Dave Schwandt and Mike Marquardt of The George Washington University Executive Leadership Development Program wrote a marvelous book in 2000 entitled Organizational Learning. For those who doubt whether organizations can learn, misinterpret and misapply learning, or simply forget it, consider as the authors do infamous case studies such as the flawed fabication of the Hubble Space Telescope mirror in the late '70s and '80s that came despite repeated warnings of problems.
Everything that Perkin Elmer and NASA had learned all along the way was discounted by politics, poor communication, time pressures and low trust levels.
On the other hand, the authors highlight an excellent eight-point learning code adopted by employees at the Knight-Ridder newspaper media company (now the McClatchy Company) in the late '90s. KR asked its employees to "ask for and hear feedback and data from others that challenges assumptions and behaviors" (p. 102).
It's rare that journalists embrace such corporate formulations, but it's also worth noting that Knight-Ridder was the only major media organization to suspend belief and question the premise for the Iraq war right from the start. While The New York Times, Washington Post and the major media were sourcing high-level Administration officials and drinking their Kool-Aid by the gallon, KR was asking the right people the right questions as to proof of WMD and the Iraq-Al Qaeda link. And this from an organization with newspapers in cities with large military bases such as Lexington KY and Forth Worth TX!
The link between a media corporation that seems to encourage learning and the journalists who get things right may be pressing a point too far. After all, KR's Washington bureau was just doing its job. Still, one wonders if the war in Iraq might have been scuttled if enough media followed KR's leadership.
Jack Kennedy said after the Bay of Pigs tragedy that he wished he had not talked the media out of running the story ahead of time, for it would have saved his Administration and our nation such grief. The media is called the "Fourth Estate" for good reason. Supine journalists do little to protect a nation on the precipice of war, particularly when one of those "states" called Congress has chosen to shed so much independence and credibility.
Everything that Perkin Elmer and NASA had learned all along the way was discounted by politics, poor communication, time pressures and low trust levels.
On the other hand, the authors highlight an excellent eight-point learning code adopted by employees at the Knight-Ridder newspaper media company (now the McClatchy Company) in the late '90s. KR asked its employees to "ask for and hear feedback and data from others that challenges assumptions and behaviors" (p. 102).
It's rare that journalists embrace such corporate formulations, but it's also worth noting that Knight-Ridder was the only major media organization to suspend belief and question the premise for the Iraq war right from the start. While The New York Times, Washington Post and the major media were sourcing high-level Administration officials and drinking their Kool-Aid by the gallon, KR was asking the right people the right questions as to proof of WMD and the Iraq-Al Qaeda link. And this from an organization with newspapers in cities with large military bases such as Lexington KY and Forth Worth TX!
The link between a media corporation that seems to encourage learning and the journalists who get things right may be pressing a point too far. After all, KR's Washington bureau was just doing its job. Still, one wonders if the war in Iraq might have been scuttled if enough media followed KR's leadership.
Jack Kennedy said after the Bay of Pigs tragedy that he wished he had not talked the media out of running the story ahead of time, for it would have saved his Administration and our nation such grief. The media is called the "Fourth Estate" for good reason. Supine journalists do little to protect a nation on the precipice of war, particularly when one of those "states" called Congress has chosen to shed so much independence and credibility.