Organizational learning: a conversational dance?

On the afternoon of Thursday 27 April, I went to Nancy Dixon's Masterclass on organizational learning, hosted by PSO in Utrecht. Nancy Dixon is a well known author and consultant in the field of organizational learning with wide experience of both the private and development sectors. Nancy herself is an advocate of the power of good conversation and how this can be harnassed to solve organizational problems.

In the materclass, we examined organizational learning and the provision of external advice from a number of perspectives. Most of the participants were very experienced advisors from a variety of Dutch based development organizations, both in the public and private sector. Three different techniques were used to facilitate the meeting:

• Speed dating as a way of breaking the ice among the 18 participants
• Story telling by Nancy Dixon herself
• Dialogue in a world cafe

The masterclass gave much food for thought. One thing that particularly stays in my mind is the example which Nancy shared with us of improving organizational learning centred around a particular process in a US drug company. She argued that organizational learning can best be focused around coping with specific problems or challenges, and that more widely applied attempts to improve organizational learning broadly in whole organizations tend to be less effective. I guess this means that to effectively carry out organizational learning, you need to identify the problem or the challenge first....

A fellow participant likened the provision of external advice to 'a conversational dance' which was a powerful metaphor, capturing many of our different perspectives on organizational learning.

I had never done speed dating before but it was a really great way of getting to know the other participants very quickly, and it was fun too. During the speed dating, Russell Kerkhoven of PSO told me about a technique called Socratic dialogue which aids in the examination of assumptions, perceptions and thought processes. It looks like an interesting addition to the KM toolkit and I'll enjoy finding out a little more about it.