Schein has defined culture as the values, basic assumptions, beliefs, expected behaviors, and norms of an organization; the aspects of an organization that affect how people think, feel, and act. Members of an organization have a shared sense of culture that operates mostly unconsciously and that is manifested in every aspect of organizational life in subtle and not-so-subtle ways. From the rituals of celebration to how decisions are made, culture is made up of the artifacts and the actions of the members. It is passed on to new employees in what they are told and what they observe in the behavior, symbols, and documents around them.
Continuous organizational learning depends on a culture of learning throughout the organization. Your role is to help shape this culture of learning. Make the pursuit of learning everyone’s responsibility, from top management down to the line worker.
Organizations are replete with examples of how culture does not support learning: employees pass around stories (true or not) about co-workers who were forced out of the company because they tried something new. Managers tell their subordinates to develop new skills, but then chastise them for being away from work at a training event. They reward employees through compensation or perks for “making their numbers” at the end of the month, but do not reward them for engaging in cross-functional team problem-solving. They reward individual, but not team results, and assign teams to conduct research on the quality of a product or service and then fail to use the findings and recommendations. Daniel Tobin had this to say about how leaders can create a learning culture:
Successful companies encourage employee learning, through training programs and, even more so, by enabling and facilitating the exchange of knowledge and ideas and by empowering employees to try new ideas to help improve their own and the company’s performance. If a new idea doesn’t work out, the employee is rewarded for a thoughtful, well-conceived attempt at improvement—not punished for failing. Managers in these organizations coach employees and reinforce their learning to ensure that new ideas are properly applied to the job to add value to the employee’s work.
CREATE AND MAINTAIN A CULTURE THAT IS CONDUCIVE TO LEARNING
Make highly visible and dramatic changes that are symbolic, as well as substantive, of a learning culture in the organization.
Make sure that values in action are consistent with espoused values of learning. Initiate this conversation with your employees.
Assess and compare the perceived current culture with the desired learning culture.
Develop a shared plan for what the organization must do to move from the current culture to the desired learning culture.
Allow employees to dedicate time to formal and informal learning that will enhance their capacity to do their work effectively.
Develop learning events that are explicitly linked to the strategic goals of the organization.
Create ceremonies that give recognition to learning by individuals and teams.
Make the artifacts of learning visible to employees, such as a library, spaces for formal and informal conversations among employees, benefits that support education, and computer access to just-in-time information.
Provide feedback to individuals and groups that use learning applied to organizational capacity as one indicator of success.