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A Concise Guide to the Learning Organization
MIKE PEDLER and KATH ASPINWALL. London: Lemos & Crane, 1998. 163 pp. 12.99 (pbk). ISBN 1-898001-43-X
It is a pretty book to look at when it is lying there on your table dressed in a yelloworange-red colour. It brings up associations of fire. And living in the era of the David Lynch movies we, naturally, all know what fire symbolizes. However, the iceblue 3D letters on the cover help cool the reader down again-fast. This symbolic and contradictory aesthetics of the cover reflects-probably unintentionally-the content of the book. Thus, the title is very promising, A Concise Guide to the Learning Organization (emphasis added), but the book is anything but a `concise' guide to the learning organization. But of course fire isn't sex, it is only a symbolic picture of it.
The book has been published as part of the `Mike Pedler Library', which comprises books `concerned with learning and action' (p. ix). It is argued that it is not enough to talk about the learning organization, it is also necessary to work from the concept of the `Learning Society', which is the `collaborative ideal' upon which the books in the `library' rest. The books contain three different elements, namely texts or `ideas' related to the concrete subject of the book, small illustrative excerpts from case studies, and `activities'. The latter consist of questions and quizzes to be answered to provide the reader with a practical guide to determine, for example, the `Organizational Readiness to Learn' in `your' organization. And I quote: `Like people, organizations vary in their openness or readiness to learn. Some are more closed and wary, others eager to acquire new knowledge and welcome novel perspectives. How open and ready for learning is your organization?' (p. 144). I shall return to the problem of equating people and organizations without due precautions, but first I wish to introduce the content of the book.
There are six chapters, plus the introduction. The latter argues why the learning organization is the way to survive in times of rapid economic changes. Thus, the learning organization `offers a vision of an organization that is able to flex, adapt and be responsive to change' (p. 1). The introduction also presents the authors'...