What is a learning organisation? - Judi Apte

“Developing as a Learning Organisation – Judi Apte, EOS Management Consultant and Trainer

This is a brief summary of Judi Apte’s presentation and discussion at the March meeting of the Training Directions Network.

• Judi’s background is in adult education and social work
• Her interest is in engaging organizations and teams in learning practices
• Last year, a project that assisted family support services in the Blacktown area looked at different aspects such as how staff absorb new ideas, how ideas are presented and followed up through supervision and skills levels.
• Through FWTDP the project aimed to lift practice and encourage organizations to become solid learning organizations.
• Some aspects highlighted through the project were: staff need to engage managers and management committees to become a learning organization.
• It is easier to invest in supervision and training but looking at the practical use of these acquired skills is another story
• Learning organizations require the support from management
• Another example of a good learning practice is the development of cultural intelligence. Therefore the organization will be able to respond better to new client groups
• Sometimes the issue is not the quality of the training. On the contrary the issue is how we move to the next level – excellence
• What is a learning organization?: it creates knowledge for current and future work, rather than responding to experiences in a reactive way.


What is a non learning organization?

• People “fixed” with a certain ideas
• “I don’t need new knowledge” attitude
• Being stuck in old habits
• Being in a position and keep the old ways of working
• Issues of territoriality
• Strong sense of ownership
• Ideas of superiority
• Not allowing people to stay in a position for a long period of time
• Become defensive


Steps to become a learning organization

• Strengthen what we know. If we make our tacit knowledge more explicit we can strengthen, extend and promote our capacity to be effective more and become more confident
• In our industry we need to re-value supervision and be clear why we need to learn
• A lot of our working knowledge is not documented, shared and promoted – we need to do this explicitly
• Create space to share our learning through team meetings and what we are learning from our clients
• Improve our environments: organizational learning environments are about developing optimum conditions for effective learning within agencies at both individual and organizational levels
• The value of staff meetings to explore new ideas
• A learning organization strongly values informal learning as only 10% to 20% of our learning comes from formal training


Characteristics of a Learning Organisation

• Curious, solution finding and adaptive to its environment, seeking information and opportunities
• Taking a learning stance in response to difficulties and pressures
• Less defensive, blaming and stuck
Learning disabilities
• Some teams or team members are closed to new ideas and remain out of date in their responses to issues
• Organizations who are chaotic are normally overwhelmed with information and lack focus and future direction
• The pace to a learning organization is a slow process
• The organization needs to have a strategy to deal with learning disabilities

Vocational Education and Training Workforce Report - Productivity Commission

Dear TDN members
the "Vocational Education and Training Workforce" Report produced by the Productivity Commission is available now:


http://www.pc.gov.au/__data/assets/pdf_file/0012/98598/vocational-education-issues.pdf


MF

Sydney Facilitators Network - March Meeting

Dear TDN members. The Sydney Facilitators Network is meeting on Monday 14th of March. Further information is included on this blog entry:


“Playing to Learn” - is this an oxymoron [like ‘”fun run”] - or a viable option for today’s complex world?
With Dr Elyssebeth Leigh

Dr Elyssebeth Leigh enjoys playing to learn and considers learning as the most vital and continuing task we all undertake everyday. Considering ‘learning’ as a ‘serious’ task critically inhibits our capacity to adapt ‘in the moment’ to changing demands on our thinking and our capacity to act sensibly.
Considering ‘learning’ as a plaything and observing ourselves learn through play is what we did as children all our early years. Then we encounter the ‘formality’ of ‘school learning’ and begin to lose that capacity to ‘play with’ knowing and doing.

In this session Elyssebeth will invite everyone to revisit your childhood, recapture those moments when you knew you were learning something important and were nowhere near a classroom. This series of fun ‘mind games’ will help you address your own unique take on your childhood and your present approach to learning in the hope that you too will see how much fun you can have while playing to learn.

About Dr Elyssebeth Leigh:
Elyssebeth leads FutureSearch - an educational consultancy using action and experiential learning and simulations and games for organisational development and personal improvement.
As an experienced communicator and learning facilitator, as well as a designer of simulations and games, she works in multi-cultural contexts. She has been an educator of adults for more than 20 years in business and academic contexts, and was a keynote speaker at the 2010 conference on “Public Administration in the XX1st century – traditions and innovations” hosted by Lomonsov Moscow State University.
Elyssebeth publishes books and articles - the most recent being Wills, S. Leigh, E. Ip, A (2010) The Power of Role-based e- Learning, New York, Routledge. She leads the Technical Committee for the SimTecT conferences (http://www.siaa.asn.au/)

Venue: ** Note change of Venue for this Meeting***
University of Technology Sydney (UTS),
Room CM05C.01.05
UTS (University of Technology) Sydney
Haymarket Campus
(Opposite Market City Shopping Complex and Paddy's Markets)
Cnr Quay St & Ultimo Rd
Haymarket, NSW, 2000


Time:
From 5:30pm to 7:30pm sharp | No RSVP - Just turn up

"What makes a great presentation" - articles

Dear TDN members
I found two articles that provide two different perspectives on what makes a great presentation.

http://www.presentationadvisors.com/100-presentation-tips

http://www.presentationadvisors.com/wp-content/uploads/2011/01/100_tips.pdf

http://blogs.hbr.org/johnson/2011/02/the-essence-of-a-great-present.html

MF