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Creating appreciative learning cultures
Author: F Barrett
Publisher: Organizational Dynamics
Copyright 1995
Volume: 24
Issue: 1
Pages: 36-49
Annotation: "With the advent of the post-industrial age, knowledge and learning have become the new form of capital. The most important skill of the new worker is knowledge. It is no longer enough for employees to work physically hard in order to generate profit.
This shift has generated nothing less than a revolution in the way organizational structures are designed and the way we define the task of managing. The old command-and-control models for managers are being replaced by a new set of tasks that foster high-commitment work arrangements. The challenge for post-industrial organizations is to create contexts in which members continually learn and experiment. With the globalization of the economy and increased competition, organizations cannot survive only on their past successes. They need to continually be innovative, to strive for the creation of new ideas and new products. In short, the business of the knowledge economy is the creation of new knowledge.
And yet to say that organizations need to engage in continuous learning risks hiding an important distinction. It is not enough for organizations to respond, adapt, and cope with the pressures of change. The push for innovation requires a different kind of learning, one that goes beyond adapting to challenges and solving problems and instead focuses on imagining possibilities, on generating new ways of looking at the world. This is appreciative learning - the art of valuing and inquiring into possibility. Creating the radically new, not just adapting and responding to problems as they present themselves, innovative organizations go beyond the perceived constraints associated with adaptive learning. Appreciative learning cultures nurture innovative thinking by fostering an affirmative focus, expansive thinking, a generative sense of meaning, and creating collaborative systems."
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