Introduction
The "Titanic syndrome"
How organizations change over time
Succumbing to the "Titanic syndrome"
>>The roots of the evolutionary organization
Principles of the evolutionary organization
The evolutionary organization-- an operational perspective
The evolutionary organization-- a management perspective
The evolutionary organization-- a new science perspective
A practical experience in building an evolutionary organization
Summary

(continued from Succumbing to the "Titanic syndrome")

The roots of the evolutionary organization

From the preceding sections we can see why managers’ minds become set, and how catastrophic corporate and personal upheaval will be a sporadic but inevitable feature of the KRO as it is presently constituted. How then can we break free of the paradox that "the greater the corporate success the stronger grow the seeds of future corporate failure"?

Many authorities believe the answer lies in continuously upgrading and leveraging the knowledge base of the organization. This is done by fostering a climate of learning for employees, and particularly for managers. A company adhering to this philosophy has come to be called a learning organization. Unfortunately, this concept is like a cubist painting – full of ambiguous viewpoints. For example, in Garvin’s [10] opinion, " [their] discussion of learning organizations have often been reverential and utopian, filled with near mystical terminology. Paradise, they would have you believe, is just around the corner". Handy [41] says "The Learning Organization is a term commonly in vogue. It is, however, less than obvious what it means, except that clearly it is a good thing to strive to be"; Koffman and Senge [42] (the learning organization’s principal popularizer) say: "There is no such thing as a learning organization. Learning organization is a category that we create in language… we are taking a stand for a vision… it is not the vision but what it does that matters…". Davis and Botkin [43] assert that "The last thing you want to grow is a learning organization. First you need to grow a learning business". For our part, we have followed Pedlar et al. [44] in viewing the learning organization as a metaphor which must be interpreted by each practitioner to suit their own context; our interpretation is given in [8].

Unfortunately, as Garvin [10] puts it, "Beyond high philosophy and grand themes lie the gritty details of practice". Anyone who has had practical experience of introducing a learning organization initiative knows how difficult the planning task quickly becomes, and how rapidly organizational resistance forms. These practical difficulties result from not only the complexity of the learning organization concept and the mindsets discussed previously, but also because not everyone is a self-motivated natural learner. For example, in our experience, managerial communities seem to break down into 15 per cent of individuals who are active continuous learners, 60 per cent of individuals who have potential for some form of learning if they can be convinced of its necessity, and 25 percent "couch-potatoes" who are blocked from learning for whatever reasons. The reader may wish mentally to position their senior managers along this continuum.

This is not to say that psychological [14], social [12] and metanoic [7] approaches are not effective in the long term. However, they are very difficult to introduce unless a supportive environment already exists, and the initiating practitioners are dedicated and courageous. Given even the most advantageous conditions, an initial successful intervention may still convince the organization’s members to band together to get rid of the intruding culture. Practitioners will invariably conclude that these routes are not sufficiently robust and practical in the formative stages to carry the weight of the learning organization or its look-alikes to the "point of no return".

What, then, are we to do? Abandon ship and lose everything or "right quick" come up with a new plan? But what plan? In the next section we set out our recommended strategy. It promises survival, and if successful, ensures we are never again caught in this predicament. The answer lies in first purging, and then never again contracting, the Titanic syndrome; the answer lies in developing what we call the evolutionary organization (EVO).

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The Saint-Onge Toolkit www.saint-ongetoolkit.com was released on November 1, 2001. It is an online learning platform containing rich media Powerpoint Presentations, a monthly seminar and Discussion Group that focuses on the core ideas of Hubert Saint-Onge's Knowledge Assets Strategy. $200US for a three-month subscription. It can be customized for a CKO's corporate knowledge strategy implementation.