Minds at Work: Managing for Success in the Knowledge Economy

INTRODUCTION

We began the research for this book by looking for examples of companies that said they were learning cultures, where learning was continuous and supported in every aspect of organizational life. We never found one. We found some examples of learning cultures within companies, in various departments and units, but never consistently across the whole enterprise. We eventually realized why. A company can tell the world it has a learning culture, provide lots of learning opportunities, and supply educational technology for everyone. But if management support for learning is not apparent and constantly on display by managers every day, the original culture that supported and rewarded “not learning” will hold sway over any attempt to ...