TOP 10 STRATEGIES FOR BUILDING LEARNING SUBSYSTEMS

1. Develop Modular, Reusable Learning Content

The shift to just-in-time learning and greater business owner-
ship is paralleled by another evolution that supports nimbler
learning processes. Content—expertise, knowledge, substance, or
ideas that enhance the knowledge worker’s performance—must
itself become nimbler. Leading-edge companies, such as Cisco
Systems, AutoDesk, and iPlanet, are developing learning content
around the concept of reusable learning objects, that is, chunks of
content or modularized training programs with pieces that may be
used on a stand-alone basis or combined with other chunks to pro-
duce a tailored program.
Chunkable learning is one of the great promises of e-learning;
in this approach, instructions may be divided into segments and
then viewed as needed. When combined with skill-specific assess-
ments, learning objects allow learners to address gaps in a timely,
accurate fashion instead of wading through quantities of material
they already know. For example, GE Power Systems allows for
precise targeting of knowledge about business policies, which fol-
lows a detailed architecture describing the knowledge needs of dif-
ferent categories of workers. Cisco chunks its product knowledge
to allow faster identification of specific skill gaps and rapid acqui-
sition of necessary knowledge (Manville, 2001).
Chunkable content is manifested in learning approaches that
are shorter, more concise, and segmentable according to need. In
addition, these approaches incorporate the understanding that
every piece of content can be considered for potential reuse. For
example, training for employees can also be used for training cus-
tomers, administrative communications can also be frontline tools,
executive presentations can be divided into critical analyses for
audience-specific applications, and FAQs can become knowledge
diagnostics for new employees (Manville, 2001).
2. Increase Ability to Learn How to Learn
Even though most of us attended school for 10,15, or even 20
years, we never learned how to learn. We struggled with remem-
bering facts and relationships, we forgot quickly, and we did not
understand the learning process. And yet, according to many lead-
ing learning organizations and researchers, a key pathway to per-
sonal mastery and more powerful and quicker learning is the
development of metacognitive skills, learning how to learn. Only
by increasing individual metacognitive skills will each learner be
able to stay abreast or ahead of change.
Several years ago, the American Society for Training & De-
velopment (ASTD) developed a program to help individuals with
the following key skills aimed at learning to learn:
• How to question new information
• How to break up complex ideas and large tasks into smaller
parts
• How to test ourselves to see how much we are learning
• How to direct our learning to meet specific goals
• How to accelerate learning
Metacognitive skills enable people to think through, under-
stand, and use new information quickly and confidently;
find patterns in information; and focus on the most important
information.
3. Develop the Discipline of Organizational Dialogue
The discipline of dialogue is central to organizational learn-
ing insofar as it enhances and augments team learning. Dialogue
forces new ways of viewing the organization’s assumptions and
creates a cool communications field within which to deal with the
hot issues of change and chaos.
Members of the organization can develop an environment
that favors dialogue by taking the following actions:
• Regard one another as colleagues
• Adopt a spirit of inquiry
 • Suspend assumptions and certainties
• Observe the observer
• Slow down the inquiry
Employees should also have opportunities to practice dialogue
with a skilled facilitator who uses the following kind of format.
To begin, organize the physical space around a circle to pro-
mote a sense of equality among participants. Introduce the con-
cept of dialogue and ask participants to think about effective
communications they have experienced. Then ask them to share
these instances and identify the qualities that made them effective.
Finally, ask the group to reflect on these qualities, always allowing
the conversation to flow naturally and giving everyone the oppor-
tunity to explore and share.
A number of key points relative to initiating dialogue in your
organization will probably emerge. These might include
• How to avoid factors that prevent dialogue (defensiveness,
smoothing over, competitiveness)
• How to draw on diversity as a resource rather than a source
of conflict
• How to build shared visions and reflect on ways of looking
at the world
• How to improve observation, listening, and communication
skills
• How to utilize listening and feedback to minimize distortion
of information and blocked communication channels
• How to balance advocacy with inquiry as a means to over-
coming impasses

