Question

Define in your own words what is a learning organization and give an example.

Answer 1

A learning organization is an organization (a firm, an institute etc.) which enables its employees and stakeholders to continuously learn and enhane their skills, within the framework of the organization's goals. Such an organization not only encourages its people to consinuously learn and enhance their skills, it also facilitates the same through organized courses, knowledge management repositories etc. Such an approach benefits both the organization and the people simultanrously as the organization also itself evolves with its people.

McKinsey and co is a good example of a learning organization. They have a practice of sharing knowledge across their global presence, in the form of case-studies, KM repositeries and tools and expertise sharing across employees. Apart from having some standard practices to solve any particular case, they have detailed case-studies about what the problem of the client was, what was the core reason behind it, how McKinsey went about solving those issues and what were the key learnings from the case. These case studies are then shared across all their offices through centralized Knowledge Management tools. Consultants can also see check who has worked on which project and who is an expert on a particular field so that they can leverage that expertise. This knowledge sharing and enhancement is encouraged and facilitated by McKinsey, making it a learning organization.