A change in the organizational process at various stages can be effected by three categories of learning. These learning categories are associated with time horizons that differ. There are several things in the business environment that managers and leaders fail to explicitly speak about. This includes the role that anxiety plays in learning and a means involving communities and groups in learning facilitation and coping up with anxiety.
The first way through which an organization can learn is by acquiring knowledge and been able to learn insight. Information can be acquired through either reading or memorizing. There has been a common view that the entire process building the base of our knowledge can be tedious and very slow at times. However, cognitive learning can also give a solution to a problem that seemed difficult. A solution is usually reached in most cases after long hours of not being in a position to see anything at all. Cognitive learning can be either through trying to solve puzzle, brain teasers or a mathematical problem. Thus, a new direction and a level upon which a situation can be understood are gotten through insight.
Managers or leaders can give a new insight to an organization by articulating a new and unique vision for the respective organization and communicates the vision entirely. The organizations can quickly change direction if it becomes successful for the same vision. Thus, learning in an organization can be articulated through developing and sharing the new vision widely. However, cognitive capacity of the learner might sometimes be insufficient to understand the complexity of the situation. Hence, this calls for the need to learn analytical skills that will assist in understanding the real dynamics of the world.
Learning of skills and behavioral habits is the second learning category in an organization. It is normally associated with behaviorism and B.F. Skinner. This type of learning requires the willingness of the learner and practice hence always slow. The challenge of this learning aspect is the cultural rules and poor habits in an organization. A good example is openness in an organization. People in an organization need to be open to each other in order to improve the organizations effectiveness.
The main problem with this type is leaders and managers in an organization. It is a sole requirement of an organization that errors be embraced as a vital part of the process of learning. However, very few managers accept to do so. For the effectiveness of this learning process, it requires the provisions of practice and error making opportunities together with rewarding correct responses consistently.
Learned anxiety and emotional conditioning is the third type of learning. It is the most difficult to say about and most potent. Pavlov originally derived emotional condition based on the green room. This learning process is mainly based on pain and punishment. Inducing of anxiety and eliminating certain behavioral characteristics can only be effective through punishment. The weakness with this type of learning is that it only tells the learner what shouldn’t be done. It does not give the correct behavior to be adopted by the learner. It is easy for an organization to change drastically if its culture is based on past successes rather than past mistakes.
In an organizational view, anything that is new in a firm or something that has once been tried by a company can be termed as a green room. If for instance, venturing into a certain product by particular company failed in the past, then the company will treat the product as green room. Avoiding venturing in the product will eventually hinder behavior change in an organization.