Ever since the introduction of the term Learning Organization back in the 1990s the concept has been the ‘holy grail’ for many organizations. In some business plans I reviewed recently, the organizations producing them had an explicit aim of becoming a learning organization. As it has turned out that the concept of the learning organization [...]

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An interesting piece about Boeing’s Workplace Innovation Lab in Management Innovation Exchange. Boeing started a 90 day program that connected Gen Y employees to their managers for business innovation. The aim was to accelerate business priorities, leverage personal networks, facilitate conversations, and spread the use of new technologies. The idea of ‘reverse mentoring’ is something [...]

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Business Week published a nice article on how the Indian Tata Group builds a culture of innovation. The word ‘culture’ may suggest that innovation is hard to grasp. Not true in the Tata case. They have implemented very practical formal instruments to foster innovation in the organization. These instruments range from the Tata Group Innovation [...]

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Ever since the work of Peter Senge (1990) the concept of the Learning Organization remains the Holy Grail of management in contemporary business. This is merely due to the ever increasing pressure to keep reinventing products & services, business models and operational processes. Critique of Senge’s work was that it was too abstract to implement in organizations with rather vague [...]

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Last week I read an interesting article by Mirjam van Praag about training as development aid for entrepreneurs in Developing Countries. She describes an approach that combines microfinance for these entrepreneurs with training in business administration. This is not only lifting the success rate of the entrepreneurs, but it also reduces the risks for financials [...]

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