Our organization has embraced the principles of the learning organization and we continually refine our strategy, tactics, and technique within that paradigm.
Here is an article about the donors of a learning organization, and in our organizational world, this blog, as well as our other written materials is our, and your, space for learning.
An excerpt.
Space for Learning?
Jenny Hyatt and Allan Kaplan
How do we really make a difference in the world? We act, we reflect, we learn and we change. This is particularly important for donors as they control resources that can enable or disable social change. Too often, however, reflection and learning are neglected out of organizational complacency, fear of failure, and a paradigm of impact which is over-reliant on what can be counted rather than what counts.
This article looks at a number of interrelated features of learning organizations and how these play out within donor agencies. We consider some critical issues about the 'space for learning' in those organizations with the intention to move beyond the rhetoric to look at the context for, and practice of, donors' engagement with themselves as 'learning organizations'. The other contributions in this special feature were all written partly in response to an early draft of this article.
The learning organization
For some donors, learning appears to be outweighed by self-belief. An author of this article, for example, was commissioned to evaluate the first phase of a €20 million EU-funded educational reform programme in Central Europe only to discover that the second phase had already been planned in detail. In cases like these, learning tends to be replaced by a narrative and financial report that inevitably demonstrates that money was used appropriately and achieved what it was supposed to.
For other donors, there is genuine concern for impact and for learning with colleagues. At a community foundations conference in 2005, William H Gates Snr described how their early childhood programming was shaped by learning from the Harlem Children's Zone. He concluded: 'It is this kind of learning from other organizations - who do what we do - that makes us all better philanthropists, but more importantly, better at getting the results that are impacting the lives of the families we serve.' Evaluation of impact and peer exchange are critical aspects of learning, but a learning organization needs to go beyond 'measuring the external' to root reflective practice in its culture.
For us, 'a learning organization' has three critical features.
Conscious of self
First, it is constantly working towards being 'conscious of self' - its world view, beliefs about change, purpose, values, relationships, culture, power, patterns and practices. This appears to be reflected, for example, in ActionAid's wish for its Accountability Learning and Planning System to 'allow more creative and honest assessment of change and create space for staff to listen to and engage with the concerns of poor people … to critically look at what we have achieved (or failed to achieve) through our rights-based programmes and actions around the world.'
Centred
Second, a learning organization is 'centred'. This means it draws its confidence and power to act from the knowledge that its actions are integral with its world view, beliefs about change, purpose, values and other features noted above. Where this is not the case, organizations are prone to tensions between belief and practice. This is common, for example, with intermediary donors who may not have the choice (financial security) to ensure consistency between beliefs and practice, like the South African foundation that talked recently of 'struggling to find the common ground between what corporate donors want and what we believe makes a difference'.
Open to its 'emergent self'
Third, a learning organization is open to its 'emergent self'. This means it has capacities to read and make meaning of itself in relationship to its environment, is aware of how its own patterns influence how it engages with itself/the world, can view itself differently, and can transform itself. These are challenging capacities to develop. For example, 'reading' and 'making meaning' require us to become as aware of what we don't see as of what we do, both within our organizations and with those with whom we work. This places primacy on learning through relationship, reflection and dialogue. Instead, there appears to be a greater emphasis on 'tools' for learning which can hide more than they reveal. For example, a team supporting a small grants programme for youth organizations in South East Europe found the McKinsey assessment tool obscured rather than illuminated grantees' concerns.
Hence, a learning organization needs to have processes and practices (not purely systems and tools) that enable it to be conscious of self, centred and open to its emergent self. Otherwise, the temptation is to believe that an elaborate monitoring and evaluation system (and regular exchanges with peers) is sufficient for learning. The 'we measure impact' mentality can result in a feeling that learning has been 'dealt with' and that it is mainly about measuring things 'out there' rather than something embedded in the fabric of organizational life. In short, we need to remain aware that 'Learning from programmed information always hides reality behind a screen.' (Ivan Illich, 1926-2002, radical thinker on education and other key institutions of the industrialized world.)
