Completing a training programme to improve your ability or develop your personal skill set is nothing new within business. Whether that’s attending a conference to learn about new trends within an industry or taking part on a course. These can be fantastic activities to contribute towards learning and developing.
But in some cases, the skills learnt during these programmes or courses are simply a one off. There is no guarantee that the learnings will be brought back into the workplace. Or, if they are brought back to the workplace this does not always mean that the learnings can be implemented into a team scenario.
Imagine if you could cultivate training & development into a company culture and exercise this process to a whole organisation on a continuous basis? Now that would be cool.
Peter Senge (2006) introduced the theory of ‘The Learning Organisation’ whereby any form of organisation, which enables its members to learn continuously. As a result, it facilitates achievement of valuable innovations (product, marketing or organisational) which leads to a better competitive position of an enterprise.
Senge (2006) believes that in this type of structure, if each employee has wide access to organisational knowledge, people will develop in teamwork, learn constantly and look for new possibilities of obtaining desirable effects. Here at Nine Feet Tall we use a combination of technology and company culture to contribute towards achieving a learning organisation. Using technology such as Sharepoint, Teams and Miro we can cultivate our own efficient approach to accessing shared organisational knowledge whether we are working at home, in the office or on a client site in Ireland.
It’s fantastic having the technology available so that all staff members can access resources at any time they wish, however, without the right organisational culture there is a possibility that people won’t use the resources to their best ability or at all.
Organisational culture can be perceived as a model of basic assumptions – created, discovered and developed by a group of people in the process of learning, dealing with problems of external & internal integration (Schein, 1992).
Many different organisations influence culture through company values, beliefs and regular activities that create the ‘unwritten rules’ of an organisation. If an organisation can cultivate a continuous approach to learning & developing, like Peter Senge (2006) theory, that is overall influenced by the culture. Businesses and individuals will see some fantastic benefits.
Here at Nine Feet Tall, on top of the access to shared knowledge, we hold regular company away days & regular weekly meetings to exercise learnings & knowledge with one another on a continuous basis. These events allow individuals to express their opinions and debate topics. Overall, pushing continuous learning and improvements companywide.
New businesses are popping up every day, the competition in markets is therefore increasing and pushing businesses to continuously innovate and be creative to stay competitive.
Sadly, organisations that do not realise and action learning & developing will inevitably fall behind and in worse cases, may fail according to Von Oetinger (2004).
If you feel like your organisation would benefit from a cultural change to enable greater learning and development opportunities, get in touch today: TiggyR@NineFeetTall.com
