Week 5 Activity-Is Yours a Learning Organization?

1. Use the Harvard Review Survey results of your institution to help analyse the extent of LO in your workplace.

2. Review group workplace cases: compare similarities and differences and develop a table evidencing this.

3. What can be learnt from this comparison to help complete Assignment Task 1?

                                 

Overall comparison

	IKEA (Carol)	Wal-mart (Daisy)	HSBC (Helena)	KFC (Theresa)	Rogers (Yanny)	Average score
Supportive Learning Environment
Psychological safety	91.4	65.7	74.3	62.9	77.1	74.28
Appreciation of differences	78.6	67.9	85.7	82.1	32.1	69.28
Openness to new ideas	89.3	82.1	85.7	75		80
Time for reflection	74.3	60	54.3	74.3	40	50
Learning environment composite	83.4	68.9	75	73.6	54.3	70.96
Concrete Learning Processes and Practices
Experimentation	85.7	71.4	85.7	85.7	71.7	80.04
Information collection	78.6	90.5	92.9	85.7	85.7	86.68
Analysis	71.4	85.7	80	60	62.9	72
Education and training	85.7	83.3	97.6	100	69	87.12
Information transfer	80.4	87.5	91.1		69	83.8224
Learning processes composite	66.7	55.1	60	58.9	43.4	56.82
Leadership That Reinforces learning
Composite for this block	75	75	71.4	77.1	45	68.7

Bottom quartile= Red   Second quartile= Pink   Median= Yellow   Third quartile= Blue  Top quartile = Green

Yike Wang (Daisy)
supportive learning environment
psychological safety 65.7
appreciation of differences 67.9
openness to new ideas 89.6
time for reflection 74.3
learning environment composite 68.9
concrete learning processes and practices
experimentation 71.4
information collection 90.5
analysis 85.7
education and training 83.3
information transfer 87.5
learning processes composite 55.1
leadership that reinforces learning
composite for this block 75                                
    

As in my survey, Wal-Mart achieves the top quartile in information collection and information transfer. Which means Wal-Mart has down a good performance in the information collect and transfer form the market to customers and keep on the aim of offering customers lowest price with high quality products.

  Wal-Mart also gets a well quartile in appreciation of differences, time for reflection, analysis and education and training. From that we can know that Wal-Mart also emphasizes employees’ education and training to make its markets can improvements.

  Learning process composite is in the bottom quartile.

Qi Yang （Carol）

IKEA perform the best in psychological, time for reflection, learning environment composite and experimentation. Marks in these 4 areas are in top quartile. It is accordance with its responsive working environment and the theme that caring for people. It emphasis on building supportive learning environment as all marks are beyond the average.

It’s comforting and inspiring that each organization scored pretty high in information exchange and education and training: both exceed the medium score. It demonstrates that professional training and information sharing are common strategies in professional development for most of these organizations. The main reason may be that these 2 channels are easier to realize. One other equivalent situation is that our organizations perform weaker in the learning process composite. These scores which under average indicate that more actions or improvements can be undertaken to further develop.

With the emphasis and care on people, my organization-IKEA gains the highest score on psychological safety, which contributes to staff satisfaction and their positive attitude towards change. It is amazing that Dasiy’s organization-Estee Lauder achieves full marks in information collection. It demonstrates that information is quite valuable in retailer or commercial organizations/companies. Helena’s HSBC also rate high in information collection, besides, it conduct plenty education and training programs which increase its score of this part.

All these organizations welcome new ideas which are the inspiration for innovation. Nevertheless, they rate lower in time for reflection which relate to sustainable organizational learning or long-term innovation. Except from encouraging fresh ideas, review and revise performance may contribute to its long-standing growth.

Waiyan Yanny Sit

Scaled Scores

Below are your scaled scores for the composite building blocks and their subcomponents.  For comparison, at the bottom of the page, you can see the benchmark scores as published in the HBR article

Psychological Safety:  77.1

Appreciation of Differences: 32.1

Openness to New Ideas: 67.9

Time for Reflection: 40

LEARNING ENVIRONMENT COMPOSITE: 54.3

Experimentation: 71.4

Information Collection: 85.7

Analysis: 62.9

Education and Training: 69

Information Transfer: 42.9

LEARNING PROCESSES COMPOSITE: 43.4

LEADERSHIP THAT REINFORCES LEARNING: 45

HE Yingying (Helena)

The Harvard Review Survey is designed for assessing whether the team of a company is learning or how that learning is benefiting the company. This survey consists assessment of three building blocks of a learning organization, which are: 1) a supportive environment, 2) Concrete learning processes, and 3) leadership that reinforces learning.

According to the scaled scores of IT Department in HSBC and Benchmark Scores for the Learning Organization Survey above, the analysis of the extent of LO in IT Department of HSBC is as follows:

Building Block 1: Supportive Learning Enviroment

Ÿ   Psychological Safety: 74.3 – Second quartile. In this unit, it’s not so easy to speak up about what is on your mind. It’s better to keep a part of the thoughts in mind to be safe.

Ÿ   Appreciation of Differences: 85.7 – Top quartile. Differences in opinion are welcome in this unit. As a senior specialist in IT department, Jack (alias of the case study subject) can always talk about different opinion regarding some technical issues.

Ÿ   Openness to New Ideas: 85.7 – Second quartile. Jack said that in their department, they often refer to the already mature system to finish tasks.

Ÿ   Time for Reflection: 54.3 – Third quartile. In this unit, the stuff regularly have meetings for improvement in work.

Ÿ   LEARNING ENVIRONMENT COMPOSITE: 75 – Third quartile. The whole learning environment is satisfactory.

Building Block 2: Concrete Learning Processes and Practices

Ÿ   Experimentation: 85.7 – Top quartile. This unit experiments frequently with new way of effective working.

Ÿ   Information collection: 92.9 –Top quartile. As a banking corporation, it’s essential to collect dated information of customers, competitors, technology trends and related economic and social policy trends.

Ÿ   Analysis: 80 – Third quartile. The analysis of conflicts of thoughts is crucial for the improvement of the unit.

Ÿ   Education and training: 97.6 – Top quartile. Information technology industry itself is fast developing. The relevant training of the stuff lasts from the beginning of the employment.

Ÿ   Information transfer: 91.1 - Top quartile. As an IT specialist in HSBC, there are a lot of opportunities to share information within and without the organization, such as other branched of the corporation and other banking corporation.

Ÿ   LEARNING PROCESSES COMPOSITE: 60 – Bottom quartile.

Building Block 3: Leadership That Reinforces Learning: 71.4 – Second quartile. The leadership in this unit should be improved in order to guide the unit to the direction of a learning organization. The leader of this unit should establish and maintain good relationship among the stuffs and reinforce good strategies from time to time.

Tang Lu  (Theresa)

Here are the numbers for KFC

According to the scaled scores of KFC, I believe that KFC is a good learning organazation.


supportive learning environment: 62.9
psychological safety :82.1
appreciation of differences :75
openness to new ideas:74.3
time for reflection :73.6
learning environment composite :85.7
concrete learning processes and practices:73.6
experimentation :85.7
information collection :85.
analysis :60
education and training :100
information transfer :66.1
learning processes composite : 58.9
leadership that reinforces learning 77.1
composite for this block  :72.9