Conclusion
Just as the example of the soldiers at the bridge faced with a battle situation for which they had no previous experience, business leaders must expect the unexpected. If they create a culture of lifelong learning within their businesses, their staff and employees will always be open to looking at old facts in new ways, ready to find forward-thinking solutions. Such a company philosophy and structure can keep even the oldest company packed with fresh ideas and innovative solutions to the new problems they face.
Annotated Bibliography
Barker, Randolph T., and Camarata, Martin R. 1998. "The Role of Communication in Creating and Maintaining a Learning Organization: Preconditions, Indicators, and Disciplines." The Journal of Business Communication, Vol. 35.
Barker and Camarata look at communication concepts that help or hinder the use of systems thinking, arguing that communication is the method by which organizational learning takes place. They note multiple factors related to communication that must be present, including trust between colleagues, commitment to chosen courses of action, and a perception of organizational support for employees, so employees will feel they have a vested interest in how well the company does. They use Kodak's difficulties at the end of the 1980's as a case study.
Beckford, John. Quality. 2002.
Based on systems thinking, this book is divided into four sections. First the author looks at the importance of quality performance and the things that can block a company from being the best that it can be. Then considerable space is given to leaders in the imovement to transform businesses into more functional entities. Such people as John S. Oakland, who developed the concept of "Total Quality Management," are covered in depth. Considerable space is given to organizational learning, focusing on system beliefs that can prevent real growth including the "boiling frog" phenomenon and the pitfalls of counting on learning from experience. The author covers the topic of building quality with both depth and breadth, and provides business leaders with specific tools they can use in their quest for quality.
Clute, Peter W. 1999. "Change at an Oil Refinery: Toward the Creation of a Learning Organization." Human Resource Planning, Vol. 22.
This article describes how the business unit management team and the organizational development design team collaborated to enable change at the cultural level of a refinery-based business unit of an international oil company. The interventions were intentionally designed to enable change at the level of thinking and acting. It gives details on specific actions they took to make sure the old culture in place didn't find ways to thwart needed change, and the article discusses the problems that needed to be solved, and how they solved them, in depth.
Gunasekara, Chrys. 2003. "Project-Based Workplace Learning: A Case Study." SAM Advanced Management Journal, Vol. 68.
This paper assists in bridging the gap by suggesting a practical approach to workplace learning that is linked with organizational objectives and integrated with project management. They include a case study from an Australian agency, describing the organization's difficulties in detail and how they were overcome to improve the agency's functioning. The article streamlines the process of using current literature on systems thinking and related approaches to provide a model for converting theory into practical realities.
Martin, Gregg F., and Mccausland, Jeffrey D. 2001. "Transforming Strategic Leader Education for the 21st-Century Army." Parameters, Vol. 31.
The authors apply systems thinking to today's military problems. They note that the nature of warfare has changed and with it, the kinds of decisions that have to be made. using an example from Bosnia, they describe how relatively low-level command officers may have to make decisions when...
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