Learning Organisations Survive Longer

In the book, The Fifth Discipline, Peter Senge mentions some half a dozen or so companies whose leaders helped crystallize the concept of Learning Organization. This was in 1992, remember.

So I decided to see if the companies are still around or vanished ( I believe most of the companies mentioned in the giant best seller In Search of Excellence vanished within a few years).

Here's how ...

Hanover Insurance: As per them "Since January 2008, The Hanover is the only significant financial services company to be upgraded by A.M. Best, Moody's, and Standard and Poor's." Not bad. Not bad at all.

Herman Miller: Brian Walker, Chief Executive Officer, stated, "We were encouraged by our results this quarter for a number of reasons. The ramp-up in orders over the first quarter reflects the pattern of seasonal improvement we anticipated coming into the period. While orders remain below prior year levels, we were encouraged to see demand follow a more normalized trend this quarter." Hmmm.. Ok. Not bad.

Analog Devices: They seem to alive and kicking and innovating. So again. Not bad.

Apple: I own an iMac and iPod myself. I am waiting for their Tablet. They just rock!

Ford: The only of the Big Three to still hold their head high.

Polaroid: Frankly when I first heard of them - ages ago - with their instant photographs, I was not sure who would like to buy them. The cameras seem bulky and were very expensive in India. With the arrival of digital camera I was very sure they would disappear. I was obviously wrong. See here. They are still around and innovating. Good for them.

Royal Dutch / Shell: Deep sea oil find in Brazil; Contract in Iraq. They seem to be doing well.

Trammell Crow: I have never heard of them. My bad. But if a real estate development and investment company has survived 2009, they can't be too bad either.

So there you have it. All companies alive and kicking. Learning Organization cannot be such a bad thing then.

5 Must Read Business Management Books

Why am I publishing this list ... because it is winter vacations for the kids. And if you haven't read these yet, now is your time to catch up. 5 should be sufficient for a short winter break.

1. Managing For Results by Peter Drucker. The mother of all Management Books. A book can be written for every paragraph of Managing for Results and I suspect many are.

2. The Goal by Eliyahu Goldratt. A business novel that will teach you a new way of thinking. I like to read this novel again and again and again.

3. The Fifth Discipline: The Art & Practice of The Learning Organization by Peter Senge. Welcome to Systems Theory. Learn why time is an essential factor in any causal system. Application of its principles will turn your life and organization around.

4. Blue Ocean Strategy: How to Create Uncontested Market Space and Make Competition Irrelevant by W. Chan Kim and Renée Mauborgne. A remarkable book, in my mind, only because the units of analysis are events and not companies. And also because CEO's in India use the term Blue Ocean Strategy to describe all their strategy.

5. Hard Facts, Dangerous Half-Truths And Total Nonsense by Jeffery Pfeffer & Robery I. Sutton. Read this book last. You might not want to read any other management book ever after.

Note: The photograph used belongs to Zsuzsanna Kilián. Please see her galleryfor more such photographs.