Greco is the leader of a team of people, who work within a telephone sales company, which is developed through Organizational Learning.
In recent weeks, the emergence of companies with similar commercial activity has increased and their sales averages have decreased.
In this company, Elmo, Odilis, Karime and Idalia have thought of a series of changes that must be operated so that their department, in charge of looking for new processes of contact with the client, drives sales and allows to maintain the competitiveness of the business.
Among the many ideas that the team has begun to develop, -after analysis meetings and study material requirements-, is that of television monitoring, the recovery of absent clients and the launch of exclusive lines, as well as other actions in the distribution process.
A couple of months later, Greco is pleased with the progress his team has made, as well as the new sales momentum.
Our account today shows us briefly, how through a process called Organizational Learning, a team can face a challenge that is posed to the organization and make improvements with everyone's skills.
These learning-based organizations suppose a deep emphasis on the people who make them up, such a situation allows the members of the company to become the fundamental contribution to solve problems or define innovations.
This process, which is simple in our story, must have as its central element, the improvement of the capacities of the people who make up the company, as well as new ways of learning.
Another important component is that of the people who will carry out this learning and that if they meet the necessary characteristics, they will become what is called within this theory: Quick Learners.
A quick learner is neither more nor less than the person who forms within a organization a nucleus in charge of learning new skills, to provide novel responses and to make the company efficient.
Learners are people who carry out normal work, but who have been chosen, mainly for their potential (in some cases called Job Skills).
Ideally, organizations that want to become learning entities should seek to attract people who respond to this profile or that all its members transform into this.
These people have the fundamental task of anticipating changes, individually or in teams, learning through various types of information sources and proposing new responses to the tasks requested.
In this sense, the aim is not to transform the company into “a school or University”, but rather to put in place mechanisms that allow defining what is important for the company and focusing on them, although the training processes are important.
The learning foundations of the learners are, in general terms, defined through a strategy that, according to specialists in the subject, can be developed in various types of companies, with the minimum requirement that there be working groups.
In this sense, this strategy includes the following actions:
Creation of the conditions for personal development: which includes new forms of perception for the attraction of people, from the selection of the members of the organization, to what is related to their interests within the company.
In this sense, within this approach, the selection processes of future learners must contemplate advanced techniques for knowing people and abandon obsolete practices such as IQ assessment or tests of this type that have expired.
Development of analysis through mental models: this means specialized training in processes that allow learners to use a common language through graphic techniques for evaluating situations or problems.
Being able to incorporate in this learning various methodologies or analysis techniques for groups, which can vary from the classic TGN to Mind Maps.
Creation of mechanisms: that allow the adoption of a shared vision and the generation of commitment, being important in this space the issue of job stability and the creation of flexibility in work rules within the company and the maintenance of an organizational climate suitable.
Formulation of work, experimentation and recreation activities outside the context of the office or business, which allows team members to share and learn as a whole and at the same time help team cohesion.
Formal and informal education: that allows learners to formulate judgments based on processes and logical steps, put into practice in solving problems, based on Alternative Solution Models.
Taken together, this series of elements can lead to the elimination of bureaucracy, rigid limits in the development of tasks, and fundamentally, the ability of the company to respond to changes immediately.
In this sense, the incorporation of processes for the creation of Organizational Learning responds to the need to improve long-term performance, having as its main support in this task people and their learning potential.
