Hi , I'm Reg Munro, one of 4 General Managers of Old Mutual an insurance
company that does Individual Life insurance, Retirement Fund, Mutual Fund,
Asset Management and Health Insurance (mainly managing what we call
Medical Aids) business. We're big by SA standards with about 18000
employees and about 33% of the SA insurance market
As the biggest company here, we need to learn faster than our competitors
to stay in front
Over the past few years (since I and others read Senge's "Fifth
Discipline") we've been trying to apply the concepts in various parts of
the organisation with varied degrees of success. The key questions I'd
love to dialogue with people include:
1. Just when key teams are getting going in applying the principles, the
team is changed (ther's always a lot of change in SA). How have you
succeeded in "passing the baton" so that the new team members are rapidly
intergrated into a new learning team .. that soon starts "producing
improved results that they really care about"?
2. People in this company get so taken up with the learning organisation
concepts that they lose focus on the "dull" business of producing business
results and rather gather in Learning meetings to share others experiences
with the learning organisation concepts. Has anyone else had a similar
problem? What strategies have proved to be successful ingetting the
concepts bedded into (rather than on top of) the business?
3. Recently in "The Systems Thinker" how to write "Learning Histories"
was described. We are currently making our first attempt at producing
such a history with help from Louis van der Merwe. Have any of you got
tips for us from your learnings with Learning Histories?
4. One of the greatest successes we've had with Learning Organisations is
to have it built into our annual strategy discussions and plans using a
methodoly introduced to us by Co-development International. Have any of
you had similar successes we could dialogue on?
I think that that is enough of an introduction.
I look forward to participating in this network of learners
-- Reg Munro rmunro@x400.telkom400.inca.za