Words Alan Sugar is scared of...

‘Learning’ for one…

Well that’s where this blog started…However, I also wanted to respond to a recent comment (22 June) about the Simon Caulkin podcast (the SICO tapes) suggesting that private equity ‘was financial engineering for the future’. Yes, but whose future? See also Simon Caulkin’s ‘Why humans snap at the heels of private equity from Observer 17 June 2007

So I want to link private equity and learning ie ‘heterogeneous ideas yoked by violence together..’ (now who said that –and who would he be writing for today?)

First, learning: what is it? Individual learning is commonly defined as a ‘change in behaviour over time, due to experience…’ However, for most people at work what more forcibly applies (or should) is ‘organisational learning’, broadly defined as ‘an organisation that facilitates the learning of all its members and continuously transforms itself…’ Definitions are fine but it’s like reaching the front door of a club –you still have to traverse various barriers to get in. They don’t tell us how.

So here’s the point: learndontlearn claims that for all the riches accumulated by private equity this is peanuts compared with the great untapped resource of organisational, that is, collective learning. (the sort of claim that elevates blogs from simple digital narcissism to something more useful…) By organisational learning we mean minds@work -if anyone will listen. And organisations can show they want to listen louder by creating the conditions for commitment.

Over the summer ldl will give, and seek, examples of organisational learning as evidence for the above claim. Remember that org learning already has a head start on private equity as it’s free; but it is also highly discretionary, (eg ‘I work here in spite of the firm’) which is why most organisations neither invest in nor reap its dividends. The big ones are more confident with learning though: IBM’s ‘innovation index’ attempts to directly link organisational climate to revenue growth.

And just in case you though private equity and learning might not be serial divorcees, have a look at Gordon Brown’s new ‘Business Council for Britain’, to inform his Dept of Innovation, Universities and Skills (DIUS) or a new Department for Business, Enterprise and Regulatory Reform (DBERR). Who’s there: among others, Alan Sugar, (entrepreneur, anti-ageing cream and property), Terry Leahy (Tescopoly) and Damon Buffina (Permira private equity –fatten companies, with the sole purpose of ‘exiting’ in 5 years, with a wallet so fat it’s got financial cholesterol).

Anyone from a college, even an ‘excellent’ one – you guessed it. Rare as an Arsenal supporter in Barcelona.

So: let us have your examples of organisation learning to get us going.