[Excerpt] The single biggest driver of business impact is the strength of an organization’s learning culture. Living in today’s fast-changing environment, more and more companies are realizing that by instilling a learning culture, the company can achieve a wide variety of business benefits, including innovation, learning agility, market share, and growth. In addition, the current competition among organizations lies beyond the abilities to leverage their current resources and capabilities.
In order to win the ‘20s, leaders will need to reinvent and redesign their enterprise as a next generation learning organization. In other words, leaders need to focus on how to ensure their company is looking forward and preparing for the future to drive innovation and increase growth in order to sustain and survive. Despite the numerous business and economic advantages of having a learning culture in an organization, a recent study by the Society of Human Resource Management shows that only around 1 in 10 companies have a true learning culture. Therefore, this report will focus on why learning is essential to innovation and growth, what a learning organization looks like and how companies can build a learning culture

He, Trent Chunen

Luo, Alice Ying Nga

English

[Excerpt] The single biggest driver of business impact is the strength of an organization’s learning culture. Living in today’s fast-changing environment, more and more companies are realizing that by instilling a learning culture, the company can achieve a wide variety of business benefits, including innovation, learning agility, market share, and growth. In addition, the current competition among organizations lies beyond the abilities to leverage their current resources and capabilities. In order to win the ‘20s, leaders will need to reinvent and redesign their enterprise as a next generation learning organization. In other words, leaders need to focus on how to ensure their company is looking forward and preparing for the future to drive innovation and increase growth in order to sustain and survive. Despite the numerous business and economic advantages of having a learning culture in an organization, a recent study by the Society of Human Resource Management shows that only around 1 in 10 companies have a true learning culture. Therefore, this report will focus on why learning is essential to innovation and growth, what a learning organization looks like and how companies can build a learning culture.How_Can_Organizations_Instill_a_Learning_Culture__to_Drive_Innovation_and_Growth.pdf: 62 downloads, before Oct. 1, 2020

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How Can Organizations Instill a Continuous Learning Culture to Drive Innovation and Growth?

