Systems need to be built to capture, store, categorise and disseminate information and knowledge. The systems also need to detect anomalies. With that the organisation needs to ensure availability of systems analysis expertise, to review what goes wrong, learn from it and feed that learning back into the system. Another hard element to be analysed for its contribution to facilitate learning is the organisational structure. These are the structures within which people work and that defines their roles, in a somewhat limiting manner. These can be redrawn as social network diagrams that facilitate a way to allow people interact, which might then design and assign members to various cross-functional teams.

Formal tools and techniques that are helpful to drive learning are as follows:
1. Reverse scenario building (which is a method of identifying the opportunity the organisation wishes to pursue and then build the scenario backwards from that optimum position, in order to establish what has to be implemented, to maximise this opportunity)
2. Amass media channel – for example, a company newsletter to spark new ideas and which is open to suggestions and which can inform of what is happening in other areas. 

Another method is that of action learning, hands-on complex problem solving and problem-solving methodologies sharing within groups’ sessions. It is one thing for learning to occur but there is also a need to disperse that learning, which is the connection between these hard and the soft elements. The hard issue can facilitate the learning; the soft issues will diffuse and embed the learning.

The soft issues to manage, for learning to occur, require the identification and understanding of the needs of the individuals, their groups and their tasks at hand, to develop a balance between those demands. Organisations have to look at how people perceive where they fit within the structures in order to determine how they learn – for example, how they see their contribution in their department, group or team. These structures tend to contain or retain their learning internally. A learning organisation works on shared knowledge.

Another soft issue is that of the feeling of security or trust. People tend to offer more ideas and tend to be more creative in a no-blame culture. Security, or the perception of both job security and knowing the accepting reaction of others before offering up ideas, will significantly alter the willingness of people to think, develop and share. Security as a feeling in the work environment can be created through an analysis of the organisation culture, using the cultural web model, and through human resource policies on training and contracts that allow time for employees to construct reflect and think. Communication mechanisms and mediums will also determine how, where and what is shared and discussed; communication for learning needs to be free of formality, such as having less formal reports and more managed online forums.

The main soft issue that requires the greatest management effort is the individuals. Individuals have mental models that they develop based on experience. In order to facilitate learning in general these mental models have to change. Change to these mental models occurs in four phases: 
1. Motivation to change – a want to learn has to exist driven by the organisation or the group or business need
2. New model generation – where the new information is drawn into the collective knowledge,
3. Comparison phase – where old knowledge is compared to the new and decisions made as to which is best suited and
4. Where the new mental model just developed becomes embedded in the organisation.

The approaches that can create ways for new mental models to evolve are as follows:
1. Question the taken for granted and develop innovative new ways.
2. Articulate a collective vision to gain support for innovative changes.
3. Encourage and facilitate the acquisition of skills needed for collective learning.
4. Support values and openness to new knowledge, so as to create a learning culture.
5. Help people understand cause-effect relationships and the determinants of performance for the team or organisation.
6. Help people recognise when learning has occurred.
7. Gain external support and financing for the acquisition or application of new knowledge (for example, acquisitions or joint ventures).
8. Encourage experiments to gain more knowledge.
9. Encourage teams to conduct after-activity reviews.
10. Create decentralised subunits with authority to pursue learning and entrepreneurial activities in a responsible way.
11.Develop support programmes that will encourage and reward discovery of new knowledge and its diffusion (Yukl, 2009).

Enterprise Networks
The concept of an organisation has given way to the concept of an enterprise. An organisation gives the perception of a top-down, very structured and somewhat bureaucratic administrative structure. The enterprise concept tends to give a more integrated flattened approach in which learning can be better facilitated via greater sharing, greater access, and integration of knowledge, ideas, innovation and communications. More importantly, enterprise leads to the integration of people, away from the functional departmental roles to develop a more collective team.

Sustainable organisation
Organisations as enterprises need sustainability across multiple areas. Sustainable learning leads to increased competitiveness, better resource usage, increased innovation and a sustainable position in the marketplace, and an ability to survive in the dynamic markets and chaotic macro and microenvironments in which business has to operate.

Enterprise learning is ultimately totally reliant on the people that are in the organisation; the organisation itself cannot learn. The people inside the organisation, and their capacity, facilitate organisational learning. There is a significant risk in an organisation that does not form a learning culture and environment that does not establish learning systems and processes. The risk of not being a learning organisation is stagnation or elimination, Organisations risk losing the right people, which results in a drain on the learning and knowledge on which the organisation currently relies. A learning organisation is a sustainable enterprise.

Finally

Learning, therefore, can be embedded more successfully in an organisation taking the enterprise perspective based around integration and the establishment of an appropriate culture, rather than the more traditional bureaucratic structure. For example, in the more traditional top-down bureaucratic structure, leaders tend to determine what should be done and how it should be done; with the enterprise approach, the outcome tends to determine what should be done and how it should be done via the combination of people, processes, systems and structures. These should be aligned again with the overall business strategy to ensure that the appropriate learning occurs.

Learning as a process needs to be a continuous evolving process and needs to be championed from the top. Leaders should influence, not interfere, and embed it by ensuring processes and systems are integrated – therefore integrating ideas and communication across the social networks and, therefore, the enterprise.

The establishment of an enterprise culture – by considering the elements of the cultural web – should create an environment that is open to learning both by sharing, innovating and drawing from external influences via networks. Network creation starts with the selection of the right people when employing them, the identification of those that are already learners, and the identification or appointment of access controllers. Access controllers are those individuals who can link the social networks inside the organisation together or use their outside links to learn from external stakeholders and external knowledge sources.

Learning is reliant on people collaborating via these social networks. The networks need to be fluid and flexible network structures. This is in opposition to the older concepts of department boundaries defining jobs. The network structure allows for the creation of new groups of people to come together quickly for problem solving or creative development, depending on their skill. It is similar to small agile project teams being established within the enterprise, combining various degrees of people, processes and systems in an evolutionary way, but driven by the need for knowledge.

Knowledge management (KM) is the process of capturing, developing, sharing, and effectively using organizational knowledge. It refers to a multi-disciplined approach to achieving organizational objectives by making the best use of knowledge

Enterprise resource planning is a business management software—usually a suite of integrated applications—that a company can use to collect, store, manage and interpret data from many business activities, including: Product planning, cost Manufacturing or service delivery Marketing and sales Inventory management Shipping and payment ERP provides an integrated view of core business processes, often in real-time, using common databases maintained by a database management system. ERP systems track business resources—cash, raw materials, production capacity—and the status of business commitments: orders, purchase orders, and payroll. The applications that make up the system share data across the various departments that provide the data. ERP facilitates information flow between all business functions, and manages connections to outside stakeholders. Enterprise system software is a multi-billion dollar industry that produces components that support a variety of business functions. IT investments have become the largest category of capital expenditure in United States-based businesses over the past decade.

Dr Dada Adefolami, MBA. PhD. CPF Acct. is Finance / Management Consultant and Certified Forensic Accountant ([email protected]; 08052043855).