Organizational Learning

Why Your Organization Isn't Learning All It Should by Anita Tucker, Amy Edmondson, and Steven Spear

Our analysis of qualitative data suggests that the problem-solving behavior of front-line workers may reduce an organization's ability to detect underlying causes of recurring problems and thus take corrective action.

While problems must be solved to reduce the impact on the current customer the organization must also prevent future customers from the poor result.

The data suggested that these small front-line problems collectively frustrate both the customer and the worker, and hinder the worker's ability to perform effectively, but when taken out of context and viewed individually, appear trivial. Thus, system aberrations that are often dismissed in the literature as being "simple to solve" often persist because of a cycle of inactivity.

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