THE LEARNING ORGANISATIONPeter Senge (2006) in "The Fifth Discipline", envisioned Learning organizations, as "organizations where people continually expand their capacity to create the results, they truly desire, where new and expansive patterns of thinking are nurtured, where collective aspiration is set free (or named), and where people are continually learning how to learn together" (p.3).
A corporate aspiration is a company's long-term picture[1] for what it wants to be and who it wants to serve. It's not a slogan or a broad statement, and it's not the same as a corporate mission or strategy. It is a shared sense of purpose that employees shape[2] as they nurture expansive patterns of thinking[3] and shed limiting self-beliefs. It includes how the company will fulfil its purpose and track progress, and how leaders and others will behave to achieve and sustain excellence. However, this step starts with the organisation learning/discovering[4] systemically what is happening or causing[5] things to be the way they are. This is the crux of a Learning Organisation. This would mean better levels of understanding, reduced stress, improved performance, greater results and a better overall sense of accomplishment and happiness.
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WELCOME! |
OUR FOCUS
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At Systems Thinking Research & Leadership Development Institute (STRLDi), we provide two services:
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YOUR BENEFITS
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MAKING A SYSTEMIC IMPACT
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What does making a systemic impact mean? It would mean making use of the field of systems thinking and the five disciplines of Learning Organizations. This field allows you to make use of natural templates to explain and help you learn to turn around most commonly seen vexing long-term problems. The solutions often counter-intuitive always hit the nail on its head. Spot on. This will happen without requiring costly public and personal interventions.
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WHAT ARE PERSISTENT ISSUES?
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What are persistent issues? These are issues that worry and frustrate us. This can happen perhaps as we ignore them or even as we step up efforts to curb them (refer to the diagram below). Persistent issues, typically assume national and sometimes regional or even global significance.
These include issues such as labour migration, unemployment, national education attainments, the state of growth of a nation's economy, productivity at the workplace, drug abuse, crime, underlying community tensions, health concerns that persists such as HIV and AIDs, rainfall levels, agricultural output levels, human-wildlife conflicts, climate changes, falling orders and sagging profits, starving children, inter-national conflicts, just to name a few. In the case of national issues, it takes up to six months to collate the data, build up the research study and conduct the training. This is while bringing in different layers and sides of the story to a full circle. When the study is complete, we would have stood far enough from the tree as a group to also see the forest, This means, seeing the interaction of the underlying systems that is most responsible for generating the symptoms, and which, if recognised, could lead to changes producing lasting improvement. THAT'S WHERE THE TRICK LIES! It is in seeing both the trees and the forest, that we begin to discover the leverages (small changes that bring about big results) needed to turn the situation around. This can be towards outcomes we want to see both as nations as well as a globe. |
WHAT MAKES ISSUES PERSISTENT?
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What makes an issue persistent? In these instances, the causes are typically not obvious, often counter-intuitive, and so we do not know what the causes are. As a result the issue and its causes are left untreated. When that happens, the causes persist, gaining strength and momentum with time. They therefore learn to withstand better and resist our efforts to change it.
This is in-spite we had spent long periods of time to deal with it, had voted in different political parties into power, allocated national budgets and private sector resources as well as hired, trained and fired personnel. Sometimes, the issue, morphs into a different form (e.g. from traditional forms of crimes to syndicated modern version of crimes) and threaten to reverse or rear its head up again whenever funds pull out. These are signs of persistence. To ignore the persistence fundamentally would mean allowing it to "suck us right back in" to designing interventions that feed its own persistence in the nation. That is the inherent nature of dynamic complexity and missing it altogether happens to the best of us. Treating it with details is not the solution. This gives a whole new meaning to the famous quote by Einstein, and therefore the ways we would deal with making sustainable development goals and corporate visions work for us: "We cannot solve our problems with the same thinking we had used when we had created them." - Albert Einstein |
OUR ACHIEVEMENT |
The purpose of the five disciplines of Learning Organizations (refer to the 3-legged stool diagram below) is to tackle a nation's persistent issues and learn to learn as a nation in turning them around. This will in turn reverse the fortunes around for corporates (private and public) and therefore of the nation as well. Failing which, all we will be setting ourselves up for is to run a marathon with no end in sight.
At STLDi, we had been developing the methodology that help leaders at national and sectoral platforms learn to turn issues around that have persisted and vexed them as a nation. While the works we base our methodology on is not as yet mainstream management and so adopted by the likes of the UN, the works have been building up since 1960s. Dr Peter Senge published his seminal publication, "The Fifth Discipline" in 1990, and it has taken almost another thirty-years before we had developed a practice of the five disciplines for national spaces. At STLDi we intend to develop post-graduate master's programmes on the theory and practice of the works. And so, we are proud to have been pioneering the practice and in early 2019, developed and published our first of its kind, a study that showcased its application on a national issue. While governments typically assume primary responsibility for dealing with them, the solution often lies somewhere else. And so, it will not work if government assumed sole responsibility to deal with it. It will instead require a concerted and persistent attention by the whole nation. This will require a very different approach to managing the issue. |
WHAT WE DO |
We at Systems Thinking & Leadership Development Institute (STLDi) was established in Botswana in 2012 as a strategy consulting organization developing strategic responses to the persistent matters that nations face in its efforts to becoming a developed nation. We offer training, research development and strategy consultancy for leaders.
We then work with you at identifying underlying (systemic) structures. It does so using the principles of the iceberg. In doing so, it identifies patterns and causal events that control the problem and therefore, its persistence. It then helps participants reverse its effects (events) but also learn to bring about what is desired (visions) in its absence. For example, seeing citizens reach for excellence and growth by nurturing the quest for learning, building shared goals and exceeding targets rather than needing to be successful to avoid failures individually. We site this work at the Prime Minister's Office. |
At STLDi, we then work with you on these issues, by combining:
We are a world leader in this methodology. |
The Iceberg Principle: Observation that in many (if not most) cases only a very small amount (the 'tip') of information is available or visible about a situation or phenomenon, whereas the 'real' information or bulk of data is either unavailable or hidden. The principle gets its name from the fact that only about 1/10th of an iceberg's mass is seen outside while about 9/10th of it is unseen, deep down in water.
http://www.businessdictionary.com/definition/iceberg-principle.html
OUR INVITATION TO YOU
TO LEARN MORE, CONTACT OUR CONSULTANTS. |
Consultation |
Customization |
The journey with us typically starts here. It is intended to provide clarity to your queries, guidance if sought and designing a programme for you and your organization that prepare you for undertaking the rigours of the exercise.
Organizational SupportOur team of consultants, trainers, researchers, facilitators and administrators are geared to provide the support you would need from us.
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No two problems are the same and so we do not use templates or standard applications in working at solutions your nation would need.
24/7 Live SupportWe are just a fingertip away, easily accessible either here, on our email or on social media to take queries or even just to ask for suggestions.
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Sheila is driven by the desire to understand how we can learn to understand and therefore work in harmony while seeing and understanding what lies beyond our immediate mandates of the corporates we are in, to the nation, our environment as well as industries that impact the organization. |