Page 208 - (DK) The Business Book

206 THE LEARNING ORGANIZATION

School concluded that poor success by actively fostering the
management practices were the education of all employees in order
major reason for employee turnover. to innovate and adapt. In this
The problem of high turnover in respect, Japan’s Honda Motor
lower-paid jobs is still an issue. In Company is often cited in case
the January 2012 edition of the studies as a perfect example of a There is no organizational
Harvard Business Review, Harvard “learning organization.” learning without individual
Business School professor Zeynep In the 1980s, while professor learning.
Ton wrote about companies that of business studies at Stanford Chris Argyris,
had found a way to invest in their University, Richard Pascale analyzed Donald Schön
staff while keeping product costs the management style of Japanese
low: “Highly successful retail companies, Honda in particular. He
chains ... not only invest heavily in concluded that “organizational
store employees but also have the agility” was the reason for Honda’s
lowest prices in their industries, success. As evidence he cited the
solid financial performance, and entry of the Japanese company into
better customer service than the US market in 1959. department store approached the
their competitors. They have Honda had been preparing to Honda team to ask if it could sell
demonstrated that, even in the launch its larger 250 cc and 350 cc the smaller bikes. The sales team
lowest-price segment of retail, bad motorcycles in Los Angeles, but the reported back to head office and
jobs are not a cost-driven necessity advance sales team soon realized advised that instead of launching
but a choice. And they have proven that the big Japanese bikes were the larger bikes, the Super Cub
that the key to breaking the trade- inadequate for road conditions and should be the focus of Honda’s debut
off is a combination of investment the vast distances traveled in the in the US. Instead of dismissing the
in the work force and operational US. The team reluctantly sent the underlings, the managers took
practices that benefit employees, models back to Japan for testing. notice and agreed to go with the
customers, and the company.” Meanwhile, the three Japanese advice of the sales team. The result
salespeople had been zipping for Honda was phenomenal success
Learning by listening around Los Angeles on the 50 cc in the US market. In Peter Senge’s
Peter Senge’s theory about Super Cub, a best seller at home model, Honda is an example of how
corporate learning went beyond but considered inappropriate for “every level of an organization
just minimizing labor turnover. He the power-hungry American biker. should feel included and valued.”
intended it to be a model by which Nevertheless, US interest in the
companies could maximize their Super Cub grew and Sears Questioning precedents
In essence, Senge’s “learning
organization” draws on earlier
ideas, including those of Harvard’s
Chris Argyris. In 1977 Argyris
published his theory of “double
loop learning,” showing that
companies and their employees
can assess and modify underlying
ways of thinking to improve their
capacity to learn and perform
effectively. The following year

The Honda Super Cub became
enormously successful in the US,
thanks to managers who listened to
their sales staff and broke away from
the standard “macho biker” approach.