Getting ahead of the competition: become a learning organization

I really enjoy watching the Harvard Business School’s youtube videos. They’re very short (that’s good for my busy schedule) but they’re generally packed with nuggets of information that get me thinking about my own business.

The video I watched today is the one titled “The Importance of Learning in Organizations.”

The point of this video, and the books and articles that it is based on, is that organizations who are able to learn from experience and observation and continually change as the result will be the leaders. They may, in fact, be the survivors.

Think about the change that the internet has brought to many businesses. At one time, information was a commodity that was valuable and relatively scarce. If I needed to know how to create a simple contract between myself and a tenant, I’d consult an attorney. His time was worth a lot of money to me since that information was not available anywhere else.

Today, I can find a dozen landlord-tenant agreements on the internet, most of them free. I can pay a very small fee and download a legal form that exactly meets my needs.

That change undoubtedly affected the business practice of most attorneys.

The accessibility of the internet has certainly changed my own business practices. Now, instead of training a small group of individuals at a time, in a classroom or conference somewhere, we’re training thousands of individuals, disbursed over time and space, all taking the same class over the internet.

Here’s a key concept from this video (which it worth the time to watch):

“The rate at which organizations and individuals learn may well become the only competitive advantage. If you’re learning more rapidly than the competition you can get ahead and stay ahead. If your rate of learning isn’t greater than the rate of change in society you’ll fall behind.”

Next week we’ll look at what you can do to facilitate this crucial learning in your organization.