Non-Profit Organizational Learning and Team Approach Case Study

Non-Profit Org Learning

The purpose of this executive summary is to encapsulate the points and the directions that this report, in its totality, shall take and forge. As indicated by the title of this report, this treatise will focus on learning in non-profit organizations. Indeed, having a true "learning organization" is an organizational trait that any leaders of said organization should desire to have and keep. This is true of both non-profit organizations and profit-based organizations. When speaking of the former, that group can and should include both non-governmental non-profit groups as well as public agencies and government organizations such as social work outfits, social services in general and governmental administrative tasks that are to be completed for the relevant populace. The sections that will be completed throughout this report shall include a brief introduction, a literature review that includes a summary of prior work done by the author of this report as well as two new articles that are extremely relevant to the topic at hand. Next up will be the methodology of the report that is being completed. After that will be the study and the assessment itself followed by an analysis of the results gleaned. The report will conclude with recommendation and a summary of what was learned and covered. All references used will be documented at the end of this report's pages.

As it relates to the prior case study done for this class, that work is extremely relevant to the subject matter in this report. In the case of St. Martin de Porres, there was clearly a leadership problem. Actually, there were a series of problems. They were so bad that the core aim and goal of the school, which was itself learning, was not being met in a lot of cases. Students were unengaged or unwilling to learn, teachers were protecting their own turf and interests rather than doing their job and the organization itself was not learning from the consequences of its actions and its inactions. They had to be a series of steps into place so that the children of the school were actively engaged in learning. However, once the proverbial ship was righted, the administrators and teachers themselves learned things and were thus able to make the overall student experience better and better from year to year. This is something that all organizations can learn from and it is certainly not limited to explicit learning organizations like schools. Even non-schools can learn lessons from what happened at St. Martin.

Many people label organizational learning in general as a "challenge" and the scholarly sphere is no different. However, the tasks of creating a culture that centers on organizational learning is not as difficult and cumbersome as some suggest. Smith-Milway and Saxton assert that many organizations engage in the process of "reinventing the wheel" because they are not making use of the lessons learned by prior orgnaizations (Smith & Milway, 2011, pp. 44) Organizational culture visionary Peter Senge defines a learning organization as one that is "a place where people continually expand their capacity to create results they truly desire, where new and expansive patterns of thinking are nurtured, where collective aspiration is set free and where people are continually learning how to learn" (du Plessis, du Plessis & Millet, 1999, pp. 71).

Introduction

As covered fairly extensively in the executive summary, this report is specifically about how organizations can be learning organizations. Organizations can take on the learning type whether their overall mission is learning in general (like schools) or even if the main goal of the organization is something else like feeding the poor or helping abused women find shelter. As noted before, there is an extensive amount of prior successes and failures that can be learned from and applied to future situations and challenges. Rather than having to learn from scratch every time, non-profit organizations should learn the lessons that prior non-profit organizations learned the hard way and this will make the overall transition to a learning organization easier for everyone.

Literature Review

The prior learning from the Saint Martin de Porres case study was covered more extensively in the executive summary so there will be more of a focus on the two new sources in this literature review. The work of Katie Smith-Milway and Amy Saxton is informative because it speaks to the idea of using evidence-based tactics and practices to combat new situations. Rather than treating a situation as new and unknown, an organization can take the lessons learned by prior organizations and use them to deal with their own new situations and struggles. Smith-Milway and Saxton use the example of teachers and how roughly four fifths of them create brand new material from scratch. Given the amount of lesson plans and studies that are out there, surely that amount of new material is unnecessary. Despite the challenges that are obviously faced when it comes to non-profit organizations, the passion to be a learning organization and to thus grow and learn their way into one is clearly there. It is noted that the results of a survey on that very topic reveal that "non-profit leaders care deeply about capturing and sharing knowledge across their programs and fields." However, they also "identify three significant impediments to organizational learning: a lack of clear and measurable goals about using knowledge to improve performance, insufficient incentives for individuals or teams to participate in organizational learning activities and uncertain about the most effective processes for capturing and sharing learning (Smith-Milway & Saxton, 2011).

One way that Smith-Milway and Saxton insist that this can be combated is through the creation of impact through learning. They say that developing organizational knowledge into an everyday practice is essential to the overall process. The basic process that they assert is effective is to train staff, circulate meeting minutes, share the programmatic best practices across all work sites and measure impact from the programs. There should also be a discussion of the metrics with the board of directors so that decisions are informed. When this sort of thing is done, there is a paradigm of knowledge management rather than working from scratch each time a new challenge comes up. The overall knowledge base of the firm is built up and thus there is a pre-defined way in which things have been and should be done as new situations arise (Smith-Milway & Saxton, 2011).

Another major stumbling block mentioned by Smith-Milway and Saxton is the lack of defined and clear goals. In fact, roughly a third of all senior managers in non-profits commit the cardinal sin of not having defined and communicated goals that are to be met and exceeded. If no clear goals are defined and meted out to the rank and file, there is obviously less of a motivation and guidepost for people to glom onto and follow. Further, there needs to be a clear linkage between the goals and the mission or the organization. A child welfare organization in Wisconsin was giving resources and benefits to children as a means to give them new homes. They had a website that fed a massive database. Rather than just ignore what the website was telling them, they wield the data form that website and thus used it to adjust and hone their methods. Smith-Milway and Saxton offer a model near the end their article that clearly summarizes the four elements they see as necessary and indicative of a learning organization. Those facets are supportive leaders, a culture of continuous improvements, intuitive knowledge processes and a defined learning structure. When it comes to creating a knowledge-sharing process, they point to several steps including defining actors, identifying their learning needs, identifying high-value sources of knowledge, defining processes for each source, translating processes into tangible steps and aligning resources/supporting new capabilities (Smith-Milway & Saxton, 2011).

The other main source for this literature review is offered by du Plessis, du Plessis and Millett. As noted before, this source cites the work of Senge. In his offering The Fifth Discipline, he notes the important facets of an organization that takes learning seriously. These include personal mastery, mental models, shared vision, team learning and systems thinking. The three authors for this work then move onto another gold standard person or organization in the learning organization paradigm when they speak of the McKinsey 7-S framework. This framework defines a number of elements and how they differ between a traditional organization and a learning one. For example, a traditional organization would have shared values like efficiency and effectiveness while a learning organization would be focused on excellence and organizational renewal. The management style of a tradition organization would be control while a learning organization would be more focused on the facilitation and coaching approach. The last one the author of this report will mention would be the overall strategy and action plan. A traditional organization would have a top-down approach and road map while a learning organization would have a model where everyone is consulted and…