The E-Learner

Issue No. 27

May 2002

Published by

All rights reserved.

Welcome to the twenty-seventh edition of The E-Learner, ECLO's electronic newsletter for members.

As always, we welcome contributions from members, as it is impossible to keep on top of the wealth of information on the World Wide Web on topics of interest to you all.

For your ongoing reference The E-Learner will be archived in the members' zone of our web site.

Editor: Brian Taylor

Editorial

In preparation for the Amsterdam Conference, ECLO Members and Delegates are requested to ‘reflect’ on this issue’s article on The Jazz Band – A Metaphor for Learning Organisations, which may ‘pop up’, during the proceedings! We have ‘Out of Box’ Thinking from Justin Jones, an article on The Problem with Pop Psychology in the Workplace, a Google Search tool for Knowledge Creation, a Chinese fable on How you can make an Ass of Yourself, plus a ‘Call for Papers’, from Russia with Love and finally a big ECLO Welcome to New Member,

Dr Isobel Martins and Good Luck to old friend Ole Hinz. All for your information and pleasure. Hope to see you all in Amsterdam.

ECLO Amsterdam Conference and AGM - May 16-18, 2002.

Our annual conference is like every year an opportunity to hold our Annual General Meeting.

This year again we will perpetuate the tradition. Those of you who are not able to attend the conference or the meeting will receive an e-mail this week which we would ask you to pay particular attention to. It is three years since the Members of the Board were elected and, as per our constitution, we need to elect a new board. Detailed information and agenda to follow.

To view the updated Programme of the conference CLICK HERE

‘The Jazz band’

Strategy Creativity Innovation

A Metaphor for the Learning Organisation

(Courtesy of Human Dynamics, UK)

A Jazz band is a loose association of individuals that need no sheet music, since they share a common love for the music, achieved by careful selection of musicians, based on ability and empathy within and on the edge of the band’s style.  There is scope for musicians to blow their own trumpets some cases, individual members dislike one another, yet this is subsumed to the greater ‘task’ of the music itself.   For example, the guitarist is simultaneously gregarious yet aloof, whilst the bass player is often the one to arrange social events.  The drummer is always late for rehearsals, as he may not require a lift from the piano player (…say).

Competitiveness manifests itself, in so far as individual soloists attempt to outdo each other with the aim of moving the general level of performance upwards.  Although each person could probably play a very impressive piece on their own, the results that the band achieve somehow add up to more than the individual players could achieve on their own.  The band also has to compete with other bands for gigs and one of the members with a flair for marketing does this voluntarily, using any tricks to make them more visible than other jazz bands.

The band occasionally gets asked to play requests.  These are done in a dutiful way but often fail to reach the heights of performance achieved when they are in free flow.  They claim to be unaware of anything around them including the audience when they are in this state.

The jazz band metaphor contains the following aspects of creative organisation design:

• The ability to learn continuously and adapt to change through the use of signposts which are understood by the whole organisation.

• Using unconscious processes to guide the direction of the organisation - i.e. both logic and intuition.

• The emergence of a collective consciousness that informs the organisation about its environment and performance.

• The notion that creativity needs to be ‘crept up on.’  It is impossible to force, but technique helps.

• Personality differences made irrelevant by a consuming mania with a shared purpose.

• The idea that the strategy arises from synthesis of the collective capability and that the strategy emerges rather than it being thoroughly planned.

One organisation represented their current level of creativity in the following terms:

What type of music does your organisation play ?

Available in electronic form, with full copyright permissions and PowerPoint visuals, to be used as the basis of a presentation, are:

or simply e-mail for further details. webmaster@humandynamics.demon.co.uk

More Food For Thought

Psychology in the Workplace

More and more writers are publishing books on psychology for the general public. These books help authors and psychologists get their theories and ideas out to a broad public, hence the term "pop(ular) psychology".

Sounds nonsensical? Before you apply what you have learned from pop psychology books to your workplace make sure you read the rest of this article.

Knowledge Creation

Knowledge Creation