4. Design Career Development Plans for Employability

The pace of change requires each employee to take a proac-
tive stance toward learning. Every person should have a clearly
articulated career development plan that outlines a combination
of formal and informal learning activities to be completed and a
timetable for completing them.
 Many learning organizations (notably, Royal Bank of Canada,
Saturn, Nokia, and PPG Industries) work closely with staff to
develop an individual development plan (IDP) that serves a num-
ber of purposes, such as the following:
• Allows individualized self-development of employees, using
methods such as courses, self-learning, and mentoring,
among others
• Provides sequenced learning that permits employees to learn
what they need to know just before they need to apply it
• Instills a commitment to self-management in each employee
• Holds each employee accountable for achieving his or her
learning goals
• Helps develop lifetime employability
The human resources department should be available to assist
in identifying available learning resources, such as courses, men-
tors, conferences, or agencies. Supervisors should encourage
ongoing learning, provide time and support for outside learning
opportunities, and assist in long-range planning.
5. Establish Self-Development Programs
Giving employees small cash allowances for their own self-
development perhaps best demonstrates a company’s commitment
to continuous learning. Boeing compensates its employees for
seeking academic degrees and certificates in whatever subjects
they choose. Another company has gone so far as to divide its
training budget by the number of staff members and to give indi-
viduals complete responsibility for spending these learning
allowances. Rover offers per annum tuition fees (called Rover
Employee Assisted Learning [REAL]) for lateral personal develop-
ment in business areas not specifically related to current job skills.
For example, an employee in production can learn French, com-
puter skills, or chess. Encouraging employees to develop personal
interests to their fullest potential creates people who enjoy learn-
ing and are better prepared to adapt to future personal and orga-
nizational change.
6. Build Team Learning Skills
Teams are to learning organizations as families are to the com-
munity. Teams form the connections between individual and orga-
nizational learning and enable the organization to recognize and
capitalize on latent resources within its workforce. Therefore, or-
ganizations must be committed to team learning, growth, and
development; they should seek to build teams that are able to cre-
ate and capture learning.
Team learning can occur every time a group of people is
brought together. It emphasizes self-managed learning and the free
flow of ideas and creativity among members. There are a variety
of ways in which teams learn, such as by generating knowledge
through analysis of complex issues, innovative action, and collec-
tive problem solving.
The following specific steps will enhance team learning:
• Establish team responsibility for learning
• Reward teams for the learning they contribute to the
organization
• Develop and practice team learning activities
• Build capability to achieve metalogue, a state in which the
team thinks and feels as a group, creates shared assumptions
and culture, and works as an organic whole

7. Encourage and Practice Systems Thinking

An absolutely critical skill for learning organizations is that of
systems thinking, the capacity to “see and work with the flow of
life as a system rather than dissecting and trying to fix the prob-
lematic parts” (Senge, 1990a). The ability to think about the big
picture while seeing the underlying, unexpected influences is rare
and difficult to develop, but it is an essential skill for “smart”
learning.
The following elements of systems thinking will be most valu-
able when practiced throughout the organization:
 • Focus on areas of high leverage
• Avoid symptomatic solutions and concentrate on underlying
causes
• Distinguish detail complexity (when there are many vari-
ables) from dynamic complexity (when the connection
between cause and effect is not obvious or consequences are
subtle over time)
• See interrelationships, not things
• See process, not snapshots
• See that people and problems are part of a single system
• Recognize the difference between systems and fragmenta-
tion thinking

8. Utilize Scanning and Scenario Planning

A primary purpose of ongoing scanning of the environment is
to prepare for future changes that are most likely to affect the
organization. Organizations that are best at anticipating the future
and using planning as a learning opportunity are the ones that will
be most able and prepared to adapt. Developing scenarios about
possible futures is an excellent method for anticipatory learning.
By monitoring key trends, accessing strategic research, and ana-
lyzing the data, an organization has a better chance of determin-
ing what is important to learn.
Royal Dutch Shell (RDS) employed this technique in advance
of the oil crisis of the 1980s. When oil prices were still at $28 a
barrel, RDS created a scenario in which oil was $15 a barrel.
Corporate planners constructed strategies, determined learning
requirements, and identified the changes that would be necessary
to function well given the much lower price. When the actual
price drop came, RDS was already knowledgeable about the world
of $15-a-barrel oil. Anticipatory learning in the 1980s propelled
Shell from the bottom to the top of the roster of oil companies,
where it has since stayed.
9. Expand Multicultural and Global Mind-Sets and Learning
Learning organizations realize that different views and ways of
doing things are a source of richness, not a conflict. The more
open we are to the values, ideas, and perspectives of others, the
greater the possibilities for individual and corporate learning.
Diversity initiatives work best when they are integrated into a
larger system of business practices, such as total quality manage-
ment, team-building reengineering, and employee empowerment.
All share a commitment to continuous learning.
10. Change the Mental Model of Learning
Most people still retain a negative picture of learning, the one
they acquired in their school days—hard work, impossible tests,
tough teachers, irrelevant facts, control, memorization, drills, long
hours at desks, and so on. These mental models cause many to
resist a lifelong commitment to learning and belonging to a learn-
ing organization. Jim Gannon, vice president of human resource
planning and development at Royal Bank of Canada, states
that the bank is reluctant to use the term learning because of
employees’ negative associations with their school experiences
(Marquardt and Reynolds, 1994).
Unless the mental model of learning changes, efforts on the
part of senior management to build learning organizations will be
doomed to failure because workers will not practice new ideas.
The internal images held by employees will confine them to past
perceptions of learning institutions. Since mental models have a
powerful effect on our actions, it is important to change the mind-
set that equates learning with schoolroom and replace it with one
that envisions learning as an exciting, collaborative, highly re-
warding enterprise. The mental model for learning organizations
must be revitalized with feelings of energy, excitement, business
success, personal responsibility, fun, integration, sharing, and per-
sonal and organizational growth. Once this image is established,
individuals and organizations will want to jump quickly onto the
bandwagon.
 Through training, management communications, and contin-
ual practice, organizations can help employees become more
aware of their mental models and acquire the means to better
reflect on, surface, and examine them. In doing so, these individ-
uals will be able to participate enthusiastically in the learning
efforts of their organizations.