Systems Thinking and Organisational Learning - Essay Example

Systems Thinking and Organizational Learning College/ No Systems Thinking and Organizational Learning Introduction: Organizational learning involves the set of structures and processes that support learning in the workplaces. Learning process facilitates the people to share the information and create knowledge and improve the self organization to achieve the organizational goals. Organizations strive for the continuous improvement. System thinking provides opportunity to accomplish the tasks and system thinking is the key discipline for organizational learning. This paper is focused on role of mental models, emotions and behaviors in decision making. Team learning skills and work experience in a team will be assessed in the context of team effectiveness. In the final part, self reflection about how Self Organized Learning Environments promotes the creativity in the organizations will be discussed. Role of mental models, behaviors and emotions on decision making Mental Models: Mental models are the vast range of processes that include the people, their hobbies and music, how to performs as a politician, sportsman, religion and host for the business phenomena. New mental models are quickly developed by the minds when they interact with the novel or a new process. Mental models are less or more complete and show the cognitive representation. For example, a favorite sport or hobby of individuals might be complete, which represents the knowledge about peripheral aspects or features of a hobby. On contrary to this complete mental model, a less understood mental model contains the cursory or abstract understanding (Duhaime et al., 2012). Mental models perform the function of information filtering and focus upon the attention. People read newspapers and look at headings instead of spending whole the day on reading the editorials. Other people read newspapers very quickly. Selective perception about newspaper reading is about the mental models. Business executives are often overloaded with the meetings, calls and emails; they access more data that can be possibly processed. Their mental models are focused upon the most required and critical as per their perception. It is learnt from “The bear of game” that reality understanding is built through the constructs of mental models. All players in a business can understand the complex dynamics systematically and helps them to keep away from hindering and reinforcing their beliefs. Emotions It is difficult to present the precise definition of emotions in people from various sectors. However, individuals’ everyday activities for social communication, adaptation of tasks and in decision making are affected by people’s distinct states of their emotions and moods. Emotional intelligence as a capability of identification, assessment and management of emotions of others or one’s self plays the significant role in their capability of information extraction. Emotions are called as intelligent and rational thinking in a number of studies of psychologists, cognitive scientists and neuroscientists (Petrantonakis & Hadjileontiadis, 2010). Emotional intelligence as a capability of selecting the right feelings to give the solution with the communication skills is the emotional competency. Emotional intelligence also deals with the own emotions and ability empathize feelings of other after identification. Humans as employees are the pillars of the business companies. In decision making, emotional intelligence is significant factor that possesses the quality of recognition of others as well as own capability of emotions. Emotionally intelligence people in their workplaces perform better and manage the stressful situation very masterfully. A successful decision maker is aware of the others’ feelings and self one’s in all situations. Emotional intelligence makes individuals as a leader because of self regulation, self awareness, motivation, social skills and empathy. Lack of emotional intelligence is the root cause behind all conflicts among employees because sensitivity at both on one end is directly linked to someone’s emotional intelligence. Therefore, managers address the problems long before they emerge and impact on the organization through the emotional intelligence. Motivation as an emotion’s one dimension accomplishes the effective solutions of problem from a solving style. Positive outcomes are derived from the emotional intelligence (Agarwal & Chaudhary, 2013). During the business processes the employees’ emotions run very high. Behavior: In an organization, a connection between individuals and their behavior is established. Employees’ behaviors show their commitment towards the organization. Employees’ behavior plays a vital role in decision making in an organization. Emotional intelligence associated with employees’ behavior improves their performance and increases the productivity. In decision making, behavior supports the managers to plan better in order to meet the needs of customers in varying situations. It is learnt from “The bear of game” that all stakeholders in a business have similar behavior patterns and system shapes their behavior for a powerful role in a decision making (Kahtani, 2013). Use of Management Micro worlds in learning about complex situations Microworlds are synthetic, task oriented and real-time environments, which are used for studying the human behavior in a simulated scenario. Microworlds also involve in the implementation of the autonomous dynamics for the evolving situations. From recent studies and “The bear of game” it is clear that Microworlds are helpful in challenging scenarios of behavioral studies. Therefore, Microworlds are carefully designed to support the experimental manipulation in order to control the task environment (Sapateiro et al., 2010). Management Microworlds are traditionally used in two perspectives; one is the traditional differences between individuals that accomplish the simulation for management of small communities. Second one is the experimental based where variables are used to see their changes. Management Microworlds also sees that how people change their strategies in a changing environment (Canas & Waern, 2007). It is noted that successful conduction of Microworlds requires prior knowledge about computer skills. In order to minimize the impacts of prior knowledge, complexity of a scenario provides information text on all processes and variables (Wolf & Mieg, 2010). Personal Mastery Personal mastery (PM) involves the individuals’ learning that expands their personal capacity for creation of results they desired. A collective effort from employees is done to develop them in order to achieve the purposes and goals. Christopher (2012) called that PM was the discipline of deepening the personal vision that ensures the flow of innovative ideas and experimentation. Team learning is the realization of primary concerns to address the issues through empowerment. Team learning has empowered co-workers and their instructors as their primary roles and responsibilities were defined in a learning process. Team learning has created the conditions where majority of co-workers share