publishing partnership with the society for organizational learning
Triarchy Press is happy to announce a publishing partnership with the UK branch of the Society for Organizational Learning (SOL-UK).
This establishes a home for informal and formal e-publication of SOL-UK's work-in-progress, articles on organizational learning and the outcomes of its research projects. Over the next two years, Triarchy and SOL-UK also plan to publish books arising out their joint e- publishing activity.
How the partnership will work
Step 1: in the Triarchy/SOL-UK partnership is the provision of a dedicated SOL-UK discussion area. This has now been set up on the Triarchy Press Forum. We invite SOL-UK members - and also any other interested visitors - to join in conversations about SOL-UK's latest research drive on the decision-making process in organizations. Instructions on how to join the conversation can be found on the Forum page.
Step 2: is to publish short articles by key speakers from the June workshop (see below). These will appear over the next few weeks.
Step 3: is to publish the completed results of the research projects arising from this work-in-progress in book form.
SOL-UK research project
Arie de Geus: "In my mind organizational learning is about taking decisions, which is the expression of a process that can only ever be completed by an action. Decision-taking is a frequently misused concept that we never stop to define. This is where further research is necessary. I am increasingly intrigued by the role of language and emotions in learning, and so in the subsequent decisions. At the moment of idea crystallisation, language-invention occurs, either through the creation of new words, or through imbuing pre-existing terms with a revitalised, shared meaning. These shared meanings allow the group to act together".
On 23rd June 2006, an interdisciplinary group made up of academics, practitioners and consultants met at the LSE to begin a conversation out of which one or more research projects will grow. "Leadership, management and governance are not in good shape - part of the reason is lack of understanding of the dynamics of the decision-making process. There have, of course, been many studies on group dynamics, on organizational learning, on decision-making etc., but what we propose is a multi-disciplinary approach that will involve not only sociologists and psychologists but also neuroscientists, philosophers and others, and will include the study of some aspects that have not been previously explored."
SOL-UK background
The Society for Organization Learning (SOL) is a global learning community dedicated to building, diffusing and applying knowledge and understanding about fundamental institutional change through distributed governance and dispersed power and function.
SOL-UK aims to nurture the individual and collective capacities of organizations to generate change within an environment that is open, inclusive, flexible and innovative. It is part of SOL's global network of organizational learning and is based in London but welcomes members from throughout the UK.
Its members (individual and corporate) participate through a series of essentially self-organizing events and workshops whose purpose is to discover, integrate and implement theories and practices for the interdependent development of people, their networks and their institutions.
The three constituencies of SOL-UK are practitioners, consultants and researchers. Together, the people who work in these different but associated areas share their respective expertise and knowledge in order to find innovative and creative ways to work in organizations, and develop strategies that refocus organizations towards learning as a route to success - through diversity, cultural change and partnered leadership. The research that is generated by SOL-UK groups is intended to benefit as a whole. As such SOL-UK provides a rich network with other learning organizations including access to the SOL global community by sharing the research generated locally with a wider global community.
The president of SOL-UK is Arie de Geus. Arie joined Royal Dutch/Shell in 1951 and remained with the company for 38 years. He worked in Turkey, Belgium, and Brazil before returning to the United Kingdom in 1979. Arie assumed regional responsibility for Shell's businesses in Africa and South Asia and then, in 1981, became coordinator for Group Planning. During his last 10 years at Shell, Arie became increasingly interested in the nature of large corporations, their decision-making processes, and the management of change and he is widely credited with originating the concept of the learning organization.
Since his retirement from Shell in 1989, Arie has headed an advisory group to the World Bank and consults with government and private institutions. He is a visiting fellow at London Business School, a board member of the Organizational Learning Center at the Sloane School of Management, Massachusetts Institute of Technology, and the Nijenrode Learning Centre in the Netherlands. Arie is also the author of the award-winning bestseller, The Living Company (1997).
Joining SOL-UK
If you are interested in joining SOL-UK or would like to know more about its programme of events, please e-mail .