Journal of Resources Development and Management www.iiste.org ISSN 2422-8397 An International Peer-reviewed Journal Vol.19, 2016 31 The Strategic Building Blocks of a Learning Organization Dr. Remy Nyukorong Burgemeester Cortenstraat 26, 6226 GV, Maastricht. The Netherlands Abstract The current paper focuses on the importance of learning to the development of business enterprises and corporate organizations. It highlights the need for the training and re-skilling of organizations human resources in line with the developments of today’s business demands. Hence, the purpose of the paper is to explore the impacts of continuous learning on skills development to increase the performance of people in the service of business organizations. Such training interventions are, without exception, crucial irrespective of position or rank in the organization. The paper draws on Peter Senge’s five disciplines towards building strong learning organizations: building shared vision, personal mastery, mental models, team learning and systems thinking. The adoption and application of the five basic principles will aid business leaders, line managers, training consultants and employees to acquire competitive business skills and healthy intellectual minds, essential for the growth and development of business enterprises. Also, by implementing the five well-tested new component technologies, the paper advocates that corporate organizations grow more rapidly, thus facilitating management and the development of workplace skills. It will also allow the development of strong teamwork inside the organization and open up opportunities for creating a competitive advantage within the business field. Keywords: The learning organization, basic disciplines, competitive advantage, Systems thinking strategies 1. Introduction Academic research into learning as well as professional development has increased rapidly in recent times, and continues to grow (Dochy, Gijbels, Segers, & Van den Bossche, 2011). Nearly half of new business enterprises and corporations will fail within the first five years of their existence. According to Senge, “Only four [out of ten] of these companies will make it to ten years, and a mere three [out of ten] will make it to fifteen years in business” (Senge, 1990a, p.117). Senge posits that every time a company fails, publics are quick to assign blame to a specific problem and never even give consideration to the possibility that the failure could be due to a general system problem. The five principles as proposed by Senge (1990a) have improved understanding into the way learning organizations function. Senge is of the view that the core strategy is systems thinking, which can be explained as a unique way of thinking wherein all personnel of the organization put aside their customarily used ways of discerning and begin afresh using an open-minded way of reasoning. At the start, this organizational learning strategy will require extra efforts which ultimately will lead to a substantial pay-off. In the sections that follow, an elucidation will be given that supports this methodology. In addition, arguments will be offered to strengthen and reinforce this strategy as a beneficial endeavor. 2. Conceptualization of a learning organization Several researchers have posited definitions of organizational learning. Below is a few sample:  “Organizational learning is a process of detecting and correcting error.”(Argyris, 1977)  “Organizational learning means the process of improving actions through better knowledge and understanding.” (Fiol& Lyles, 1985)  “An entity learns if, through its processing of information, the range of its potential behaviors is changed.”(Huber, 1991)  “Organizations are seen as learning by encoding inferences from history into routines that guide behavior.” (Levitt & March, 1988)  A learning organization is any organization that is skilled at knowledge creation, knowledge acquisition and knowledge transfer as well as engaging in behavior modification to reflect new knowledge creation and insight (Garvin, 1993).  Learning organizations are places where people continually expand their capacity to create the results they truly desire, where new and expansive patterns of thinking are nurtured, where collective aspiration is set free, and where people are continually learning to see the whole together (Senge, 1990, p.3). On the basis of the above definitions, the core principle for learning organizations is that in cases of rapid change only organizations that are flexible, adaptive and productive are those that will perform well and emerge as high performance organizations. However, for this to occur, it is maintained that organizations need to discern on how to tap employees’ commitment and the ability to learn at all levels (Senge, 1990a, 1990b). While individual persons have the ability to learn, the structures within which they have to operate are usually not favourable for reflection and serious engagement. Besides, employees may not have the appropriate brought to you by CORE View metadata, citation and similar papers at core.ac.uk provided by International Institute for Science, Technology and Education (IISTE): E-Journals