Team Learning

Team learning (organizational learning)

Team learning is the process of working collectively to achieve a common objectives in a group. In the Learning Organization context, team members tend to share knowledge and complement each other skills. Moreover, if there is no commitment from team members then effort of team working and learning from team work may fail. This is why teams should be given freewill to act specially in the Learning Organization context. For more information on team learning in organizations, Decuyper, Dochy and Van den Bossche recently published an integrative review on that topic [6].

The Disciplines of Team Learning

Dialogue and Discussion

Conflicts and Defensive Routines

Practice

[edit] References

Team Learning

By Dick McCann

Copyright © Dick McCann. All rights reserved.

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Introduction

Many organizations have tried to focus on teams. Self-managed teams offer the potential for downsizing organizations and the prospect of improving productivity. How many organizations can claim to have really succeeded in their attempt? Meeting people from all around the world, I hear the same comment, "Oh, teams, yes we tried that but it didn't work."

It is not possible to wave a magic wand and create a high-performing, self-managed team overnight. A self-managed team needs to develop a culture of lifelong, individual and team learning.

The Learning Organization

A 'buzz' word often talked about is The Learning Organization. This concept is the synthesis of a number of ideas about managerial learning brought together and popularized by Peter Senge and others in their books about the Fifth Discipline. Five disciplines comprise the learning organization concept.

They are:

Systems Thinking

Personal Mastery

Mental Models

Shared Vision

Team Learning

Many people I talk with are impressed by these five disciplines and want to introduce them to their organization 'overnight'. The...