Can the Army Become a Learning Organization. A Question Reexamined

摘要

In 1994, after serving as an organizational consultant for General Gordon Sullivan, then-U.S. Army Chief of Staff, Margaret Wheatley wrote an article about the U.S. Army becoming a learning organization. Wheatley, a new-age social scientist and author of Leadership and the New Science, had been solicited by Sullivan to see how the Army could benefit from the buzz about learning organizations that was then sweeping corporate America. It has been 15 years since that writing, during which time there has been a great deal of research on learning organizations. This article revisits the title of Wheatley's essay in light of recent research and military experience. In doing so, it lays out an integrated approach for building learning capability in any organizational setting, large or small, military or otherwise. Over the years, the U.S. military has won more wars than it has lost, but has had to do so with changing tactics in the context of changing circumstances, be they political, economic, or social-cultural. For some time, it has been recognized that the Army is apt to face a growing diversity and number of missions, and it was that sense of urgency in the 1990s that prompted General Sullivan to focus on the Service's need to learn. The latest admonition for this requirement appears in the preface to the Army/Marine Corps counterinsurgency manual. It reaffirms the need to change and adapt as a perennial requirement of our military, a thesis reflected in this statement from General David Petraeus:ht.