Is Your Agency a Learning Organization?

Continuing education is becoming more of an instrumental tool for park and recreation professionals to excel in the field. Keeping up with trends, discovering new programs and services and their positive effects for the public are essential in the new millennium.

What does your agency do with this new information? How does your agency affect change?

If your agency is a "learning organization," you already have systems in place to review and implement these new ideas. Your employees are empowered to take action. Your agency is keeping pace with the latest trends and practices in our field.

Many park districts and forest preserves are learning organizations. Other are on their way, while some have yet to see the benefits.

A Learning Organization Defined

Peter Senge, who popularized learning organizations in his book The Fifth Discipline, defined a learning organization as one "in which you cannot not learn because learning is so insinuated into the fabric of life." Another definition states: "A group of people continually expanding their capacity to create the results they truly desire, where new and expansive patterns of thinking are nurtured, where collective aspiration is set free, and where people are continually learning how to learn together." Finally, "a learning organization is skilled at creating, acquiring and transferring knowledge, and at modifying its behavior to reflect new knowledge and insights."

The concept of learning organizations increasingly has become relevant given the increasing complexity and uncertainty in organizational environments. Being a learning organization may be the only way you can thrive rather than just survive in our global climate of rapid change and new technologies.

Building Blocks

Ideas are essential if learning is to take place. They are the impetus for organizational improvement. But what good are ideas without action?

New knowledge must be translated into new ways of behaving, which can only be done with distinctive policies and practices in place. These polices and practices form the building blocks of learning organizations. Following are five qualities of learning organizations.

• Utilizing systematic problem solving methods is an important quality of a learning organization. Data rather than assumptions must be used to make sound solutions.

• Organizations must systematically experiment with new methods and procedures. Is there a steady flow of new ideas coming into your agency? Do you provide incentives that encourage employees to take risks? Do you systematically evaluate the implementation of these new ideas?

• Organizations must learn from their past experiences. "Those who cannot remember the past are condemned to repeat it."

• We must learn from others. Companies in completely different businesses can be outstanding sources for our ideas and catalysts for creative thinking. For example, "benchmarking" is a business practice infrequently used in our field, but it can be useful. Benchmarking is the skill of seeking out best-practice organizations and adapting their methods to your agency.

• New knowledge and practices need to be transferred quickly and efficiently throughout the organization to ensure total saturation of ideas.

Simple Steps

Learning organizations do not happen overnight but rather are nurtured and developed over rime as changes in attitudes, practices and policies take place. Here are a few simple steps you can take to begin building a learning organization.

• A climate that is conducive to learning must be developed. Managers must set aside time for their staff members to evaluate current practices, consider customer needs, and implement new ideas. Organizational

Do you provide incentives that encourage employees to take risks?

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IS YOUR AGENCY A LEARNING ORGANIZATION?

boundaries must be opened up to stimulate the exchange of ideas.

• Holding inter-departmental meetings and creating project teams made up of staff members from all over the organization are effective ways to encourage the flow of new ideas and concepts.

• Strategic planning, systems audits, and internal benchmarking are all ways to foster learning by requiring employees to consider new ideas and design ways to implement them.

The Bottom Line

The benefits of building a learning organization are numerous. Agencies can gain a competitive edge and keep up with trends in our changing environment. You can empower your employees while increasing their level of personal commitment and creativity to your agency. You can achieve your goals.

Why a learning organization? A better question might be, why not?

What did you learn from the 2000 IAPD/IPRA Annual Conference? Learning organizations know how to capitalize on conferences such as the IAPD/IPRA Annual Conference. The conference presents an ideal opportunity for learning organizations to thrive. It offers more than 100 quality educational sessions, networking opportunities and a 260-company Exhibit Hall showcasing companies and products of interest to the park and recreation business. Here's how some learning organizations take advantage of this annual event. • Approach the conference with a purpose to gain new insights into new methods and practices to bring back to your agency. • Plan ahead to attend appropriate sessions and networking opportunities. • Attend with an open mind. • Meet people with similar responsibilities and professional interests. • Post-conference, share materials from educational sessions with staff and board members. • Share new ideas gleaned from the conference in your upcoming staff meetings. • Filter new information to the right staff members. • Make changes to your own practices based on something you learned at the conference. • Follow through with the resources you jotted down in educational sessions or contacts made while networking. • Call that person on the business card who had a great idea that you would like to implement at your agency to get further information.

WILLIAM. M. WALD, CLP
is the executive director of the Illinois Park and Recreation Association. He has been deputy executive director of the association since 1994 and before that, for two years he was IPRA membership services director. Wald is a graduate of Western Illinois University, Roosevelt University and the National Golf Foundation/Oglebay School of Golf Management. He can be reached at 630.752.0141 or wald@ilipra.org.

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