The E-Learner

Issue No. 6

1st April 2000

Published by

© European Consortium for the Learning Organisation.

All rights reserved.

Welcome to the 6th edition of The E-Learner, ECLO's electronic newsletter for members.

The E-Learner complements our existing hardcopy newsletter that will continue to carry articles and information of interest to ECLO 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: Mike Kelleher

Editorial

As we improve our understanding of learning organisation issues, new ideas and concepts emerge that challenge our thoughts and open new avenues of inquiry. Chaos and complexity theories have been around for some time, but only in recent years have organisational scientists begun the exciting process of seeing how they can be applied to organisations. From these theories, and others influenced from the natural sciences, we can take new ideas that help us consider new ways of living, working and learning together. In this edition of the E-Learner, I would like to draw your attention to the thoughts of Dee Hock, founding President of VISA whose beliefs in establishing that organisation are consistent with chaos and complexity theories. Interestingly, it is only after he retired that he found the relations between the theories and his practice. Since then, he has established the chaordic Alliance designed to promote inquiry into how those theories can support new types of organisation.

Perhaps in this field we will find the future for learning organisations and I am sure sessions of our conference in may will draw upon this material to illustrate new ideas.

ECLO2000

We recommend that you book your accommodation in Munich as soon as you can. The hotels nearest to the venue have rooms but they are limited in numbers.

ECLO wishes to thank our members who have sponsored the conference this year: IHK, Allianz, Kenniscentrum Cibit and Deutsche Telekom.

Annual General Meeting 2000

The meeting will begin at 19:00 on Tuesday 16th May in the IHK building in Munich. We will be circulating an invitation and agenda within the next 2 weeks.

We look forward to seeing you there.

Is staff development entitlement?

Well, you might think the answer is obvious. Lifelong learning, Continuous Professional Development, and individual learning accounts are all the rage in the UK. This article explores the results from a recent TrainingZone survey into attitudes towards staff entitlements to training, and compares these with actual policy and practice on the ground. The results are somewhat depressing: for the vast majority of staff, access to training and development is still very muc receive mentoring support, exchange ideas, etc.

The Chaordic Alliance was founded by Dee Hock and supports the promotion and research into complexity and chaos theories as applied to organisations. The Birth of the Chaordic Age (1999) published by Berrett-Koehler is an excellent account of Dee’s attempts to create a new type of organisation in VISA.

The Brint web site covers a great deal of material of interest to ECLO members. The papers available on complexity and chaos are of particular interest.

 

Thought of the month

"It is not the critic who counts, not the man that points out how the strong man stumbled, or where the doer of deeds could have done them better. The credit belongs to the man who is actually in the arena, whose face is marred by dust
and sweat and blood, who strives valiantly, who errs and comes short again and again; who knows the great enthusiasms, the great devotions, and spends himself in a worthy cause, who at best, knows in the end the triumph of high achievement; and who, at the worst, at least fails while daring greatly, so that his place shall never be with those cold and timid souls who know neither victory nor defeat." (Theodore Roosevelt)

Source: http://www.oraclehumor.com/

The E-Learner is published by the

European Consortium for the Learning Organisation

Venelle des Lauriers 8, Wavre, B-1300 Belgium

Tel/Fax: + 32 10 24 1600

http://www.eclo.org.

ECLO is grateful for the support of Sift for permission to publish

articles from the LearningWire.