Building a Learning Organization

Continuous improvement programs are proliferating as corporations seek to better themselves and gain an edge. Unfortunately, however, failed programs far outnumber successes, and improvement rates remain low. That's because most companies have failed to grasp a basic truth. Before people and companies can improve, they must first learn. And to do this, they need to look beyond rhetoric and high philosophy and focus on the fundamentals. Three critical issues must be addressed before a company can truly become a learning organization: meaning, management, and measurement.