Free essay about turning static organizations into learning organizations via adult learning theories

Comparative Analysis

After analysis of static and learning organizations we can point out that they cannot exist one without other. Static organization is a base and the beginning of learning organization. But only if leaders and personal of such organization want to be competitive in our comprehensive world.
Let’s review these two types of organizations. Static organization is an organization that is not moving or changing in the right direction. It usually rigid, task-oriented, controlled through coercive power without proper participation expected at all levels. Any decisions made in such organizations are considered final and communication is top-down. So, all that sound not good. If any company start working like this it will probably lead to collapse or bankruptcy. In today’s organizations, corporate leaders use strategies such as “ downsizing,” “ restructuring,” and “ merging” to avoid bad consequences. These aspects distinguish static organizations from learning.
If you want your company become a leader in a particular segment of business or industry or remain competitive in a global economy you should create learning organization. Learning organizations are dramatically different from static organizations in terms of structure, atmosphere, management philosophy, decision-making and communication. Instead of seeing the business as individual pieces, true leaders strive to see it as a whole interactive system with intertwined processes. While leaders of static organizations do nothing to improve structure, working condition for their employees, leaders of learning organizations find and establish new relations with other companies.
As Rummler and Brache indicated “ the greatest opportunities for performance improvement often lie in the functional interfaces – those points at which the batonis being passed from one department to another”. Their theory is quite right. Success and secret of learning organizations in their interaction with different teams and companies. Why static organizations don’t do that? The answer is simple – static organizations feature closed system.
They don’t change anything in their structure; much energy is given to maintain permanent departments, and committees. The organizational atmosphere is impersonal, cold, formal, reserved and suspicious. But as I said early and many scholars and practitioners have pointed out that learning organization is born of static organization. Static organization is like foundation for further development and prosperity. But if we try to analyze the process of turning static organizations into learning organizations via adult learning theories we see interesting fact. It may be strange but adult learning theories have many common features with static and learning organizations. If educator wants to be effective he or she must understand how adults learn best and create the most productive working and educational conditions. Modern learning theories use approaches to learning that are problem-based and collaborative rather than didactic and also emphasize more equality between the teacher and learner. The main task of such theories is to teach student to develop his/her skills in the shortest time and by the best effective way. The same happened with learning organization, they just do their best for further developing and creating favorable conditions for work and competitiveness.
So, to sum it up, we see that there is close connection between learning organization and adult learning theories. We also find out that static organization is a basis for learning organization and they are interconnected. Static organizations can take an example of adult learning theories via improving structure and methods of works for employees.