Introduction to a
e-Learning Culture
by Marcia L. Conner

You must be the change you see in the world. —Mahatma Gandhi

And finally, let's dig deeper to find what makes for a culture: A culture is the sum of the distinctive behaviors, intentions, and values that people develop over time to make sense of the world. It includes the shared history, expectations, written and unwritten rules, values, relationships, and customs that affect everyone’s performance. (Schein)

In practical terms: You can get a sense of an organization’s culture by looking at its physical artifacts: the buildings, the furniture, the manuals, the décor, the cars, the tools; intangible activities, policies, rituals, procedures, and networks of relationships: company parties, celebrations, bonus calculation methods, communication patterns, and methods for booking airline flights; and the values, assumptions, beliefs, and expectations that underlie the other two.

Culture can even be defined as the sum of solutions to yesterday’s problems. It may seem like an odd definition, but think about it: A tribe, a family, or an organization encounters a problem (earthquake, divorce, missed interest payments, for example). And the lessons that people learn from those problems (accurately or otherwise) and the way they solve them (obey the gods, stay away from the opposite sex, manage your expenses to the penny) become the cultural underpinnings of the next generation. (Schein)

If we consider that an any organization culture is a pattern of shared basic assumptions that groups learn as they solve problems to adapt what's going on around them and integrate what they are facing internally, that which has worked well enough to be considered valid and, therefore, worthy of teaching to new members of the group as the correct way you perceive, think, and feel in relation to those problems, then you must examine what it is that the people around you are learning by watching what you do, how you adapt and integrate, how you behave and learn new things.

To learn as individuals and to foster a learning culture in our organizations, most of us end up looking outside our organizations for knowledge and information. We take courses and attend conferences, where we meet people and share our ideas and experiences. Afterward, however, we may find that the valuable learning that has taken place outside does not change anything inside the organization. The problem is that we have not mastered the organizational skills and practices that would allow us to take advantage of external learning opportunities and trust the learning opportunities directly in our path.

Organizational culture appears on different levels. At level one, there are the culture’s physical artifacts: the buildings, the furniture, the manuals, the décor, the cars, the stone handtools. Physical artifacts can be very powerful. One company, for example, that was considering making a change from a top-down hierarchical organization toward a flatter, more egalitarian culture, had to deal with a strong artifact of its old culture: a headquarters building in the shape of a pyramid, with the CEO’s office at the peak. You can imagine how difficult it would be to change the hierarchical nature of that organization’s culture.

At level two are the intangible policies, rituals, procedures, and networks of relationships. Company parties, celebrations, bonus calculation methods, communication patterns, and methods for booking airline flights are all examples of these very real components of culture. And at level three are the values, assumptions, beliefs, and expectations that underlie levels one and two. “The boss knows best,” “The only thing that counts is the bottom line,” “It is okay to change a decision after you leave a meeting,” “Meetings are only formalities for agreeing with management,” and a host of other premises constitute this deeper foundation of an organization’s culture. Sometimes these level three assumptions are clear, but often they are not—and many organizational members may be acting on them without realizing they are doing so.

One of the challenges of defining an organizational culture is to infer this third level, the underlying values and operating principles, which Chris Argyris calls the organization’s “theories in use.” If leaders within an organization publicly espouse one thing and model another, their actions speak louder than their words. Such leaders create confusion and sap the organization’s energy. Leaders who close the gap between their talk and their behavior tend to create cultures that are more powerful because employees do not have to spend their time negotiating the distance between what is said and what is done.

When Jack Welch was leading General Electric, he often stated his belief that people should face reality “as it is,” not as it was or as they wish it were. This value became evident in his management culture: he demanded the facts and pushed employees to know them as well. Welch’s espoused theory in this instance matched his theory in use. Many managers champion a theory of truthfulness and then neglect to model it for employees. In such a culture, leaders may want to make changes but do not have the influence they think they do. This is especially true in the case of learning in a culture. If the executives in an organization do not have strong personal values for learning, it is unlikely that those around them will either—regardless of the official rhetoric.

Yet many leaders seem to believe that if they declare that the company must become a learning organization, it will. In fact, leaders do not directly influence organizational outcomes. Rather, they make decisions that shape the culture of the people working in the organization, who in turn influence outcomes. An organization’s culture stands between the leader’s intentions and the organization’s results (see Figure above). The challenge then is to design structures and systems that encourage the desired culture and then to monitor the impact of those structures and systems on the culture to make sure that in reality they do.

The implication of this indirect influence of leaders on organizational outcomes is that they must concentrate less on trying to achieve specific business results and more on creating a self-sustaining culture that produces more energy than it consumes. The beautiful byproduct of an organization whose entire culture focuses on learning is that it inspires ordinary people to learn how to prosper in an increasingly turbulent world. Learning cultures also offer a source of sustainable competitive advantage: they bring superior value from the customer’s point of view, they are difficult for competitors to imitate, and they have built-in flexibility.

Learning helps organizations get better at getting better—and that makes them more competitive and more likely to survive and thrive in the long run. That is because learning cultures are constantly discovering new ways to satisfy customers’ needs, new ways to develop products and services, and new ways to deliver those products and services. This learning culture exists because the leader learned and changed, and in modeling and managing those changes, he created a learning culture.

Technology has the ability to augment what active learners can learn. It can help each of us gather information and generate new insights. In a vibrant learning culture, in which people are responsible for their own learning and for helping one another learn, well-planned and well-delivered technology enhances everyone’s experience. But technology can enhance a learning culture only if it helps answer such challenging questions as “How can we share critical performance-related information in a more interactive way in our organization?” “How can we make sure that customers’ data are up-to-date and available?” “How can we best learn from one another’s successes and mistakes?” “How can we extend our reach?” In organizations where people hoard knowledge and resist new ideas, where leaders say things about learning that sound good and then relegate learning to the human resources or training department, technology only increases costs and drains resources. In this kind of culture or in a vibrant learning culture, technology accelerates what is already there. Let us repeat that: the incongruent injection of learning technology into a non-learning culture only confounds the organization; it does not save it. Technology is not the panacea for an organizational culture led by nonlearners.

In organizations where people horde knowledge and resist new ideas, where leaders say things about learning that sound good and then relegate educating to a human resources or training department, technology only increases costs and drains resources. Technology accelerates what’s already there.  

© 1993-2006, Marcia Conner.

----------------------------------------------

If you are interested in referencing this page in a report or an article, the citation should read:

Conner, M. L. "Introduction to e-Learning Culture." Ageless Learner, 1997-2006.
http://agelesslearner.com/intros/elc.html

----------

Marcia Conner is an organizational coach helping leaders at all levels find creative solutions to learning dilemmas. She is also managing director of Ageless Learner, a global advisory practice that helps corporations, communities, nonprofits, families, and individuals learn and adapt to new information, processes, and technologies. She is a fellow of the Batten Institute at the Darden School at the University of Virginia. She was vice president of education and information futurist for PeopleSoft, senior manager of Worldwide Training at Microsoft, and co-founder of Learning in the New Economy magazine. She authored Learn More Now (Wiley, 2004), and Creating a Learning Culture (Cambridge, 2004), and is a contributing writer for Fast Company magazine’s learning resource center.