Critical for the life and health of an organization, the primary function of top management teams today is to learn and support the organization's function as a learning system. This generates results on a variety of scales -- profitability, employee turnover, customer satisfaction, and more. 

Evaluate your top management team's key learning characteristics -- download our checklist.

"In essence, the leader's task is designing the learning processes whereby people throughout the organization can deal productively with the critical issues they face, and develop their mastery in the learning disciplines." (Senge, The Fifth Discipline). For the top management team to learn, to encourage learning, and to share its learning in a meaningful way, team members must be able to break out of the perceptual confines created by their positions and power.

Do you gather information from formal and informal sources?

Learning is driven by a constant process of taking in new information and adjusting frameworks to utilize that new information. The vision of a learning organization needs to be part of an ongoing dialogue within the company, and maintaining and encouraging this dialogue is a top priority for leadership. Many things can stand in the way of this dialogue: the power differential between top management and other staff that exists due to organizational hierarchy; a tendency of the top management team to "not hear" or negate input that is counter to their world view; and the vulnerability required of leaders in accepting input from staff, clients, and others. Ego is one of the key barriers to successful top management learning, and fear of not having control can obstruct learning.

The information acquired from various sources -- internal and external, formal and informal -- influence decision-making. Examples of formal internal sources include: financial performance analyses, productivity improvement reports and management meetings. An informal method, "management by walking around," gives managers a different perspective. One CEO of a large division describes his personal practice, "I like to go have a cigarette on the loading dock; that's where I find out what is really happening in the company."  

Is your top management team supporting learning throughout the organization?

An analysis of your top management team's key characteristics will help you determine whether it is on the path to becoming a learning system and whether it is supporting learning throughout the organization. To evaluate your top management team, download our checklist to measure 15 key characteristics of learning groups.

Anthony Panos has over 30 years of experience in practical management, management consulting and training. Performance Training Inc. focuses on workshops and coaching (from the CEO level to front line supervisors) that address organizational and management development issues. Formerly at Cornell University, Anthony now also teaches and consults at Yale University. He holds a BS and MBA in Management.

Following each of our OD Salons, a summary of the discussion, including comments from participants, is posted on our website and available to continue the conversation. Read the discussion from our March Salon and contribute your comments on our blog, Organizational Life.

Upcoming Salons

October 21st

Why not pay people as much as we possibly can? 

December 6th

How does physical space impact our work lives?

Through these Salons, we offer our clients and colleagues an opportunity to explore in more detail deeper questions about organizational life--a chance to play with ideas about what is and what can be in the organizations in which we work.

• There is no charge to attend Salons.
• Lunch is included. 
• Invite a colleague! 
• Salon participants will receive a 20% discount on future in-house workshops.

For more detail on the concept of a "salon" or details about all of our scheduled OD Salons, visit our website. To register, email Itanza or call (203) 288-6688.