Do we need to be a learning organisation?

As your industry changes faster and faster, your organisation’s learning ability determines whether you thrive or head for extinction.

The analogy between business and the theory of evolution is very useful. A key concept in evolution is a species “fit”. This describes how well adapted the species is to its environment, and has a direct parallel with an organisation’s position in its industry.

The concept of a learning organisation looks beyond the static snapshot of today’s “fitness” to a dynamic picture of how fast the company can evolve. The key strategic indicator is the speed your company can change, relative to the speed the environment changes. Even if you missed some trends, you can recover if you can change faster than the environment is evolving. On the other hand, if the industry change will outpace you, you are doomed to extinction however strong your starting position. As Jack Welch put it, “When the rate of change outside exceeds the rate of change inside, the end is in sight.”

It is no accident that today’s most dynamic learning organisations are forged in the maelstrom of the hi-tech industry, where the rules of a whole industry can turn upside down within a year.

The challenge for the rest of us is how to adopt the best aspects of their learning cultures, since today the rate of change is accelerating in every industry.

Do your organisation a favour - hunt and kill jargon

One of the most powerful ways for a CEO to impact their culture is to eliminate business jargon and encourage clear communication

The scariest part of the Dilbert Mission Statement generator (www.dilbert.com) is how familiar the phrases generated appear to us. It is easy to fill a whole presentation with impressive sounding language, that collectively, means nothing. And none of the audience dares to say that the Emperor has no clothes.

Dropping the jargon creates clear communication. You have to actually say what you mean, and be clear about what you are going to do.

And that leaves you vulnerable.

Jargon lets you get away with fuzzy thinking. If you communicate clearly, your colleague can actually judge if your ideas are any good. If you communicate exactly what you are going to do, you are exposed to failing to achieve it, without any chance to move the goalposts later. As Warren Buffet said, "You don't know who's swimming naked until the tide goes out."

You can get an accurate sense of how healthy the communication culture is in your company by taking a fresh look at how much jargon you use.

Would your organisation benefit if you crusaded for clear communication? Like all changes, it will come from the top – you will need to eliminate all jargon yourself, making yourself vulnerable, before you can demand it of others. Like all cultural change it starts by example.

Does your team speak a common strategic language?

Every profession has its own language. When medical doctors speak of Acute, Chronic and Malignant cases they have a specific meaning that is clear to them all. The power of this common language comes from its ability to rapidly communicate situations and enable collaboration on solutions between doctors of different cultures and specialities (holding conversations without lay-people understanding is just a side-benefit!)

This ability to clearly communicate and collaborate is also critical to creating an effective executive team. However, compared to doctors, executives lack the benefit of common training to forge this language. When terms like Value Proposition, Business Model, Core Competence or Strategic Initiative are thrown around, they are likely to mean different things to everyone. When you say “Our Target Customer”, is the same picture conjured up in everyone else’s head?

The academic definition of the terms isn’t important. What matters is that when your Executive Team uses them, you all understand each other. Given the varied backgrounds of most executive teams, the only way to achieve this is to go through a strategic process together when they are discussed.

Does your executive team speak a common strategic language?