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10-2019 
How Can Organizations Instill a Continuous Learning Culture to 
Drive Innovation and Growth? 
Alice Ying Nga Luo 
Cornell University 
Trent Chunen He 
Cornell University 
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How Can Organizations Instill a Continuous Learning Culture to Drive Innovation 
and Growth? 
Abstract 
[Excerpt] The single biggest driver of business impact is the strength of an organization’s learning culture. 
Living in today’s fast-changing environment, more and more companies are realizing that by instilling a 
learning culture, the company can achieve a wide variety of business benefits, including innovation, 
learning agility, market share, and growth. In addition, the current competition among organizations lies 
beyond the abilities to leverage their current resources and capabilities. 
In order to win the ‘20s, leaders will need to reinvent and redesign their enterprise as a next generation 
learning organization. In other words, leaders need to focus on how to ensure their company is looking 
forward and preparing for the future to drive innovation and increase growth in order to sustain and 
survive. Despite the numerous business and economic advantages of having a learning culture in an 
organization, a recent study by the Society of Human Resource Management shows that only around 1 in 
10 companies have a true learning culture. Therefore, this report will focus on why learning is essential to 
innovation and growth, what a learning organization looks like and how companies can build a learning 
culture. 
Keywords 
learning, culture, innovation, future of work, HR, human resources, growth, learning culture, learning 
mindset 
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Alice Ying Nga Luo October 2019 
Trent Chunen He 
Executive Summary 
Research Question 
How can organizations instil a continuous learning culture to drive innovation and growth? 
Introduction 
The single biggest driver of business impact is the strength of an organization’s learning culture3. Living 
in today’s fast-changing environment, more and more companies are realizing that by instilling a 
learning culture, the company can achieve a wide variety of business benefits, including innovation, 
learning agility, market share, and growth (Exhibit 1)3. In addition, the current competition among 
organizations lies beyond the abilities to leverage their current resources and capabilities.  
In order to win the ‘20s, leaders will need to reinvent and redesign their enterprise as a next generation 
learning organization1. In other words, leaders need to focus on how to ensure their company is looking 
forward and preparing for the future to drive innovation and increase growth in order to sustain and 
survive. Despite the numerous business and economic advantages of having a learning culture in an 
organization, a recent study by the Society of Human Resource Management shows that only around 
1 in 10 companies have a true learning culture7. Therefore, this report will focus on why learning is 
essential to innovation and growth, what a learning organization looks like and how companies can 
build a learning culture. 
Why Is Learning Essential to Innovation And Growth? 
As mentioned above, it is beneficial for organizations to instill a true learning culture to drive innovation 
and achieve growth ultimately. However, many managers think they can create better products just by 
improving the development processes, adding new tools, or creating great products to improve 
innovation and enhance growth. Contrary to the common belief, it is the skilled people in the 
organization who are the centre of innovation and growth2. Employees with a learning mindset are 
constantly learning and updating their skill sets to match the current demand for the market. Employees 
can leverage those updated skills to produce innovative and state-of-art products that will ultimately 
lead to business growth. A learning culture will be essential to encourage employees to get into the 
mindset of always learning all aspects of the new era. 
Build A True Learning Organization 
It is important to build a true learning organization and assess whether your organization is learning or 
not. Here are the recommendations to build a learning organization to drive innovation and increase 
growth:  
a) To create a collaborative and supportive environment with flexible project structure to let employees
solve problems systematically and to make failures become acceptable4
b) To provide sufficient resources and funds for employees to experiment in order to gather necessary
knowledge and information6, and to offer relevant recognition and rewards for achievements4
c) To learn from past experiences through reviewing all past successes and failures, identifying
lessons learned and document relevant lessons in accessible formats6
d) To learn from other companies, industries and customers to gain new perspectives6
e) To enable easy and accessible knowledge transfer and sharing among different teams, units,
departments and entities6
In addition, an organization should have a personalized, actionable and easy-to-apply definition of a 
learning organization with a safety net to allow failures, clear guidelines for practice, dedicated support 
from senior management and well-defined tools to measure the impacts and results. 
What Does A True Learning Organization Look Like? 
A true learning culture is what enables Cisco, Google and Apple to out-innovate their competitors, 
survive in fierce competition and achieve sustainable growth. It is also what enables Wal-Mart, UPS 
Alice Ying Nga Luo October 2019 
Trent Chunen He 
and Dell to drive down costs and maintain service quality5. These companies demonstrate through their 
business results that it is essential to have a true learning culture, but what is it exactly and how does 
a true learning organization look like?  
As mentioned previously, it is important for organizations to continue to learn in order to encourage 
innovation and generate long term growth, especially when there is an increasing unpredictability in the 
global business environment with fierce competition, constantly changing technologies and shifting 
customer preferences. Most importantly, employees are at the heart of building a true learning 
organization in order to leverage those business benefits. 
Employees continually create, acquire and transfer knowledge in a learning organization helping their 
organization adapt to the unpredictable and uncertain more rapidly than their competitors1. Therefore, 
it is crucial to know whether your organization is learning or to identify the characteristics of a learning 
organization. There are three factors to help assess one’s team, department or company’s 
organizational learning and adaptability are, and help detect areas for improvement5: 
1) A Supportive Learning Environment
• To provide a safety net for employees for asking naïve questions, providing different sometimes
opposing opinions and ideas, owning up to mistakes and presenting minority perspectives5
• To create a secure environment for employees to take risks and explore the unknowns5
• To ensure organizational processes can sustain a supportive learning environment1
• To construct an organizational culture to allow a supportive learning environment to exist.
Exhibit 28 provides the 10 basic principles on how to mobilize one’s organizational culture
Example: Children’s Hospitals and Clinics in Minnesota implemented a new procedure called 
“blameless reporting” to replace any threatening and negative terms with “less emotionally laden 
ones”6. 
2) Concrete Learning Processes
• To establish formal processes for generating, collecting, interpreting and disseminating
information5
• To allow different types of experiments and utilise small experiments to gather incremental
knowledge and test out ideas6
• To solve problems systematically through different types of instruments6
Example: U.S. Army’s After Action Review was instituted to conduct “a systematic debriefing after 
every mission, project, or critical activity”6. 
3) Leadership That Reinforces Learning5
• To demonstrate willingness from senior leaders that alternative and opposing opinions are
allowed
• To send signals to employees that it is essential to spend time on learning and failures are
acceptable, even though they are time-consuming and costly to the organization
Example: Harvey Golub, who is the former CEO of American Express, constantly “challenged 
managers to think creatively by asking them questions such as, “What alternatives have you 
considered?” and “What are your premises?”6 This had an impact on creating an open-minded 
culture and reinforcing the importance of learning.  
Conclusion 
Organizations need to realize the importance of a true learning organization and the business benefits 
the true learning culture can bring, especially on innovation and growth. Then they should evaluate 
their current learning culture to using the steps mentioned above to see whether their organizations are 
truly learning. This will also help them identify their strengths and areas for improvements and take 
appropriate and relevant actions in order to build a true learning organization to drive different types of 
innovation and achieve sustainable growth.  
Alice Ying Nga Luo October 2019 
Trent Chunen He 
References 
1) Bailey, A., Reeves, M., Whitaker, K., and Hutchinson, R. (2019). The Company of The Future.
Boston Consulting Group
2) Balle, M., Morgan, J., Sobek II, D. (2016). Why Learning Is Central to Sustained Innovation. MIT
Sloan Management Review Vol. 57 No. 3
3) Bersin. (2010). High Impact Learning Culture®: 40 Practices for and Empowered Enterprise.
Deloitte Bersin
4) Clawson, J.G. and Yemen, G. (2008). Goddard Space Flight Center: Building a Learning
Organization (A). Darden Case No. UVA-OB-0833.
5) Edmondson, A.C., Garvin, D.A. and Gino, F. (2008). Is Yours a Learning Organization? Harvard
Business Review March 2008.
6) Garvin, D.A. (1993). Building a Learning Organization. Harvard Business Review July–August 1993.
7) Grossman, R. (2015). How to Create a Learning Culture. Society of Human Resource Management
8) Katzenback, J., Oelschlegel, C. and Thomas, J. (2016). 10 Principles of Organizational Culture.
Strategy + Business. Organizations & People February 15, 2016 Spring 2016 Issue 82
Alice Ying Nga Luo October 2019 
Trent Chunen He 
Appendix 
 
Exhibit 1 
 
Bersin. (2010). High Impact Learning Culture®: 40 Practices for and Empowered Enterprise. Deloitte 
Bersin 
 
Exhibit 2 
 
Katzenback, J., Oelschlegel, C. and Thomas, J. (2016). 10 Principles of Organizational Culture. 
Strategy + Business. Organizations & People February 15, 2016 Spring 2016 Issue 82 


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