Strategic Organizational Learning Review

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Strategic Organizational Learning ReviewThis is the second of two related books by the same author, the first being Strategic Organizational Change (This review applies to both books). Strategic Organizational Change seeks to cover all aspects of change management, of which organizational learning is one aspect. Strategic Organizational Learning was written essentially as an expansion of the learning aspects of the first, but was designed to stand alone. In consequence, there is substantial overlap, and some repetition between the two. As the titles indicate, the first book treats organizational learning as one aspect of the wider process of organizational change, while the second focuses on learning, training, and knowledge transfer and also covers issues of cross-cultural operation and learning.
Both are exactly what they claim to be: clear and comprehensive guides for practitioners, whether these are consultants (the primary audience) or managers. They are written in simple and direct terms and bring together summaries of the theories and practice of well-known authorities in the field (Lewin, Schein, Maslow and others) with a distillation of the experience of the author. The emphasis is on the universal basics and there is merciful freedom from hype and faddism. The structure of each book makes for ease of reference and the content will be useful as a memory jogger for experienced consultants as well as being a valuable guide for the less experienced.
In summary, both books are good `foundation texts' and sources of reference in their respective fields.
Anyone with experience in the field will have their quibbles about what is not included or only touched on. My list of useful additional sources include:
* while Beitler mentions systems thinking and its importance, he does not either expand on this or provide guidance to further detail (On organizational change the best sources are Senge et al: The Dance of Change and a range of articles from the Pegasus Communications magazine The Systems Thinker). The Dance of Change gives an extremely detailed analysis of the various forces that reinforce and inhibit effective change. (It is unfortunate that citations to Senge are nearly always to his original The Fifth Discipline and not to the much more directly managerially useful successors The Fifth Discipline Fieldbook and The Dance of Change);
* a related gap is the failure to identify the issues of complexity and the associated importance in change management of so-called `wicked' problems - problems to which there is no final solution so that the choice is between several partial solutions, each of which has a substantial downside. This sort of problem is common in organizational change and a frequent mistake of consultants and managers is to treat such problems as if they were `tame'. Lewin, R. and Regine, B. The Soul at Work provides particularly useful practical examples of managing with complexity;
* I would have liked to see some reference to the use of narrative techniques as a data gathering tool. There is rapidly increasing recognition of the value of these techniques in diagnosis - as well as of story-telling as a fruitful tool for promoting desired culture change;
* while many of the best authors are referenced, other important sources are not referenced. Among my favourites are Howard Gardner (Leading Minds and the later Changing Minds), Peter Vaill (Learning as a Way of Being) and, for an approach more directly based on psychology, Hultman (Making Change Irresistible).As indicated, these points do not detract from the value of the books as a practical guide. They are very useful, with comprehensive coverage of the basics and a lot of valuable practical experience encapsulated in the text.Strategic Organizational Learning Overview

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