1. The role of “Learning Organisations” in “Logistics and Supply Chain Management”
Compiled by
Rulzion Rattray
University of Abertay Dundee
Dundee Business School
11/12/2018

2. Competitiveness & Learning
Competitiveness and performance depends on the organisation’s ability to learn and acquire new capabilities
Generative learning is more important than adaptive learning
Adaptive learning - about coping
Generative learning - about creating
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3. Learning requires creative tension
Vision
Clear vision of where we want to be
Creative
Gap =
tension
Reality
Tel the truth about where
we are
It is important to recognise that both elements; vision and reality are required in order to avoid cynicism.
Research appears to demonstrate that many organisations can only generate enough momentum for change when problems are bad enough.
Senge argues that problems solving and creative tension are very different things and that problem solving is essentially adaptive learning rather than generative learning.
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4. Learning and leadership:
Leader as designer of
Ideas: purpose, vision and core values
Policies, Strategy & Structure that translate ideas into decisions
Strategy; Emergent Mintzberg (1994) “key not getting right plan but fostering strategic thinking”
Planning as learning De Geus (1995)
Shell & Scenario planning
Shell planners foresaw dramatic changes in the future of oil markets in 1971 but could not get any of the the managers to contemplate change.
The planners realised they had to focus on the decision makers mental models. The initial way in which they did this was to encourage decision makers toi involve themselves in the development of different scenarios of the future and ask themselves how they would manage in different future worlds.
Shell in 1970 was the weakest of the big seven, today it is arguably the strongest along with Exon.
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5. Learning and leadership:
Leader as teacher
Coach, guide & facilitator
Focus on mental models
Surfacing mental models which affect the basis for decision making processes
Leader as steward
“Servant Leadership” Greenleaf (1977)
Stewardship of people
Stewardship of organisational purpose
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6. Learning requires new leadership skills
Building a shared vision:
Encouraging involvement, communicating and asking for support
Surfacing and testing mental models:
New ideas challenge & evoke defences which have to be recognised and defused
Systems thinking:
Look at the whole picture, trends, forces for change, interrelationships
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7. Decision Making & Learning Single Loop Learning
Negative or Damping Feedback
Reviewing a budget & taking corrective action
Use present mental model
No fundamental questioning
Stacey, R, 2000, Strategic Management & Organisational Dynamics;
The Challenge of Complexity, FT Prentice Hall, London. Pp
11/12/2018

8. Decision Making & Learning Double Loop Learning
During the discovery stage there is a fundamental questioning of the mental model.
Involves changing mental model, breaking the old & creating a new model.
Difficult because we have to constantly examine our assumptions.
Consequences & Changes
New Mental
Model
Acting
Discovering
Old
Mental
Model
Choosing
Stacey, R, 2000, Strategic Management & Organisational Dynamics;
The Challenge of Complexity, FT Prentice Hall, London. Pp
11/12/2018

9. Idon Approach
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10. Organisational Learning
Complex learning provokes fear of embarrassing and being embarrassed
Complex learning easily stalled by organisational and group defence routines
Use of non confrontational techniques such as scenario planning can help bypass defence routines
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11. References
Baden-Fuller, C. & Stopford, J. (1992), Rejuvenating the Mature Business, Routledge.
De Geus, A. (1988), Planning as Learning, Harvard Business Review, March/April, pp
De Wit, B & Meyer, R. (1998), Strategy; Process, Content & Context, Thomson.
Greenleaf, R.K. (1977) Servant Leadership, A Journey Into Legitiamte Power & Greatness, Paulist Press, New York.
Mintzberg, H., (1991), The Effective Organisation: Forces & Forms, Sloan Management Review.
Senge, P., (1990), Building Learning Organisations, Sloan Management Review.
Stacey, R., (1993), Strategy as Order Emerging From Chaos, Long Range Planning, Oxford.
Stacey, R, 2000, Strategic Management & Organisational Dynamics; The Challenge of Complexity, FT Prentice Hall, London
11/12/2018