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The secrets of building a learning organization

Imagine a company that can constantly improve itself by learning from its own experience and feedback. Kaizen, or continuous improvement, is the key to a learning company. This vision can be achieved by any company, no matter how far along they are in adopting Lean, a management philosophy that focuses on eliminating waste and increasing efficiency.

There are two prerequisites for creating a learning organization:

1. The company must empower its field managers to lead the operational changes based on the suggestions of their teams.
   
   
2. The company must have a fully implemented Lean system, with a mature and visible process of continuous improvement that teams can see and value without conflict.
   

These prerequisites imply that human resources strategy and social tension measurement are critical for navigating a company through a crisis and preventing counter-productive conflicts.

Lean is not about exploiting workers (the eighth waste) but about improving their methods and conditions. If workers feel that their ideas are ignored or ineffective, or if they sense no progress, they will lose motivation and engagement. And perceptions are tricky: they vary from person to person and are hard to control.

How to design and structure your value chain for crisis management

To manage a crisis strategy, it is essential to design and structure the value chain of operational processes, especially the engineering of Kaizen.

Continuous improvement is not an operational tool for management, but a strategic tool for crisis decision-making.

Tortorrella (1) shows the link between Kaizen and the learning organization, as well as the importance of how to implement continuous improvement and how workers perceive it. He treats Kaizen as a human resource issue.

“The skills management and training plan should not be seen as a waste of time by teams who lack resources, but as a dynamic Kaizen tool for the vision and performance of the company.“

Guilherme Luz Tortorella

Bertrand (2) documents the damage caused by imposed Lean tools that stress workers and cause problems such as musculoskeletal disorders and accidents.

But Lean’s original philosophy highlights Kaizen through training, which improves workers’ well-being. It should be seen as a tool for occupational health and organizational performance.

The first principle of the Toyota Production System, the origin of Lean, is to make decisions based on long-term philosophy, even at the expense of short-term financial goals. A gradual and structured Lean approach will make organizational learning more important than immediate performance objectives.

Since Kaizen is hard to sustain in the long term, especially in small firms, strategy leaders must be directly involved in Lean within a learning organization.

Stimec (3) even suggests having an HR specialist in the field to enable everyone’s participation and to ease the social tensions of change. His work confirms that Kaizen can foster organizational learning in teams.

How to apply these insights to your own company?

Here are some practical steps you can take to become a learning organization:

• Assess your current level of Lean maturity and identify areas for improvement.
• Involve your field managers and teams in designing and implementing continuous improvement initiatives.
• Measure and communicate the results and benefits of continuous improvement to your workers.
• Align your human resources strategy and training plan with your vision and performance goals.
• Encourage a culture of learning and feedback throughout your organization.

In summary, The keys to building a learning organization

To become a learning organization, a company needs to adopt Lean, empower its field managers and teams, measure and communicate the results of continuous improvement, align its human resources strategy and training plan with its vision and performance goals, and foster a culture of learning and feedback.

To create a learning organization with Continuous Improvement, leaders should :

• Create a learning organization that can improve itself by learning from its own experience and feedback.
• Empowering field managers and implementing Lean system with visible continuous improvement.
• Implement a strong human resources strategy and social tension measurement for crisis management and conflict prevention.
• Show how continuous improvement is a strategic tool for crisis decision-making and how it relates to workers’ perception, well-being and health.
• Have an HR specialist in the field to facilitate participation and change.

As a leader, you shall provide practical steps to become a learning organization, such as assessing Lean maturity, involving teams, measuring and communicating results, aligning human resources and training plan, and encouraging learning and feedback culture.

“Don’t be afraid to fail. Be afraid of not trying.”

Michael Jordan

References :

1. Tortorella, G. L., Fogliatto, F. S., & Anzanello, M. J. (2015). The impact of contextual variables on learning organization in firms that are implementing lean: a study in Southern Brazil. 
2. Bertrand, R. (2011). Contribution de l’ergonomie à la conception d’un outil de formation.
3. Stimec, A. (2018). Est-ce que le Lean management est une démarche d’apprentissage organisationnel? L’impact de l’amélioration continue.