How Does Ibm Transform Individual Learning Into Organizational Learning?

IBM transforms organizational learning into organizational learning by realizing that in order to promote organizational learning; you have to first achieve individual learning and collectible knowledge. I will show how they accomplish that. IBM knows that individuals need constant training in their jobs and they ensure that each individual are given every opportunity to excel through training. Training is extremely effective and important for learning “how to do your job”, and everyone should definitely “know how to do their jobs. In order to for IBM or any organization to “stay on top”, individual and collective knowledge needs to evolve constantly whether through innovation, creation of individuals or groups within or throughout the organization. IBM does an outstanding job of maintaining individual and collective knowledge of their workers by ensuring that their employees are properly trained. They accomplish that by spending about $750 million dollars annually for learning initiatives. IBM believes that learning enhances productivity, enables development of employee potential and empowers employees and teams to innovate which in turn transforms into organizational learning. It is basically “Train the Trainer”. One worker attends a class, comes back into the office and trains the rest of the team; they share their knowledge and help each other out; team concept. Individual learning is a continuous process which transforms to business values, which directly enables IBM’s business to win and grow in the competitive market place. Knowledge is power. More knowledge means that individuals and their organizations remain on top. Individual learning, achieved by formal training either online, through online learning activities, in a traditional classroom or from each other through train the trainer concept which I explained in an earlier paragraph. All of these initiatives are introduced and offered to all IBM employees. 47 percent of the learning initiatives are conducted through online services anytime, anywhere. At an early stage, IBM realized that through their learning initiatives, they were able to retain their employees, which in turn enabled them to retain their work force for at least three years. That is how organizational learning is achieved. You do not want to train your workers once and leave it at that. You want to continue developing you workers and then allow them to train each other. You are doing what makes them happy and they stay and maintain that knowledge within your organization. Team building and motivation is also a big factor. Managers need to constantly evaluate their workers. By evaluating your workers, you will know who the weak links are and find a way to motivate them. Managers have to keep their team intact. All the money spent on individual training will benefit the organization. IBM has recognized that and continues to train their workers. They value their workers, gives them meaningful learning tools and development opportunities. Those initiatives cause motivation and allow IBM to retaining their workers. A personal example of transforming individual learning to organizational learning is The United States Army. The U.S. Army is successful because of that. I am a 23 year veteran. I am still active because of all the initiatives provided to me by the U.S. Army. I have skills that will allow me to compete in the civilian sector next year when I retire after serving 24 years. I took every opportunity offered to me and used it in my office and to help my team. All the individual learning skills I learned, I trained my team and our organization was better. The team did that as a whole. In the reading assignment, in my opinion that is what IBM did and continues to do. Another initiative IBM has in place to transform individual learning to organizational learning is the introduction of their New Managers Program, Basic Blue. This program helped and developed 30,000 managers, leaders and executives in 70 countries to acquire additional leadership expertise lead remote mobile teams and create an environment that encourages continual innovation and creativity. In my opinion, IBM promotes the Y-theory management. The Y-theory produces better performance and results and allows people to grow and develop. The Y-theory is liberating and developmental. Control, achievement and continuous improvement achieved by enabling, empowering and giving responsibility. That is what IBM embodies and turns individual learning to organizational learning. The training and initiatives offered to the IBM workers creates a strong team. With new technology popping up every day it is imperative that workers are trained individually and collectively in order to mold them into a team for an organization. It is a win-win situation for the individual and the organization. IBM constantly find ways to motivate and educate their employees from individual learning to organizational learning by developing core and job specific competencies and skills, meaning that individuals will be given the tools that they need and require to excel at their jobs. IBM believes that in order for individuals to excel, they have to work and think outside the normal perimeters of their individual jobs. They have to excel in other areas such as sales, management, leadership and employee development also know as soft skills, IT training and training to support business partnership, which all boils down to organizational training. IBM has been successful in training individual training to organizational training by recognizing that individuals need constant training to stay ahead of the competition. Again, the way to accomplish that is through training, whether it is face to face, video teleconference, fax or email. As employees grow and take opportunities to excel and advance to the next level, they motivate, engage and their coworkers to build as a team and form a tight knit organization. IBM developed and employed a blended learning approach, based on in part on the principal that employees learn indifferent ways. They developed a wed-based initiative, collaborative and face to face learning which utilizes the best medium for the level of learning required. This system creates a structure that orchestrates movement from one learning experience to the next so that each approach reinforces and builds upon the last. IBM has established numerous learning initiatives including an education department established in 1915 to train and develop employees, an education program developed in 1916, to instruct employees on the use of the company’s product line, a formal customer education program in 1918, an IBM Management Development Program in 1921, a customer training program in 1929 and an IBM Customer Education Program in 1936.
In conclusion, IBM knows and understands that learning is an investment for their future, their employee’s future, suppliers, IBM Business Partners and clients. IBM recognizes that learning is an indispensable tool that supports new initiatives, re-skills the workforce which in turn promotes organizational learning that allows IBM to win and grow in the competitive marketplace. IBM’s on-going commitment fro employee learning has enabled IBM to maintain the highest learning standards in the business world and that enable longevity and retaining of their employees.

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