A few weeks ago a noted Chinese rising star politician Li Yuanchao stated that China is transcending into a learning country. We have heard of a learning organisation - Courtesy Toyota Corp and Peter Senge's 5th Discipline - but a learning country !!! But let us see how. The Party leadership has mandated learning and development as foundation to integrate in a globalised world. They read books by thought leaders and have absorbed technologies to search for new knowledge. This way they are aware and informed . The same politician visited Google and the attending offcial was surprised when he indicated that they browse the net regularly to update their knowledge. Reading books is encouraged and in some meetings they read the books collectively followed by intense discussions. From the era of Den Xiaoping they have systemically embraced learning and technology as their planks for innovation and leadership . "We believe that a ruling party only remains viable and vibrant when it masters state-of-the-art knowledge," Li said. Post the earthquake in China , a plenium was held to discuss lessons learned and how to respond better. Learning is not isolated from real world experience.Imagine this position , when the political body is driving learning can the rest of the administration lag behind ? "In a 2009 international computer competition--sponsored by the super-secret U.S. National Security Agency (for obvious reasons)--China fielded the most finalists (20), well ahead of second-place Russia (10) and far ahead of America (2). The worldwide winner of the algorithm-coding contest was an 18-year-old Chinese student" says Robert Kuhn in an article published by Forbe. This is true reflection of a knowledge based performing society. Can we institutionalise learning and development from a unstructured discretionary environment to a structured and systemic society ? Yes we can, because , despite our political systems, we have evolved and learned in our own unique way. In the process , we got several things wrong but by serendipity we also got lot of things right. Behind our indigenous system is respect for knowledge and respect for ascription which are propelling us forward. Our dissatisfaction is we are not able to translate it into performance which really matters. Therefore while China had the foresight to see ahead and prepare capacity and capability, we are lagging far behind. Their population is barely 10% ahead of ours but the GDP is 2.5 times greater. The difference between a learning country and learning organisations is clear.
Nice to read that the importance of the learning organization has expanded to a nation. However this appears to be a big challenge as even organizations have yet to grasp and embed a learning culture. But China deserves praise for a positive start. Thank you professor for this interesting post.
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