Organization Learning, Individual Learning, and the Doctoral Purpose
by Jonathan Gehrz | February 2, 2010
Have you ever stopped to think about how your contribution fits into your organization’s learning? Admittedly, until recently, I hadn’t. I suppose when you are surrounded by many, many, MANY bright and talented people, you easily forget an organization is learning too. And that can be frustrating, can’t it?
Do you recall an occasion where your organization was going a direction and your immediate thought was “Here we go again.” Or with a collective sigh, “Same present, new wrapping paper.” I had such a moment recently, but then I was reading some work by Argyris and Schön and this idea that organizational learning differs from individual learning really moved me. As you ponder that idea further, you begin to realize just how significant it is when an organization looks beyond the superficial immediacy of an issue and truly reflects deeply on their identity and contribution to society.
With this in mind, I was reading some Senge, and this conclusion that schools (k12 schools in this case) are really a strong representation of the Industrial-Aged assembly line. Put the child in school, put some expertise in front of the child in the form of segmented, specialized teaching, and spit him out of the machine with the expectation that knowledge has been acquired. But as Senge points out, children aren’t machines, but living beings with unique gifts and needs.
So with these ideas swirling in my head, it made me reconsider our work together. In short, the PhD is asking you to accomplish something truly remarkable, in that it perhaps, for many, the first time you have been asked to fully abandon what you think you know to be true. Give yourself up to the ambiguity of questioning self and purpose and all that came from that Industrial-Aged machine. But even that’s not enough, now consider your affiliation with your program and your contribution to helping your organization learn. You may very well possess the intelligence and knowledge needed to solve a significant problem, but don’t lose sight of the fact that the organization may still be reading the introductory chapter of that book of knowledge.
I share this, today, as a personal self-reflection, but also as a reminder to all present, learning is organic. Abandon the Industrial-Aged machine and think about how you are evolving and learning. Are you at the door paying your tuition with the expectation of a degree? Or are you questioning and learning more about your own gifts and talents; contributing to something greater than any building or program? Are you cultivating scholarship?