What is a "Learning Organization"?

From the 1st- Learning-Org Dialog:

A "Learning Organization" is one in which people at all levels, individually and collectively, are continually increasing their capacity to produce results they really care about.

Why should organizations care? Because, the level of performance and improvement needed today requires learning, lots of learning. In most industries, in health care, and in most areas of government, there is no clear path to success, no clear path to follow.

What's in it for the people? Learning to do is enormously rewarding and personally satisfying. For those of us working in the field, the possibility of a win-win is part of the attraction. That is, the possibility of achieving extraordinary performance together with satisfaction and fulfillment for the individuals involved.

Are there any examples of Learning Organizations? Yes, but the Learning Organization is an ideal, a vision. Various organizations or parts of organizations achieve this in varying degree.

The Society for Organizational Learning (formerly the Organizational Learning Center at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT)), is a major locus of research and application. Several large corporations are attracted to this concept and are investing to support organizational learning.

The Learning-Org Dialog was an initiative by Rick Karash. The archive is located at: this LO-cation