Organizational Learning Disability - I am my position

Peter Senge describes the serious challenges that many organizations face when they learn poorly.

Unfortunately, because of the way we have been taught to think, these disabilities are very common. In his book, The Fifth Discipline, he reviews seven of these challenges that he defines as Organizational Learning Disabilities.

The term "learning" however, is defined differently. Rather than referring to the most common usage, Senge's meaning is more about how an organization achieves its potential - for itself and for its employees. Growing in a meaningful way, better able to face new market challenges, and avoiding the fate of many corporations -> an early extinction.

The first leaning disability 

addressed is named 

"I am my position"

The first leaning disability addressed is named "I am my position".

This is a fairly familiar syndrome and I'm sure that most of us have either said (or been in conversations with people that have said) "I'm a ". We identify with what we do. THIS is the most common symptom of this disability. However, it is not the only manifestation.

In "I am my position" there is also a hyper-focus on a person's individual role and responsibilities. With that singular vision, there is the concern that contributors fail to see how they connect with those around them. As an example of this, Sange gave the example of the Japanese v. US auto makers.

To summarize the example, Japanese engineers secured their engines with the same bolt in all three mountings. Contrasted that with US automakers, who assigned each of the 3 mounts to separate engineers - each responsible for one mounting bolt. Because the US engineers focused on THEIR mount only, and not thinking about how they connect with the other engineers, they each chose unique bolts. Because of that, assembly took longer and was more costly – had to keep multiple bolts in inventory.

Think about how this may be in-play in your organization. Do you produce monthly status reports? Do you have multiple deliveries of these reports in individual formats and decks? Are there multiple meetings? If so, your resources are spending time doing redundant work - just like the engineer with the engine bolt that should have conferred with his fellows. Management team should standardize on status reporting. AND in an agile environment, status report standardization is easy.

This is one of the organizational leaning disabilities that is addressed and remediated by Systems Thinking and the growth of the Learning Organization.