Is Yours a Learning Organization?

Author(s)
Garvin, D. A., Edmondson, A. C., & Gino, F.
Publication language
English
Pages
11pp
Date published
01 Jan 2008
Publisher
Harvard Business Review
Type
Tools, guidelines and methodologies
Keywords
Leadership and Decisionmaking, Organisational

 In a learning organisation, employees continually create, acquire, and transfer knowledge, helping their organisation adapt to today's increasingly unpredictable environment faster than its rivals can. But few companies have achieved this ideal. Managers don’t know the precise steps for building a learning organisation, and they lack tools for assessing whether their teams are learning or how that learning is benefiting the company. This article suggests three building blocks for a learning organisation: a supportive environment, concrete learning processes, and leadership that reinforces learning. It offers a diagnostic tool, the Learning Organization Survey, to determine how well a team, department, or company is performing with each building block.