Shared+Understandings

//Shared Understanding//
 * Organizational learning relies on //shared understandings// among members. These (often tacit) understandings integrate lessons about the relationship between actions and outcomes that underlie organizational practices.**
 * …learning is “distinctly organizational when it relies on the combined experiences, perspectives, and capabilities of a variety of organization members” (Rait, 1999)
 * Building shared understanding requires organization members to share
 * Ideas
 * Insights
 * Perceptions
 * Experiences
 * Questions
 * Examining existing shared understanding is also important for promoting organizational learning.
 * Often appear in tacit rather than clearly articulated assumptions.

The Blind Men and the Elephant by John Godfrey Saxe American poet John Godfrey Saxe (1816-1887) based the following poem on a fable which was told in India many years ago.

It was six men of Indostan To learning much inclined, Who went to see the Elephant (Though all of them were blind), observation Might satisfy his mind The First approached the Elephant,

That each by And happening to fall Against his broad and sturdy side, At once began to bawl: “God bless me! But the Elephant Is very like a wall!”

The Third approached the animal, And happening to take The squirming trunk within his hands, Thus boldly up and spake: “I see,” quoth he, “the Elephant Is very like a snake!”

The Fourth reached out an eager hand, And felt about the knee. “What most this wondrous beast is like Is mighty plain,” quoth he; “ ‘Tis clear enough the Elephant Is very like a tree!”

The Fifth, who chanced to touch the ear, Said: “E’en the blindest man Can tell what this resembles most; Deny the fact who can This marvel of an Elephant Is very like a fan!

The Sixth no sooner had begun About the beast to grope, Than, seizing on the swinging tail That fell within his scope, “I see,” quoth he, “the Elephant Is very like a rope!”

And so these men of Indostan Disputed loud and long, Each in his own opinion Exceeding stiff and strong, Though each was partly in the right, And all were in the wrong!

Moral: So oft in theologic wars, The disputants, I ween, Rail on in utter ignorance Of what each other mean, And prate about an Elephant Not one of them has seen!

This poem was selected to show how even when ideas, insights, perceptions, experiences and questioning are used in solving an organizational problem the bringing together of ideas to create meaning within the community is also important in organizational learning. According Wenger, (1998) belonging to a community requires three concepts in order to create an identity for that community. //Imagination, alignment and engagement//, are key creating identity. Each of the blind men in this poem used their images they have of preconceived objects that they used to describe part of the elephant. They were each engaged in in working to find a description of what it means to be an elephant, but what they were not doing was working within the framework of alignment to synthesize what they have learned to bring all of the information together to negotiate the meaning as a group and coming to a shared understanding.

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