Learning to learn (1/3)
Development organisations navigate through extremely challenging contexts and the positive impact they are able to achieve is a crucial contribution to global development. To successfully achieve this positive impact, a whole lot of knowledge and experience is required.
The road may be long, but worth taking
Organisations constantly accumulate a lot of valuable knowledge. But often, all this knowledge never gets to fulfil its full potential. An organisation can be good at gathering and having a lot of knowledge, but if this knowledge is not made accessible to everyone in the organisation so that it can be applied and build on, learning-potential is missed out on.
The theory is clear: by learning from the knowledge and experience you have in your organisation, you can avoid pitfalls, apply your lessons learned and ultimately work more efficiently and effectively. While it may be easy to agree with this premise, once you start thinking about how to actually put learning to practice in your organisation, it may get more challenging. And you are not alone with this challenge. The same frustration comes up time and again: how to apply and learn from the gathered knowledge to achieve organisational learning.
How do we learn?
So far, the concepts of organisational learning and the learning organisation – in academic and applied literature – are rather abstract. We can all agree with the idea that learning from past experiences can help us improve our work. Yet, current research on the topic fails to provide any tangible practical guidance on how to actually achieve organisational learning in an organisation. So, we are left with the question: how can organisations practically implement organisational learning?
This is where STRHIVE comes in. To turn the abstract concept of a learning organisation into a practical working concept, STRHIVE was founded. STRHIVE’s mission is to help organisations overcome the challenges they face with organisational learning by building tailor-made learning frameworks that exactly meet every organisation’s need.
Curious about how we do this?
This post is the first of a three-part launch story. In the following parts, I will introduce to you organisational learning, show you why it is worth thinking about, and elaborate on the approach of STRHIVE.