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And I'm back! - B11

  • Marko Svetlicic
  • Jan 21, 2017
  • 3 min read

The start of the second semester was slow and steady. Organisational space and management module ended in the first semester which means I now only have 6 classes per week and plenty of time for all the coursework due nearer the end of this semester. In change management, we started with the new chapter which deals with ‘Knowledge management’ and ‘Organisational learning’. Every organisation has a specific set of operations typical for the industry it operates in. However, it is obvious that every organisation with more than 1 employee also has to work on organisational learning and knowledge management. Now, what does that mean?


By employing someone every manager naturally expects that that person will, apart from the required tasks, want to think for themselves and be creative as well as innovative. By having employees that do that there is always a chance that one of the employees comes up with a new idea for a product, a better way of storing data or maybe a cost-saving innovation. Nowadays, companies and managers live off innovation and creativity which naturally requires thinking. But, how can they manage that? How can managers be sure that their employees are both learning the right things and using their knowledge at the highest level, and above all, how are we learning in organisations?


A quote from Argyris and Schon (1978) perfectly presents the complexity of the matter: ''There is something paradoxical here. Organisations are not merely collections of individuals, yet there are no organisations without such collections. Similarly, organisational learning is not merely individual learning, yet organisations learn through the experience and actions of individuals. What then, are we to make of organisational learning? What is an organisation that it may learn?'' In my view, organisations consist of people who are sometimes right and sometimes wrong which makes the unit vulnerable. However, the crucial difference is that organisation has many different personalities and minds while a person has just one!


Therefore, I see communication and good leadership both in good and bad times as crucial components of a successful organisational learning and knowledge management. If communication is right it builds a great company culture making it easier for everybody to focus on work which directly empowers creativity and innovation. People function well when they are in the environment they like. Likewise, Argyris and Schon (1978) argue that ‘organisations learn through the experience and actions of individuals’. And what is that if not good individual leadership?


Moreover, I would like to focus on memory as it is one of the things that are sometimes left behind but nothing can function without them. Personally, I realised that my memory is better when I work in my personal area. For example, when I work back home in Croatia I often change places where I work and these places are not as quiet as the one I have in Dundee. This makes me forget both things related to work and things in general. On the other hand, in Dundee, I use post-it notes and have a different way of functioning overall which makes it easier for me to remember therefore making me more efficient. I hate forgetting but still cannot bring myself to write my tasks down when I am in a new environment.


What I experience is probably what organisations face on a daily basis and thus I believe that by putting an emphasis on good and constant communication and offering useful training to the workforce can greatly improve both productivity and efficiency. Organisations should teach their employees how to become as efficient as possible and create rules to monitor that. It should be everybody’s goal to reach their maximum potential and having someone push and guide you can only be beneficial. To conclude, organisations need to invest their time and resources to get to know their workforce and the ways they function. For example, if they need a gym to get their brain cells going investing in a room for PC games would be a waste of time and money. Therefore, communication, testing, research and, of course, communication again!

Reference:

Argyris, C. and Schön, D. (1978). Organizational learning: a theory of action perspective. 1st ed. Reading, MA: Addison-Wesley

 
 
 

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