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Executive Interviews: Interview with Vinton G Cerf on Learning Organizations
July 2008 - By Dr. Nagendra V Chowdary

Vinton G Cerf
Vinton G Cerf is Vice President
Chief Internet Evangelist for Google.

Should the concept of a learning organization be looked at as a competitive necessity or amere organizational nicety?
If you consider adaptability to be a survival strength, then learning companies can take their ability to adapt to the bank.
It's more than 35 years since Chris Argyris propounded the idea of learning in organizations. What new evidence, if at all, do you find in support of learning organizations? What does the latest research has to say on learning organizations?
I don't have enough experience in this area to have a useful opinion.

Let's now look at Google as a learning organization. What initiatives have been taken to make a high-performing learning organization?
I dont have time to list themall butwe have created extensive internal knowledge bases to make corporate information widely accessible to employees; management shares much more corporate strategy information with the rank and file thanmost other companies.
What lessons can other companies learn from Google's initiatives and experiments?
Try for flat organization; keep project groups small; maintain extensive and easily searched corporate "memory" and project databases so people can discover each other and their common interests or responsibilities. Provide for freedom of employees to explore new ideas (the famous Google 20% time).

1. Learning Organization Case Study
2. ICMR Case Collection
3. Case Study Volumes

The Interview was conducted by Dr. Nagendra V Chowdary, Consulting Editor, Effective Executive and Dean, IBSCDC, Hyderabad.

This Interview was originally published in Effective Executive, IUP, July 2008.

Copyright © July 2008, IBSCDC No part of this publication may be copied, reproduced or distributed, stored in a retrieval system, used in a spreadsheet, or transmitted in any form or medium electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording, or otherwise without the permission of IBSCDC.

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Interview with Vinton G Cerf on Learning Organizations