View publication - Chartered Institute of Housing

PART TWO: LEADING TOMORROW
Conclusion – becoming a learning organisation
By John Thornhill, Learning Officer at CIH
‘Learning is the kindling of a flame, not the filling of a vessel.’
Socrates
This anthology has explored the skills and learning professionals in the housing industry
will need to thrive in the future. It has also explored the characteristics of learning
organisations because in a context of rapid and unprecedented change, it is only
organisations that can maximise collective learning in flexible and adaptive ways that will
succeed. So what is a learning organisation?
A learning organisation takes a joined-up approach to different learning elements:
• It actively encourages and supports personal development and the personal
commitment of individuals to engage in their own learning.
• It recognises that learning is not just for individuals. To be valuable to the
organisation it has to be transferable. Transferrable learning is the sum total of
individual learning. Learning organisations recognise the need to develop
mechanisms for individual skills and knowledge transfer across the wider
organisation.
• It values collective learning and supports structures that facilitate the sharing of skills
and knowledge across teams and hierarchies.
• It takes a strategic approach to knowledge management by investing in mechanisms
which allow the creation, dissemination, and implementation of knowledge across
the organisation.
• It develops shared visions and a shared identity that provides focus and energy for
individual and collective learning.
• It is willing to ‘un-learn’. That is, it supports a culture open to inquiry and to leaving
behind out-dated values, behaviours and ways of working.
In addition, contributors to this project have emphasised the following features of
successful learning organisations:
Developing a culture of learning – Authors have discussed the importance of
establishing a strong culture of learning as being a good thing in its own right. The
creation of a culture of learning is seen as extending beyond the boundaries of job
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