Today's business leaders must always know what their stakeholders are thinking--be they customers, employees, constituents, or competitors--and act upon that information in a timely and appropriate manner. How companies collect, decipher, and utilize this knowledge, in fact, may be the real determinant of their long-term viability. Harvard Business School professor David A. Garvin's Learning in Action authoritatively dissects these activities as practiced by so-called learning organizations, then clearly outlines the steps necessary to build one of them. "Sweeping metaphors and grand themes are far less helpful than the knowledge of how individuals and organizations learn on a daily basis," Garvin writes. "The key to success is mastery of the details, coupled with a command of the levers that shape behavior." His book's core offers a practical examination of the three primary routes to corporate learning: collecting intelligence from outside sources (via interview and observation, for example); accumulating data through targeted actions (such as postproject reviews and special programs); and experimenting with alternative outcomes by manipulating variables (including prototype creation and exploratory design testing). Combining research from myriad fields, detailed studies of successful models such as Xerox and the U.S. Army, and snapshots of specific practices at additional firms such as Intel and Wal-Mart, he succeeds in providing "a broad, integrated view of the topic that is grounded in scholarship." --Howard RothmanMaking the Learning Organization a Reality

Most managers today understand the value of building a learning organization. Yet practically speaking, in the business world the push for learning can be overwhelmed by the need for action. At the same time, those who see knowledge as a key corporate asset often lack the perspective and tools to transform abstract theory into hands-on implementation. For the first time in Learning in Action, David Garvin helps managers make the leap from theoretical ideal to actual practice.

Garvin argues that at the heart of organizational learning lies a set of processes that can be designed, orchestrated, and led. In addition to describing the basic steps in any learning cycle, he examines the critical challenges facing managers at each of these stages. Drawing on decades of scholarship from a wide range of fields, Garvin also delineates three modes of learning-intelligence gathering, experience, and experimentation-and shows how each mode can take different forms. These forms are brought to life in complete, richly detailed case studies of organizations including Xerox, L. L. Bean, the U. S. Army, and GE. The book concludes with a discussion of the leadership role that senior executives must play to turn the learning organization into a reality.