KM Summit News: DeMarco -- how to create a learning organization
Tom DeMarco, principal of computer think-tank Atlantic Systems Guild, showed the entire audience at the KM Leadership Summit why improving organizational learning is difficult, and what must happen to make it a reality.
First, he said, one must realize that the mind ("the ultimate learning machine") is always on, and the learning process never stops; rather, the brain sometimes shifts gears to focus on another learning opportunity, or "unlearns" to wipe away previous assumptions.
Another obstacle is realizing how to think "out of the box." As an example DeMarco asked the audience to list all the possible digital connections to a house; the answers were phone line, TV cable, and power line. Each can carry the others' signal, which would open doors to new business opportunities. However, all carriers have that option; the resulting detente keeps everyone chained to their own territory.
No one cited another home connection: the water pipe, which can also carry a digital signal -- and is competitively out of reach, since TV and phone lines can't carry water to consumers. (The state of California is currently doing this, noted DeMarco, in lieu of physical water meters.) But the water company has no plans to carry TV or phone signals; it's just not part of the service they provide. This, said DeMarco, is an example of a true learning organization -- thinking outside of the box, while still managing to "stick to the knitting."
According to DeMarco, companies rely entirely too much on organizational charts, which may in fact undercut an organization's learning potential. Learning, he argued, doesn't happen along the lines of an org chart -- it happens in the white space between the lines. Most often those areas involve middle management, which bore the brunt of the 90's downsizing movement.
"Terrific learning companies are companies with terrific middles," said DeMarco, meaning that most learning within an organization takes place horizontally or from peers, rather than from the top down or bottom up. He predicted that people in these key learning positions are either isolated, embattled, frightened, overworked...or gone.
Another popular belief DeMarco debunked was the idea of multitasking -- fragmenting a worker's hours between several projects or tasks, which he said may in fact be harmful rather than effective. "What you've gained in efficiency, you've lost in responsiveness," he said.
As an example of a different approach to organizational structure, Southern California Edison has arranged its hierarchy according to project completion -- e.g. 1997-8, 2000, 2007. Edison has also managed to come through the utilities deregulation better than most, noted DeMarco.
DeMarco closed with a few not-so-simple tips on how to make organizational learning possible: keep your people, relax control, and "drive fear out of the organization" -- quoting the late W. Edwards Deming, an American statistician credited with starting the modern quality movement