Why the Learning Organization Remains an Illusion

written by: Viktor Vetturelli

In the years leading up to the pandemic, the word ‘agility’ became a sort of catchphrase, and everything was somehow ‘agilized’ – not just product development but also human resources (HR), marketing, sales, and even accounting. Concepts like scrum were introduced, hierarchies were flattened, and new tools were implemented everywhere. All of this was done in the name of adaptability, innovation, and humanity. To achieve this, the topic of organizational learning also came to the forefront. The secret recipe? Knowledge transfer with a pinch of social ‘community’. Business trend creators called this social learning, peer learning, or cohort learning – and thus it all ended up on the menu of new work catchphrases. The goal was clearly defined: to become an organization that continuously learns, in the spirit of MIT professor Peter M. Senge and his fantastic book ‘The Fifth Discipline’.

Despite countless initiatives, training sessions, and workshops, the expected effects and transformations are absent. The usual explanation: ‘The problem lies with the employees. They lack the right mindset, are not mature enough, or simply do not want to learn.’ However, is that really the case? Or are the true causes hidden elsewhere? Before we delve deeper into possible causes, I pose two short questions for reflection, asking you to pause for a moment and think before continuing to read: first, how do you recognize that learning has indeed taken place in your organization, and how do you recognize that it has not?

Complexity – often mentioned, rarely understood

Today’s reality is often described by the acronyms VUCA (volatility, uncertainty, complexity, ambiguity) or the newer version BANI (brittle, anxious, nonlinear, incomprehensible). These are precisely the reasons why leadership recognizes the necessity for organizational transformation. Although these terms, due to hyperinflation of usage and methods developed around them, rarely result in genuine understanding or change (which is why they often elicit only a cynical smile from many employees), we cannot dismiss their descriptions as inaccurate.

Let’s take complexity. What does it actually mean when we constantly read that we live and work in ‘complex times’? A brief explanation: complexity arises when many interconnected parts in feedback loops and nonlinear interactions produce unexpected, emergent properties. Small changes can lead to large and difficult-to-predict consequences because the dynamics are not linear. Therefore, complex systems can only be managed to a limited extent. Learning in organizations should help people navigate better in a complex environment and its dynamics. However, learning projects most often follow a linear pattern: an expert, either internal or external, is brought in who knows something that people in the organization supposedly do not know, and that knowledge is transferred in training sessions and workshops. In the end, materials, tools, and canvases are delivered. All of this has its place, but it is not enough.

In complexity, we encounter problems we do not know and often do not even know exist. The brilliant systems theorist Russell L. Ackoff referred to these problems as ‘messes’ and described:

– People do not face problems; they face messes. They confront dynamic situations consisting of complex systems of many changing problems that interact with each other. I call such situations ‘messes’.

A mess is dangerous because in it, people, if not trained, unlike in tragedies where they often come together – begin to separate. It requires the ability to cope with uncertainty because there are no right or wrong solutions; it is crucial to find the relevant ones. The foundation for this is that employees jointly develop an understanding of the work context. Training and classical e-learning do not help here because they transfer already known solutions. Understanding, however, cannot be transferred; therefore, it does not work even when a few employees are trained and then sent to further spread that understanding. For the joint construction and deepening of understanding, conversation, exchange of perspectives, and the ability to confront the friction that arises are necessary. In other words – dialogue.

When learning projects are initiated, it is essential to be aware of the context in which they are conducted. Without that awareness, the effect is absent.

Is the employee or their mindset really the problem?

Let’s go deeper, from context to people and the question: are they really the problem? In the introduction, we already emphasized that voices from leadership or human resources often assert this. They can be heard saying things like: ‘People need to be developed, and someone needs to guide them by the hand, pick them up where they are, and change their mindset.’

The result? Coaches are engaged who are supposedly supposed to ‘reset’ people, and then the organization will magically become different – learning, more agile, more modern. But that is an illusion. This approach does not yield results at the organizational level. Moreover, it infantilizes the relationship with people – because who is it that dares to claim that a colleague must undergo coaching and that they need to be ‘developed’?

This is anything but what should be built through collective learning: the development of critical thinking, decision-making, and finding new solutions. The thought of Karlheinz von Förster that we should take to heart is: – Nothing can be taught to a person, but a person can learn.

If, therefore, the person is not the problem, where can we then leverage change? This leads us to the structures and processes necessary for social or societal learning to be possible at all.

Is working on organizational culture actually an escape from changing structures?

Structures and Processes

Working on structures and processes is hard work and requires management decisions. Therefore, the seemingly softer variant is often chosen – working on organizational culture. When working on culture, it generally means developing new values, accompanied by well-told stories and various artifacts. This is referred to as working on the ‘front stage’ – that part visible to employees and various stakeholders. (P.S. All of this can be further packaged and sold as employer branding.) But what is actually missing – and what only brings real effect – is working on structures. When we talk about organizational learning, we mean creating structures that allow for space (physical or virtual) and time in which people can exchange experiences, jointly develop solutions, and reflect on the work context, thereby building a shared understanding of what is truly relevant. The Japanese economist and one of the foremost experts in knowledge management, Ikujiro Nonaka, was among the first to highlight the importance of such spaces. He called them ba – in them, people develop relationships, interact, and in those spaces, new knowledge is created. Ba is a platform for the dissemination of individual and collective knowledge. Knowledge, in fact, is not a static package of information transferred from one place to another, but a dynamic process that is constantly evolving. Social learning succeeds only where there is trust in people – that they can learn independently and think critically. Learning is not just fun but also a complex process, just like reality. Only when we acknowledge this does it become a true driving force for the organization.