Why write a book about organizational learning?

I was recently asked by the Learning Development Accelerator to take part in a Meet the author session to discuss my forthcoming book, The Great Reset: Unlocking the power of organizational Learning. I want to share some of that discussion here and am starting with a look at what prompted me to write a book on this topic . . . 

Essentially, I think all my books have come from a state of unknowing and a state of curiosity verging on a state of frustration and maybe annoyance, and the frustration and annoyance at the heart of this book – the problem that I’m trying to solve – is that in organizations we have focused long and hard on individual talent, individual KPIs, individual success and individual bonuses. And we build organizations around some slightly disproven notion that greatness is delivered to us by really talented individuals whereas the truth, from my reading back through from the 1990s to now is that it’s not true. We do best when we work with others. Most great things that have emerged from companies have come from teams, maybe led by somebody, but certainly supported by somebody, by a lot of people, and therefore we’re doing it wrong.

And the consequence of doing it wrong is that organizations don’t know what they know. They make the same mistake again and again because no one’s ever there to share the knowledge so that they can build rather than relearn. And this cult of the individual, means that strong communities don’t develop, networks don’t occur, and people don’t learn primarily from each other, because the community is the fundamental building block of the organization, not the individual.

And linked to that is this notion that organizations can know enough internally to be able to solve all their problems. Increasingly, my perception is that you’ve got to constantly plug into the outside world. But it’s no good just one person getting an idea or gathering insights and realizing there’s something going wrong from their connection with the outside world. The only way you’ll get an agile organization is to rapidly share those insights, work on them, and decide as an organization what to do.

There are shifts . . . for example, you see CEOs who listen rather than talk and CEOs who admire and celebrate others rather than take all the glory themselves. So, there is a shift, but it’s not fast enough, and I worry that in a world of such volatility and so much insecurity, that if organizations can’t be agile, they can’t survive, and they can’t be agile relying on a handful of individuals, such as the executive team, to make all the decisions. You need the smarts and the collective intelligence of the whole organization. What I’m postulating is that that collective intelligence is bigger than that of the individual.

We know from our own experience that when we work with a really empowered group, we learn so fast and so much, and it’s so exciting to be in that kind of environment. And yet most organizations do their level best to stop that happening so that no one dares ask for help, no one dares admit they don’t know something, no one dares make a mistake, because all of these things are punishable by corporate death, and therefore you’ve got this shell, this illusion that everything’s great, and underneath everything’s falling apart. And I just think you can do it a better way – this book explores that better way.

Access the meet the author recording here.

Pre-order the book here.