"Leaders, lifelong learners, learning organisations, learning cultures ... the rhetoric is deafening. In practice this means more 'courses'." Donald Clark Most investments in organisational learning (courses and programmes) are performative theatre. To enable genuine, sustainable, performance change, shift focus towards: Creating and incentivising social structures that accelerate collaborative problem solving Defining the new capabilities now needed for the organisation to become 'future fit' Deliberately adjusting goals, incentives, rewards, structures, rules, processes and information flows (AKA 'the system') to enable the new capabilities to emerge and establish Facilitating new connections and team working Prioritising creation of more capacity for questions and reflection Challenging and supporting leaders (raised on process compliance and contracting out responsibility for peoples' development) to redefine 'learning' beyond (just) at

"The recipe for workplace despair is having high expectations for performance in a system that erodes well-being and extracts the energy needed to "perform". Zach Mercurio Here a some ingrained organisational culture norms that are mostly invisible to leaders and prevent 'cultures of learning': 1. Worshipping individual performance (= individualising systemic problems) 2. "Performance" (really) equates to 'level of compliance and acceptance' (working with the system) 3. Hiring and organising for 'cultural fit' (reinforcement) 4. Absence of inquiry (status roles limit questions and challenge) 5. 'High potentials' ethos (special treatment for the special people) 6. Work and learning viewed as separate entities ('work' means 'delivery', 'learning' means 'training') 7. Processes organised to maintain separation between the 'thinkers' and the 'doers' (status roles).

"Your worldview determines what problems you believe are important to solve, which, in turn, points you towards certain principles and away from others. Principles get operationalised in processes which shape everyday practices (behaviours), and ultimately determine performance." Gary Hamel It's the underpinning assumptions and beliefs of the leaders (their 'worldview') that inform business models and operating models (" The business / organisation we will be! ..."). Common assumptions and beliefs that determine priorities for industrial leaders often include: 1. ' My previous experience equips me to accurately predict the future .' 2. Success comes from directing and pace setting 3. Desired results can be achieved through process management  4. High performance means high compliance 5. Change needs to be 'driven through' an organisation 6. 'Learning' (only) = 'being trained'. So organisational cultures are outcomes (thin

"All these executives going around talking about the need for innovation and increasing agility while pushing an out-of-date command-and-control structure focusing on efficiency aren't going to get agility of innovation." Charles Lambdin OLD industrial era value-creating organisational capabilities: 1. Control 2. Standardisation 3. Incremental improvement 4. Compliance 5. Consistency NEW digital era value-creating organisation capabilities: 1. Receptiveness to continuous change (market, customer, employee contexts) 2. Connectivity across teams 3. Access to exemplary performers (internal and external) 4. Agency and autonomy 5. Inquiry and reflection