Understanding such issues is the essence of strategic thinking.
Strategic thinking also addresses core dilemmas. Inevitably, one of the factors that makes significant change difficult is conflict among competing goals and norms: we want to distribute power and authority and yet we also want to improve control and coordination. We want organizations to be more responsive to changes in their environment and yet more stable and coherent in their sense of identity, purpose, and vision. We want high productivity and high creativity. Good strategic thinking brings such dilemmas to the surface, and uses them to catalyze imagination and innovation.
For the past fifteen years or longer, many of us have been struggling to understand what "learning organizations" are all about and how to make progress in moving organizations along this path. Out of these efforts, I believe, some insights are emerging to enhance our ability to think and act strategically. The purpose of this section is to share those ideas and to invite all of us, the growing community involved in doing his work to help in testing and improving upon them.
The Essence of the Learning Organization
At some time or another, most of us have been a member of a "great team". It might have been in sports, or the performing arts, or perhaps in our work. Regardless of the setting, we probably remember the trust, the relationships, the acceptance, the synergy-and the results that we achieved. But we often forget that great teams rarely start off as great. Usually, they start as a group of individuals. It takes time to develop the knowledge of working as a whole, just as it takes time to develop knowledge of walking or riding a bicycle. In other words great teams are learning organizations - groups of people who, over time enhance their capacity to create what they truly desire to create.
Looking more closely at the development of such a team, you see that people are changed, often profoundly,. There is a deep learning cycle. Team members develop new skills and capabilities which alter what they can do and understand. As new capabilities develop, so too do new awarenesses and sensibilities. Over time, as people start to see and experience the world differently, new beliefs and assumptions begin to form, which enables further development of skills and capabilities.
This deep learning cycle constitutes the essence of a learning organization- the development not just of new capacities, but of fundamental shifts of mind, individually and collectively. The five basic learning disciplines are the means by which this deep learning cycle is activated. Sustained commitment to the disciplines keeps the cycle going. When this cycle begins to operate, the resulting changes are significant and enduring.
