Organizational learning under the dome

08/12/2014

Parliaments in all countries of the world are concerned with discussing crucial national issues and have a special prestige and respect. As its habit of adopting all that is good and beneficial, the wise leadership of the UAE is carrying on its approach to host the Third Organizational Learning Conference – though under the dome of the Federal National Council this time – on November 30 and December 1 concurrently with the 43^rd National Day and under the patronage of His Highness Sheikh Hazza Bin Zayed Al Nahyan, National Security Advisor and Chairman of the Emirates identity Authority.

The conference was attended by around 400 participants and saw 26 speakers from 13 countries talking about the best practices in organizational and government learning. The major speaker Dr. Mahathir Mohamad, former Prime Minister of Malaysia, played a major role in enriching the conference by presenting the journey of government learning in Malaysia and its growth-related experience of switching from an agricultural country with half the population living below the poverty line to a strong competitor worldwide in industry, tourism and high-quality services and exports.

The direct and practical recommendations of the conference included among others urging organizations to speed up their transition into educated ones by developing such organizational structures that would support and promote continuous organizational learning and creativity; preparing specialist trainers in the field of organizational and action learning; expanding the translation into Arabic so that the successful experiences and studies in this vital field would be conveyed; and developing initiatives and projects that would encourage reading and exploration.

They also included training the staff in formal and informal learning methods; keeping away from the traditional methods of training; encouraging the second-line and third-line leaders to develop their leadership and management aptitudes through granting them the powers that would enable them to apply their creative ideas at the organizational level; promoting applied research in the field of organizational learning and allocating the required budgets for this purpose; optimizing the organizational learning experiences of such Asian countries as Japan, Malaysia and South Korea; taking advantage of technology for applying learning methods; and following change management methods.

Thanks to all those who contributed to the success of this conference and let’s always remember that the strongest competitive advantage of individuals and organizations is their ability to learn effectively.