At present, organizations develop in political, economic and social environments and scenarios that are highly volatile, uncertain, complex and ambiguous — “VUCA” environments — and they must adapt to them continually. Understanding learning and the management of people is therefore key to adapting to those settings as well as possible.
At the same time, the labour market has become ever more demanding and competitive, and to meet it people must be ever more competent. To be competent means developing a set of observable behaviours associated with good or excellent performance in a particular job and a particular organization. These behaviours are what we call competencies. But organizations need to make changes to their structures, to their technologies and to the way they manage their people if they are to adapt to these environments — and that adaptation, without doubt, involves learning.
Organizations that learn
For Peter Senge, author of The Fifth Discipline (1990), the organizations that learn are those in which the people who make them up “continually expand their capacity to create the results they truly desire, where new and expansive patterns of thinking are nurtured, where collective aspiration is set free, and where people are continually learning how to learn together” — and to manage what they know. Organizations that learn, then, do so through individuals who learn, on the understanding that people are not resources: they are the organization.
That last idea implies a more radical change in how we manage human capital. Some companies, fortunately, have begun that transformation by maximising the value their professionals create — developing their talent, managing their expectations and making the fullest use of their capabilities.
It means conceiving a new model of human management built on people as potential assets and as what sets a successful organization apart. The new model of human management must therefore see people in the round, putting in place policies that manage talent by involving and engaging them and by respecting dignity and equality. Those policies should equally encourage participation and responsible leadership. They should also promote people’s psychological well-being and, above all, strengthen learning both individual and organizational.
What psychology and educational psychology bring to learning and to the management of people
Occupational psychologists and educational psychologists have a great deal to offer organizations here, as agents who promote and protect health.
From listening and effective communication, to drawing up plans and actions that further people’s general well-being. To working out how the employees of a company learn today and how we want them to learn in future. How information and knowledge reach them so that they can do their work better, and what their level of competence is. To identifying the difficulties they meet in learning a new role or a new task.
Natalia Di Piazza Umbides
Educational psychologist. Student on the Master’s in Human Management and Organizational Development.
