I Love To Eat

Essay by EssaySwap ContributorUniversity, Master's February 2008

download word file, 1 pages 0.0

Summary -Learning to Alter Mental Models Organizational learning is a key factor for companies that plan to stay in the business for long term. Consequently, more executives are motivated to make their organization a learning organization.

The management at Shell Oil came to define organizational leaning as the process thru which Management teams change their mental models of the company, its market and its competitor. Shell has distinct "mental models" of the company as paradigm and shells definition of the organizational learning directs attention to a specific domain of work hence enabling the management to concentrate on evolution of mental models that are incorporated in the minds and behavior of people.

Shell discovered a relationship between scenario planning and organizational learning. The scenario planners once for example came up with the scenario of OPEC cartel and made their managers aware of this. However, the managers didn't take the threat seriously as it was later realized that managers because the scenario was inconsistent with their experiences.

Planners realized that the point of the exercise was to alter mental models and not present scenarios.

Problem solvers are fundamentally reactive- they wait until a problem is defined and then seek a solution. The extreme form of problem solving is crisis management, which produces enormous and rapid change many organizations view it as the only solution to bring change.

Organizational learning is more than adaptation and problem solving, it is intrinsic motivation. We have to realize that we excel at learning things because we want to learn them. Organizational learning can be further defined as process where an organization is persistently enhancing its capacity to shape its future and to produce outcomes its members truly desire.

For organizational learning, management needs to think how they can improve leaning capability of the company so, it...