How to Measure Organizational Learning

One of my tasks at work recently was to measure organizational learning. "How would I know if my organization is a learning organization," I wondered?

Training activity seemed to be the most common answer. The logic is easy to refute when simply stated: If we offer a lot of training opportunities and a lot of people attend, then we must be a learning organization.
The evidence of individual learning is a change in behavior, or at least a change in the behavioral options available. But how does that translate to the organizational level?

With just a little bit of background reading (thank you Peter Senge), I came up with a tentative checklist. It still needs some refinement, but here it is:

1. Does the organization have a shared vision; does everyone know what it is and how their actions support it?
2. Is personal mastery expected; are learning and growth required of individuals in the organization?
3. Does the organization utilized team-based approaches to learning such as cross-functional teams?
4. Does the organization reflect on Mental Models and Culture and make attempts to adapt these to achieve better results?
5. Does the organization consider the whole System when making decisions; are second and third order effects considered routinely?
6. Does the organization exhibit an effort to adapt to changes in the environment? Are these efforts proactive or reactive?
7. Does the organization use systematic problem identification and problem solving techniques?
8. Does the organization have systems in place to detect and correct errors and mistakes?
9. Does the organization make deliberate efforts to expand its capacity to create results in the future?

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