Embrace learning culture and win

Jack Welch’s story is not just that he learnt something new. He created an organisation of individuals who were always learning and growing. He created a learning organisation. — Reuters

CALL it crazy, paranoia or just plain kiasu, but for employees in organisations which constantly grow and remain at the top, it is a crisis if they do not improve each day.

Hiroshi Okuda, the former chairman of Toyota Motor Corporation, once proclaimed, “Failure to change is a vice.”

In his recent book Denial, Richard Tedlow explores numerous companies such as IBM, Ford Motors and Coca-Cola, and how each of them moved from positions of strength and industry dominance to being totally outclassed in their industries.

How did that happen? He believes it was due to denial of truths that were obvious to everyone except the affected organisations.

As you dwell deeper into why great organisations fall, a common theme appears. The organisations which consistently prosper are able to learn not just from their mistakes, but from those around them. They are set up to learn from others apart from themselves, and this leaves them self-aware and ready to change.

These organisations have been set up as “learning organisations”.

How can we get our organisations to be learning organisations? It starts with the leader.

In my experience working and observing great leaders at GE and Johnson & Johnson in the United States, Europe and more recently in Asia, one key trait of great leaders is their appetite for continuous learning and growing.

Great leaders are always listening and watching in the hope of learning new ideas, new thoughts and discovering new truths and realities for themselves.

Regardless of their age, they always have a hunger for learning, and this drives their growth as well as that of their organisations.

The desire and ability to keep growing has always been the hallmark of leadership.

I saw this firsthand from GE’s Jack Welch’s initial rejection of the Internet to his total embracement of it.

Now, Jack never was a great fan of the World Wide Web. He may have understood its strategic value and implications for the future, but he never really showed it vis a vis his numerous initiatives and strategic directions. Of course, this was back in the early 1990s when General Electric was very much a brick-and- mortar business.

Then, in the late 90s, Jack made a drastic about-turn. He wanted to learn everything about the Internet.

For a few weeks, Jack breathed and lived the Internet. When Jack learns, he really learns. He wasn’t interested to just shop online or dabble in virtual reality; he wanted to know the whole works.

You have to remember that at the time, Jack was just a few years away from retirement. He was about to hand the reins of the company to a new guy named Jeff Immelt.

He had just transformed GE into the most admired company in the world, and he himself was declared the most respected CEO in the world. Yet, he didn’t think he was above learning something new.

What precipitated this change of heart? Online shopping, apparently. The story, was that Jack had gone home one day and found his then wife, Jane, on the computer. It was so uncharacteristic of her that Jack had to find out what she was doing.

As it turns out, she was shopping. He could not believe that one could shop online, so she showed him how it worked by ordering a set of golf clubs for him. That just blew him away.

Immediately, Jack wanted to learn about the power of the Internet. And the rest is history.

But the power of Jack’s story is not just that he learnt something new. He created an organisation of individuals who were always learning and growing. He created a learning organisation.

Is your organisation a learning organisation? Do you provide tools and opportunities for your employees to consistently learn and grow? An organisation that is not growing is a decaying organisation. With technology today, even small SMEs can become learning organisations.

Digital learning is changing the way individuals and organisations learn. And you can set up your organisation as a digital learning organisation too. And win like Jack Welch!

Roshan Thiran is chief executive officer of Leaderonomics, an organisation who has a heart to help all organisations, including small SMEs become learning organisations. To learn how your organisation can become a learning organisation, contact Eva at [e-mail] or call 017-319 0370.