Fluid communication, large organizations and learning

Clayton M. Christensen’s book The Innovator’s Solution (published by Harvard Business School) reveals some astonishing insights into the fragility of success. Being bigger, it seems, it not always better.

Examining the companies that appeared on Fortune’s “50 Largest” list between 1955 and 1995, Christensen points out that 95% saw their growth rates stall to the level of general GNP or lower. Of these “stalled” companies, only 4 percent successfully rose to a level even one point higher than GNP subsequently.

It seems that companies become victims of their own success. Too often – almost inevitably – they reach a certain size beyond which they are unable to innovate and grow.

What does this have to do with learning? Everything.

Organizations that grow to a certain size often become hidebound – whether in the public or private sector. Employees’ work is corralled by the procedures and processes which middle management needs to function in large organizations. Employees are separated from the vision and strategy of the company, executives and senior managers from the daily reality of operations.

In these circumstances, traditional ‘push’ learning seldom keeps up with the pace of change faced in the modern world – meaning that training departments are often out-of-touch with the needs of learners. Worse, learning fails to play a vital role missing in most large, modern organizations: that of a conduit of information flow, keeping senior management and executives in touch with what is happening elsewhere.

The learning and development field has done itself no favors in the past by trying to make learning a transactional process driven by a centralized LMS. This is exactly what large organizations do not need. Instead, they need co-operative, organic learning, something that people throughout the organization contribute to – certainly, centrally-produced courses have a role, but so, too, do employee experiences, informal conversations and immediate customer feedback.

Learning can evolve from the centralized teaching of the past to a truly organic system of the future, and now at last the technology exists to support this. In the future learning can be part of the lifeblood of organizations that allows them to constantly be aware of their resources, processes and values in a changing world.

This new learning will be critical to a company’s ability to evolve and remain relevant.

Ara Ohanian
CEO, CERTPOINT Systems