Every work organization is a learning organization to some extent, or it’s no longer alive, so we’re really talking about invigorating their learning processes. You’ll find a lot about the Vigorous Learning Company on our web site. There’s enough to it to keep anyone mulling a while, and it’s not appreciated without the mulling.
The key to getting started is Servant Leadership by those with the influence to shift the culture of the organization. If those “at the top” are not Servant Leaders, everyone else is constantly bucking their non-understanding.
Servant Leadership begins with attitude, a deep belief that the organization really consists of people, and that success is developing them to fulfill the organization’s mission. This is extreme. People are more than a company’s most important assets, a financial description. From a performance view, everything really depends on people. Physical assets, money, and intellectual property are what people work with. They make something happen with the financial assets – or not.
Dispel the mythology of serving ownership, and if well led, everyone has to become responsible for success of an organization’s mission. To be truly dedicated, they have to feel that responsibility. That makes a huge difference in why people work.
Think of ownership as a sponsor, not a supreme master. If an organization practices quality, the client or customer is supreme. If it is environmentally responsible, not even the customer is supreme. Servant Leadership is the development of people and processes to look at all this, seeing in multiple directions at once, and helping them always do the right thing.