the responsibility. Communication Skills Communication skills of employees in a business organization are not necessarily for all employees in an organization. However, some of the individuals are gifted with communication skills to talk with others. For rest of people, communication skills are taught and practiced until it becomes as a critical part of business operations (Frankel, 2009). Team skill development is the part of learning goals that provides the sufficient space to perform and experience in a real teamwork. A large task is broken down in to sub tasks and each member of a team is allocated its roles and responsibilities. As a worker, unforeseen obstacles are reacted adaptively. Sometimes learners are failed to achieve the desired goals in a changing and dynamic environment, but this failure proves to be productive (Jacobson & Reimann, 2010). During Team satisfaction and team performance are dependent upon the shared team knowledge. It is noted that team learning behavior arbitrates the connection between team effectiveness and shared team learning. Team’s learning behavior engages directly to a high shared team knowledge that enhances team satisfaction and team performance. Tasks performed by learning teams are closely matched with the actual services given to customers in a workplace. For example, team members work together and provide hospitability services as given in real restaurants and hotels (Guchaita et al., 2015). Seeking and Sharing Information Young adults and adolescents show their willingness to work in a team. This learning experiences gained at school through learning is a great asset. Sharing recommendations among other team members on social networks, and with friends provide the encouragement when sharing obligation in order to perform tasks. Tutorial support and feedbacks is also provided to other team members. Collaboration among team members increases the awareness that how teamwork impacts the business and industry. Global collaboration has become a powerful tool for innovation. For example, Proctor and Gamble hired the 50% staff from foreign countries on non-regular basis. People located at far away share the information and provide the solution of difficult problems about research development (Strom & Strom, 2011). Team members’ experience of their individual background and their thinking contribute to their motivation and interest to perform their roles as professionals. To perform in a workplace is explicitly connected with previous experience of learning. For example, treatment of patients, as a practitioner looks behind the history to see that how patients were treated at their homes. They also know that how they can act at patient-care centers as well as at their homes. However, in a workplace, different things are experienced. At workplace, as a practitioner how opinions of others were ignored. Ignoring others’ best opinion is inappropriate for someone who is a team member. Working in a tough situation adds more worth of experience. Instead of physical and psychological stress, it realizes the significance of caring the one’s mental health (Sjolie et al., 2013). Intercultural competencies are developed by team members from various cultures. According to Kolb (1984) people have their prior knowledge and ideas about the culture where they work. In a team, individuals come from various cultures and show their competencies in a team and demonstrate their personal attributes like respects, curiosity and cultural awareness. As a team member, personal skills and individuals’ readiness to learn is determined through the previous experience. Conflicts are experienced in a team that is not as bad as considered. Conflict provides the sign that something is not right there. If conflict is not found then issue are not addressed. Level of teamwork shows variability in handling of conflicts. If conflicts are handled well then conflict unleashes the creative energy, otherwise it is tied up in arguments and disagreements. Conflict in a team exists between employees or within team itself. However, collaboration among the co-workers finds the integrated solution of problems and conflicts. Some of the colleagues find weaknesses in other’s propositions and focus on goal of personal winning. Compromising and accommodating are good means used within a team. Compromising means the adjustment of others’ stances and expects to act same in future. Understanding about the conflicts and allowing the colleagues to have their own ways is about the accommodating (Eades, 2010). A Reflection on the suitability of SOLE in promoting creativity in organizations: Self Organization Learning Environment is found to give the space for spontaneous creativity. Unexpected learning also occurs without any predefined learning objectives. Sole has been observed both as transformative/innovative and supports the framing and classification. SOLE is focused on the importance of transformation and creativity. However, rigidity found in a system is perceived to hinder the SOLE’s implementation that does not support creativity. Basic norm to achieve the organization goals is to emergence of ownership and leadership from creativity. Learners accomplish a project even they do small or big things. Creativity sharing means are the collaboration among all members. I know that facilitating the SOLE design is not exclusive. It is the contradistinction towards the commonality, but this diversity is what we have craved for innovation and creativity. It is noted that learning and instructional design practices have emerged, which are based on task’s ownership. It emphasized on significance of self direction’s encouragement, allowing flexibility and promoted creativity to perform the tasks. Creativity plays significance role for knowledge creation in learning environment. Creativity has been conceptualized as an important skill for all learners. Creativity as ability is developed that is fostered and inhibited. Creativity and innovation are unlocked by the educational actors. Conclusions: In this paper, key concepts about SOLE have been addressed. Mental models perform the information filtering roles. Emotions are key factors that recognize the capabilities of others as well as own in complex situations. Employees’ behavior improves the productivity in an organization. Use of management micro worlds is discussed in learning environment for complex situations. In the second part of paper, personal mastery and learning skills in a team in the context of SOLE has been presented. Finally, SOLE’s appropriateness to promote the creativity in the organizations is reflected. References Agarwal, N. & Chaudhary, N. 2013. Role of Emotional Intelligence in Ethical Decision Making a Study of Western U.P. International Journal of Management & Business Studies, 3, 28-30. Canas, J. J. & Waern, Y. 2007. Cognitive research with Microworlds. Theoretical Issues in Ergonomics Science, 6, 1-3. Christopher, E. M. 2012. 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Cognitive determinants of the success of inventors: Complex problem solving and deliberate use of divergent and convergent thinking. European Journal of Cognitive Psychology, 22, 443-462. Read More