|
Most managers today understand the value
of building a learning organization. Their goal is to leverage
knowledge and make it a key corporate asset, yet they remain
uncertain about how best to get started. What they lack
are guidelines and tools that transform abstract theory
-- the learning organization as an ideal -- into hands-on
implementation. For the first time in Learning in Action,
David Garvin helps managers make the leap from theory to
proven practice.
Garvin argues that at the heart of organizational
learning lies a set of processes that can be designed, deployed,
and led. He starts by describing the basic steps in every
learning process -- acquiring, interpreting, and applying
knowledge -- then examines the critical challenges facing
managers at each of these stages and the various ways the
challenges can be met. Drawing on decades of scholarship
and a wealth of examples from a wide range of fields, Garvin
next introduces three modes of learning -- intelligence
gathering, experience, and experimentation -- and shows
how each mode is most effectively deployed. These approaches
are brought to life in complete, richly detailed case studies
of learning in action at organizations such as Xerox, L.L.
Bean, the U.S. Army, and GE. The book concludes with a discussion
of the leadership role that senior executives must play
to make learning a day-to-day reality in their organizations.
Definitive and accessible, Learning in
Action is likely to be the only book managers read on
the way to putting the learning organization to work.
David A. Garvin is the Robert and Jane
Cizik Professor of Business Administration at the Harvard
Business School.
|
