Excerpts Organizational Intelligence The World of Theory Intelligence by Design The Learning Loop Hearts and Minds New Attributes of Behavior Preludes Questions Sections

Excerpts from Chapter 7 of The Intelligence Advantage Excerpts: Next | Previous Prelude The Learning Loop Corporations do learn. The questions are, "How?" and "How fast?" Learning from experience represents a small part of the possible learning spectrum. Knowledge is information that is integrated with the entire system in such a way that it is available for action at potentially appropriate times. A more dynamic, diverse and innovative kind of learning occurs when a theory is present to interpret and organize the experiences as they happen. Our operational definition of learning is "the phenomenon that occurs when a novel internal state (structure, information, representation, etc.) is created by combining input (from external or internal sources) in ways never before combined, and this information is stored in such a way that it is accessible for future use." Learning is a creative act. Organizational learning is "the phenomenon that occurs when any new information is added to the available memory of the organization (whether an individual or a system), thereby making it accessible for future use by the system." Organizational intelligence is a function of the number of connections, the intricacy of those connections and system design. Accounting desperately needs to transform to meet the needs of a world of information. Fortunately, those needs can be satisfied by the technology that created them. Systems that provide information regarding time cycles and costs and make that available to those doing the work will provide a breakthrough in accounting to match the breakthroughs in organizational design being proposed here. An even more powerful approach, which would then create the demand for costing information, useful for both improved production and learning, is to invest the time and energy now used for re-engineering studies into processes in which those performing the work experiment with better ways of working while they analyze the processes. Western businesses have attempted to "optimize" by opting for immediate low cost, and thus removed all possibility of redundancy, ambiguity and learning. Here we can see that the structures of accounting, which are deeply embedded in linear materialist thinking, are a part of the source of our problem. The nature of "accounting" is revealed in the term itself: it accounts for the physical parts of an operation. Accounting can only measure. It cannot predict and is not designed to support the accumulation of learning or knowledge. Many of the required activities and even results of learning will appear to be uneconomical when based on standard accounting systems. These accounting systems are as much a culprit as the hierarchy in inhibiting innovation and learning. They must be changed. Questions to this chapter Excerpts: Next | Previous