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Coaching for Organisational Learning

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Abstract

This chapter explains how the learnings from individual coaching can be harnessed at the collective, systemic level to inform and support organisational learning. Organisational learning enables organisations to adapt and transform in response to, or in anticipation of, change. Early explanations of how organisations learn were based on individual learning principles. Later conceptualisations highlighted systemic ways of thinking and doing that were transformative beyond individual learning and resulted in organisational learning. As individuals learn, they enact new behaviours which others intuit, interpret, integrate, and institutionalise at the organisational level. New knowledge is acquired or created, distributed and integrated among organisational members based on individual learnings. Collective learning is captured by the enculturation of individual learnings through shared behaviours, rituals, systems and procedures which become entrenched in the organisation. Organisational learning can also occur as the result of exploratory and exploitative innovation in the workplace. Deliberately developmental organisations promote continuous learning at the systemic level.

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Knowles, S. (2021). Coaching for Organisational Learning. In: Positive Psychology Coaching. Springer, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-88995-1_19

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