Organizational Learning: Improving Learning, Teaching, and Leading in School Systems

Citation

Brooks, J.S. (2008), "Organizational Learning: Improving Learning, Teaching, and Leading in School Systems", Journal of Educational Administration, Vol. 46 No. 1, pp. 120-123. https://doi.org/10.1108/09578230810849853

In Michael Fullan's Foreword to Vivienne Collinson and Tanya Fedoruk Cook's Organizational Learning: Improving Learning, Teaching, and Leading in School Systems, he notes the need for a book that “enables us not only to understand organizational learning, but also produce more of it”. Collinson and Fedoruk Cook (2007) attend to this gap in the literature by explaining and exploring the phenomenon in a way that urges leaders to reflect on their assumptions about organizations and their role as a change agent within them. In doing so, the authors present key findings gleaned from a review of research that provides evidence to support their contention that while conceptually complex, educational administrators with an understanding of how to lead in a manner that facilitates organizational learning can help create vibrant educational environments that attend to the needs of all stakeholders.

The book includes a preface that introduces key concepts, and 13 chapters organized into four parts. Chapters engage the reader in a constructive manner, by posing questions rather than making assertions. Some of these questions are rhetorical, meant to frame a particular issue or offer a new way to think about a familiar topic. Other questions are open‐ended prompts meant to urge the reader to reflect of their experience and consider how they might change and improve their leadership practice if they were to put leadership for organizational learning into practice. Chapters end with several questions that collectively constitute a “reflective journal”. This feature will be of particular interest to instructors and in‐service leadership trainers, but can be used just as effectively by individual in‐field practitioners who would like to expand their knowledge and improve their practice. While Organizational Learning: Improving Learning, Teaching, and Leading in School Systems focuses primarily on the USA and Canada, the book will have a broader appeal for an international audience as it offers a fine synthesis of concepts and makes concrete suggestions that have utility in many educational contexts.

In three interrelated chapters, Part I of the book explores the question: what is organizational learning? Chapter 1 considers some educational implications of shifting from an industrial society to a knowledge society. Collinson and Cook note that such a shift necessitates a reorientation of both pedagogical orientation and a need to understand schools as knowledge institutions embedded with several external social and educational systems at once. Moreover, due to an increase in the flow of data and communication through these systems, they are all in a constant state of entropy. Educational leaders seeking to facilitate educational improvement in such systems must be in a state of perpetual action‐oriented reflective practice. They must deliberately learn and grow with – and for – the organization. Chapter 2 reviews some classic organizational perspectives on organizational leadership, emphasizing the work of Argyris and Schön, and concepts such as single and double‐loop learning and organizational adaptation. Chapter 3 presents and then questions core assumptions of organizational learning. The authors suggest that the way schools are organized, at least in the USA and Canada, assumes a hierarchical, top‐down and educator‐centered approach to learning that may prevent substantive change rather than promote it. In opposition to this perspective, the authors integrate the notions of organizational learning with sensemaking, a useful and little‐understood theoretical perspective that is nonetheless extremely effective in highlighting how individuals and sub‐groups conceptualize and interpret their work.

Part II poses the question: why is organizational learning important for schools and school systems? The two chapters that explore this question focus on the concepts of continuous learning and renewal. In Chapter 4, the authors urge leaders to ensure a cycle of continuous learning by focusing the work of the organization on: organizational learning rather than individual learning; and institutional learning rather than insights.

In many schools, these shifts will demand a revision of educational and organizational processes in schools. To highlight how routines and assumptions might need to change, the authors offer a series of brief examples that are illustrative rather than comprehensive. Importantly, these examples can serve as both reflective and discussion prompts. They do not relate pie‐in‐the‐sky success stories or dismal failures. By design, the scenarios lack detail, an effective strategy that prompts the reader to engage the material and construct meaning from incomplete texts.

When discussing renewal in Chapter 5, the authors explain that “without organizational learning, innovation and error detection/correction are likely to remain haphazard in school systems, leaving them less able to self‐renew and transform themselves from within or to meet challenges from without” (p. 53). They note that high teacher and administrator transience and attrition rates in many school systems demands the development of sustainable institutional processes and knowledge transfer rather than a dependence on individual talent and skill. Of particular interest is an interesting discussion of deutero learning, or learning to learn, a useful concept for explaining how organizations that learn establish and sustain synergy between their capacity to identify and then solve problems in an ever‐changing internal and external policy environment.

Part III is built around the question: how do schools and school systems foster organizational learning? This section of the book includes six chapters. The first of these focuses on prioritizing learning, a concept the authors situate in a discussion of some basic applications of organizational change theories. Collinson and Cook stress the importance of changing a school's vocabulary with respect to the work of the organization so that individual members and the organization as a whole are able to articulate their knowledge and perceptions to other members. Chapter 7 is devoted to fostering inquiry, and go further than simply suggesting that establishing authentic inquiry processes is necessary to facilitate change. Collinson and Cook argue that for a school to truly conduct high‐quality and substantive inquiry as part of their organizational ethos they must embrace a critical perspective on their individual and collective work. This perspective includes valuing both direct and indirect forms of inquiry that are communicated in a manner that enables and empowers educators to improve their practice. Chapter 8 expands on this last theme, addressing the way organizations can disseminate learning in a non‐threatening and immediately accessible manner. The authors note that traditionally, administrators and teachers do not adequately reflect on communication strategies and that by fostering meaningful dialogue and providing time for educators to communicate is important. In Chapter 9 Collinson and Cook discuss how organizational learning benefits from the practice of democratic principles. They explore tensions that commonly surface when schools organized as hierarchical bureaucracies attempt to institute democratic principles. While activities and reflective prompts are included at the end of each chapter, the two activities at the end of Chapter 9 are particularly useful for schools (re)considering their approach to shared decision‐making. Such discussions are the center of Chapter 10, which focuses on facilitating human relationships. In this chapter, the authors stress the importance of trust, dialogue, and productive and respectful argumentation as organizational norms. Part III concludes with Chapter 11, which raises the issue of self‐fulfillment, and how individual and organizational values and aims can be shared without developing a groupthink mentality. The authors explain that understanding and meeting members' expectations, and nurturing their commitment and connections to each other and the organization can promote a healthy are rewarding work environment.

The book concludes with Part IV: Looking back, looking ahead. In two short chapters, Collinson and Cook review themes they have raised throughout the book and discuss how to establish meaningful reward systems, and how leaders can promote and practice attitudes and values consistent with organizational learning principles. Chapter 11 is a brief coda directed primarily toward researchers. The chapter identifies several under‐explored research questions. While not specifically presented as such, this list may be useful for advanced graduate students considering conducting a capstone project focused on organizational learning.

Considered as a whole, Vivienne Collinson and Tanya Fedoruk Cook's Organizational Learning: Improving Learning, Teaching, and Leading in School Systems effectively bridges theory and practice by weaving excellent reflective prompts and activities throughout a fine review of major concepts in the extant literature. The authors' commitment to making these abstract concepts accessible and of immediate use to practicing school leaders distinguishes their work from other books devoted to organizational learning.