FUTURE OF OD

LEARNING ORGANIZATION

 A learning organization is the term given to a

company that facilitates the learning of its
members and continuously transforms itself.
 A learning organization is a place where people
are continually discovering how they create their
reality.”
 WHY IS ORGANIZATIONAL LEARNING
IMPORTANT?

 Change is constant
 Rate of change is increasing geometrically

 Technology
 Science
 Standard of living
 WHY SHOULD ORGANIZATIONS BECOME
LEARNING ORGANIZATION
For companies to be able to adapt to changing
environments and stay ahead of their competition

 To improve the workforce skill-set

 To improve communication among employees

To improve morale and productivity and make the

employees feel like they are an important entity of
the company.

To overcome companies weaknesses and to utilize

their strength more efficiently
 COMPONENTS OF LEARNING
ORGANIZATIONS
Systems Thinking
Learning organizations use this method of
thinking when assessing their company and have
information systems that measure the
performance of the organization as a whole and of
its various components. Systems thinking states
that all the characteristics must be apparent at
once in an organization for it to be a learning
organization. If some of these characteristics are
missing then the organization will fall short of its
goal.
 COMPONENTS OF LEARNING
ORGANIZATIONS
Personal Mastery
The commitment by an individual to the process of
learning is known as personal mastery. There is
a competitive advantage for an organization
whose workforce can learn more quickly than the
workforce of other organizations. Individual
learning is acquired through staff training,
development and continuous self-improvement;
however, learning cannot be forced upon an
individual who is not receptive to learning.
 COMPONENTS OF LEARNING
ORGANIZATIONS
 Mental Models
The assumptions held by individuals and organizations
are called mental models. To become a learning
organization, these models must be challenged.
Individuals tend to espouse theories, which are what
they intend to follow. Similarly, organizations tend to
have 'memories' which preserve certain behaviors. In
creating a learning environment it is important to
replace confrontational attitudes with an open
culture that promotes inquiry and trust. To achieve
this, the learning organization needs mechanisms for
locating and assessing organizational theories of
action.
 COMPONENTS OF LEARNING
ORGANIZATIONS
Shared Vision
The development of a shared vision is important in
motivating the staff to learn, as it creates a
common identity that provides focus and energy
for learning. The most successful visions build on
the individual visions of the employees at all
levels of the organization, thus the creation of a
shared vision can be hindered by traditional
structures where the company vision is imposed
from above. Therefore, learning organizations
tend to have flat, decentralized organizational
structures.
 COMPONENTS OF LEARNING
ORGANIZATIONS
Team Learning
The benefit of team or shared learning is that staff
grow more quickly and the problem solving
capacity of the organization is improved through
better access to knowledge and expertise.
Learning organizations have structures that
facilitate team learning. Team learning requires
individuals to engage in dialogue and discussion;
therefore team members must develop open
communication.
 TOTAL QUALITY MANAGEMENT

 TQM is an approach to improving the

effectiveness and flexibilities of business as a
whole. It is essentially a way of organizing and
involving the whole organization, every
department, every activity and every single
person at every level. TQM ensures that the
management adopts a strategic overview of the
quality and focuses on prevention rather than
inspection.
 OBJECTIVES OF TQM
 Meeting the customer's requirements is the
primary objective and the key to organizational
survival and growth.

 The second objective of TQM is continuous

improvement of quality. The management should
stimulate the employees in becoming increasingly
competent and creative.

 Third, TQM aims at developing the relationship

of openness and trust among the employees at all
levels in the organization.
 SIGNIFICANCE OF TQM

 The importance of TQM lies in the fact that it

encourages innovation, makes the organization
adaptable to change, motivates people for better
quality, and integrates the business arising out of
a common purpose and all these provide the
organization with a valuable and distinctive
competitive edge.
 BUSINESS PROCESS
REENGINEERING
 Business Process Re-engineering (BPR) results in changes
among the structures and processes within the business
environment. Therefore, there may be technological
advancements and human resource replacements with the
automation techniques which will increase the efficiencies
and the productivity of the organizations. These would result
in increasing the flexibility and adaptability to the rapid
changes in the competitive business environment.
 Business processes can be divided into three elements as
inputs, process and outputs. The BPR is related to the
processing element in order to reduce the cost and improve
the delivery time.
 OBJECTIVES OF BPR

 Customer focus -The main objective of BPR is to increase the

level of customer satisfaction.
 Speed – With the use of advanced technologies, the
processing speed is expected to be improved as most of the
tasks are automated.
 Compression – It explains the ways of reducing the cost and
capital invested in primary activities, throughout the value
chain. It can be done by combining the interrelated activities
or by performing parallel activities in a particular process.
 Flexibility – By being closer to the customer, the company
would be able to develop the awareness mechanisms to tackle
the areas that require improvements .
 OBJECTIVES OF BPR

 Quality – The level of quality can always be maintained with

the expected levels of standards and can be monitored by the
processes.
 Innovation – Leadership through innovation provides
changes in the organization to achieve competitive
advantage.
 Productivity-It can be improved drastically with effectiveness
and efficiency.
 DIFFERENCE BETWEEN BPR AND TQM
 TQM and BPR have a cross-functional relationship. TQM is
concerned about improving productivity through quality
improvements while BPR is about making process
improvements through radical redesign and use of advanced
technologies.
 TQM is focusing on continuous improvements while BPR is
concerned about product innovations.
 TQM emphasis on the use of statistical process control while
BPR emphasis on the use of information technology.
 Both top down and bottom up approaches can be used in
implementing TQM, but BPR can be implemented only
through a top-down approach.
 COMPARISON BETWEEN BPRE AND
TQM
(i) Both BPRE and TQM primarily focus on customers. Success
of BPRE and TQM is reflected in adequate response to the
changing needs of customers in a competitive business
environment.
(ii) Both BPRE and TQM are process-oriented concepts
involving cross-functional activities. While TQM may or
may not involve break-through improvements, BPRE
always attempts to achieve major or dramatic
improvements in the existing business processes.
(iii) Both BPRE and TQM emphasize cultural changes in the
organization and behavioral changes in employees by
introducing customer focus and process-orientation in the
minds of employees.
 COMPARISON BETWEEN BPRE AND
TQM
(iv) Both BPRE and TQM require top management support.
The chief executive of the company has to play the role of a
leader for successful implementation of BPRE and TQM.
Since both BPRE and TQM are supporting processes to
achieve business goals.
(v) Both BPRE and TQM are not “one-time” experiments. Both
need to be implemented on a continuous basis.
(vi) Every employee in every department is directly or
indirectly involved in BPRE and TQM.
 CONCLUSION

OD, TQM and BPR all aim to increase organizational

efficiency, but attempt to do this through very different
means. The key driver can be a similarity between the
approaches, as most organizations implement change as a
way of dealing with a particular problem. The major
difference on this aspect is that TQM and BPR are often
triggered by the realization that the organization is operating
in an increasingly competitive market, whereas OD may be
implemented to solve other problems such as communication
barriers within the organization.
THANK YOU 