A learning organization

Ishi professes to be a learning organization. This is an idea that is central to our philosophy, and forms a solid foundation on which our core values and governing principles are based. More than once, I have been asked, “What is a learning organization?” In this column, I will address this question, as well as some other related principles in an attempt to elucidate some of the ideas on which Ishi is based.

A learning organization is not an educational institution but a community which promotes learning and the evolution of individuals as well as the whole – in other words, the community itself. It is a platform for collaboration and creativity. It adapts and prevails for its own sake versus that of individual interests.

A living company

The idea of a living company is synonymous with the idea of a learning organization. It has been researched that the average life of a company is twelve years. Yet, the oldest company in the world is more than 700 years old (Stora, a copper mine in Sweden).

Interestingly, there is a huge gap between the maximum possible life of a company and the average life span of one. To understand this gap, we might want to view a company as a life form with its own purpose. A living company is not just a money-making machine for its shareholders, but rather a community whose primary purpose is to survive and perpetuate itself. Living companies improve their chances of survival by learning and adapting to their environment more quickly than companies that exist for purely economic reasons. That said, financial success is definitely a stated goal at Ishi. However, we see it as the by-product of sound decision making and the successful execution of our strategy rather than an objective in itself. We see the practice and cultivation of a learning organization as ways to manifest our philosophy and enable our corporate strategy.

There is also value in adjusting our perspective of what a company is. Seeing it as simply a machine implies that it is controlled externally, and that it is fixed and static in its purpose and the nature of its growth. Alternatively, seeing a company as a living organism implies that it creates its own processes — just as human body manufactures its own cells — so that it may subsequently evolve naturally.

Group intelligence, and its ramifications for Ishi

This idea is linked to another interesting idea — that of Group Intelligence. This idea suggests that when a group of people interact in a cohesive fashion to achieve a set of common goals, a meta-intelligence forms, which is beyond the individual intellectual contributions to the group. This intelligence is that of the group, not an aggregation of the individual intellects. This may seem far fetched, but to understand this in a within a real framework, let us consider a colony of ants.

We know ant colonies as collections of many very-low-in-the-food-chain organisms that exhibit effective intelligence as a cooperative group. ‘Hive intelligence’ is another phrase used to describe similar seemingly intelligent behavior from groups of bees. The other day, I saw a documentary in which an ant colony was relocating overnight from one nest to another. Similarly, bees have evolved a complex structure of communication, cooperation and specialization by which the community as a whole survives from one generation to the next. These rather intriguing phenomena are very real and with deeper investigation, we find that the keys to this kind of “group intelligence” are very advanced communication (signaling in case of ants, a special dance in the case of bees) systems perfected over a long period of time.

When such collaboration and communication develops in an organization, extraordinary results can be achieved. Such an organization learns as much from failure as from success. It rejects the adage “if it ain’t broken, don’t fix it” and continues to investigate new methods of process improvement. A learning organization creates channels to move knowledge seamlessly. Learning organizations also look outside their own boundaries for knowledge. These practices result in an organization that is decentralized, encourages open communication and encourages individuals to work in teams.

Ishi is in its formative years — just entering its tenth year compared with the 700 years of Stora. This is the time we can lay the foundation of an organization that will outlive us many times. For us to develop this platform of knowledge and collaboration, we are instilling a culture of learning and excellence. This brings us a sense of achievement, belonging and security. I believe such a goal is worth pursuing for the reasons we’ve just discussed.

For related reading, see: “Where is your Group Intelligence?” by Rick Dove [http://www.parshift.com/Essays/essay048.htm]