Learning Journal 1

Posted: September 9th, 2013

Learning Journal 1

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Learning Journal 1

The Core Disciplines: Building the Learning Organization: Part III

I think the relationship between learning organizations and the core disciplines is interesting because it builds knowledge on expectations in a working environment. I understood personal mastery to be the individual strengths of a person in the organization. It brings out a sense of commitment and a yearning to get better at doing tasks. I did not understand why personal mastery was required. It was funny how we want mastery. I think it goes beyond just that to a desire to learn more. I believe the best masters of their art cannot be waived to develop other interests to the level in which they have perfected their current skills. Resistance to personal mastery reminds me of workers who want to quit their day jobs because of everyday frustrations. Creative tension in personal mastery and its difference from emotional tension are still strange concepts to me. I understood structural conflict to be a fight between my vision and my fears of achieving it. I believe personal mastery is very important in an organization to set the pace. I am imagining a world without pace setters, and it looks stagnant and boring.

Of more interest was the mental models core discipline. I understood it to mean a lack of means to accomplish big dreams. It is as if I have a solution but do not have an idea of how to implement it. The difference between how I view this unit as compared to my classmates truly determines whether I will pass or fail. My greatest limitation to any successful task is my own thoughts. Think big, accomplish big, as well. I would want to better my thinking to make further progress. However, the same mental model also shows that regular application skills and activities help improve my capability to achieve. I understood that for mental models to be effected more innovations need to come out and new skills learnt in the process. In addition, adoption of a traditional planning approach and an internal board of directors help. I still did not get a solution as to how an individual might be assisted. The solution was to adopt inquiring skills and reflection skills at a personal level. Individual exercises enabled me to put these traits to practice, and the approach was indeed better. I got a broader aspect of the topics as I advocated for issues while asking and pondered more about them. The left hand column exercise was particularly helpful in showing unrealized individual potential in a collective work.

Shared vision as a concept was a difficult model to comprehend. I always encounter some challenges when trying to convince other people to adopt my thoughts. Getting co-workers to adopt a similar driving force or vision is cumbersome. I understood that a learning organization could not be successful without a shared vision. Shared vision arises from personal vision where people reflect together and bring a realization of their visions. I realized that a successful company is keen on sharing visions from the employee level all the way to management on a regular basis to bring them closer to completion. I further got the flow chart on why visions die prematurely, simply because it all revolves around the same thing. An excitement is generated, people talk and get a clearer picture and the process repeats itself all over. The structures that followed became a bit complicated to follow, but I saw they were all related to the first structure. A simple analogy that I thought of was how people talk of starting a business but never begin one. The same talk continues, but only one person eventually pulls it off on his/her own.

I got a bit tired by the time Team Learning principle was being explained. The two arrow alignments was a straightforward approach and helped me understand the basic model. It involves alignment of individual concepts to focus in one direction and would have a need to bring the thoughts together. At that point, where dialogue was mentioned, I could not help but talk to the person sitting next to me then, and we shared the same vision, of a class ending early. The discussion and dialogue helped get it as a discipline of team learning. I thought of how classmates work together to convince a lecturer to postpone a lecture or end it early. It involves creativity to work against that opposing force. It also requires a team leader and a group effort, similar to working as colleagues. I did not understand the difference between discussions and dialogue and furthermore how productive discussions occurred. I got to thinking how the upcoming elections in America inspired people to hold similar views and how the candidates talked openly about bringing the civilian issues together and solving them. Complex scenarios are broken down into smaller issues by virtue of talk, and this showed the relationship between fifth discipline and team learning.

Part IV: Prototypes

My understanding of a prototype is simply a working model; an example of the actual innovation before it is fully implemented. The prototype system is a successful system that adopts most of the people’s ideas in the organization. I advanced in my understanding of a political environment when the idea of who, rather than what matters, was taught. That environment is a big barrier to a learning organization, in my opinion. As the idea of participative openness was discussed, I saw it as a proper solution to curb such a problem. The concept was developed further when a group exercise was conducted, and these models came to life. Openness, team learning, shared vision and mental model were put in practice. I saw the most difficult challenge as bringing the group members’ thoughts together to come up with a shared view. I experienced an easier time after colleague effort was achieved and individual opinions converged in a common direction. The individual exercises were a challenge to apply theory in practice and develop a better understanding.

In my assessment, the participative openness of each group member brought us a step closer to focusing on a common goal. I properly understood the reflective openness concept when individual opinions were properly discussed, and better ways adopted from members with additional skills. Any answer generated was not a final solution; it was subjected to more thinking and considered as just an approximation. I got the proper distinction of divergent problems and convergent problems. I think the relationship between convergent and divergent is interesting because it is similar to the concept of lenses. A divergent lens directs rays in separate directions after contact, while a convergent lens focuses the rays to a common point after contact with the lens. I understood and applied the same ideology in divergent and convergent problems.

I got surprised when the meaning of freedom was described using the same initial word ‘freedom.’ An additional understood idea was the localness attribute of learning organizations where authority is brought down from the top level. This brought the whole concept of learning organizations to another level. I saw it as a deliberate attempt to improve the firm’s functions by improving the value of thinking. Such an approach ensures a decision-making system that is not centered but rather localized in that it incorporates all individuals’ participation. I had never thought of forgiveness as a means of encouraging risk taking until it was taught in class. The individual role is applied a step further by being encouraged at home and breaks the family/work barrier. I found this to be challenging yet very productive if applied. I highly appreciated the role that managers should play in micro worlds by adopting team-building exercises and team retreats. The role of leaders in the learning process was a difficult concept to understand and even more of a task to implement.

Rewriting the Code: Part V

I understood the concept of rewriting the code as training the subconscious. Finally, the invisible whole was a new approach to the worldview in that nature by itself is a living organism.