Text of newsletter published by
Graham Guest
Continuing Professional Development
The world in which professionals practise is changing rapidly and continually. Not only is professional life increasingly competitive and clients more demanding, but also the knowledge base of the professions and the market sectors in which they operate are steadily expanding. As a result there is a constant demand for new knowledge and skills, and lifelong learning becomes even more important. To address these issues in a
multi-disciplinary context the Institute of Continuing Professional Development was established in the summer of this year. The Institute combines the roles of learned society (or perhaps here I should say learning society), guardian of standards, force for change and promoter of best practice. For details of ICPD membership telephone the Membership Secretary, Sue Hall, in London on +44 171 730 7677.
More CPD!
The European Federation of National Engineering Associations (FEANI) held a seminar
in Lisbon in September entitled CPD, Innovation and Business Success in SMEs. The seminar attracted over sixty people from various European countries and a particular focus was on the difficulties, as well as the opportunities, of promoting and delivering CPD within small and medium-sized enterprises. For more information telephone
Anders Hagström at FEANI in Brussels on +32 2 639 0392 or e-mail him at [email protected].
Passion to Learn
Writing about Anders who, observant readers will note, has a Finnish e-mail address, leads me to recommend a report, entitled Passion to Learn, published by the Finnish-based International Association for Continuing Engineering Education (IACEE). Written by Markku Markkula and Riitta Suurla, the report is about benchmarking good lifelong learning practice and contains a wide range of fascinating and very useful articles which will be of interest to anyone concerned with lifelong learning strategies and their implementation. Can you resist having access to the Lucky Clover of Learning contained in the report? For details telephone Kati Niemi at the IACEE in Dipoli on
+358 9 451 4664 or send an e-mail to [email protected].
A Foolish Offer
In the last issue I referred to David Firth’s book, The Corporate Fool. The publishers, Capstone, are kindly making the book available to readers of Learning Organisation News at the special price of £11.95, a discount of over 20%. To obtain a copy telephone Catherine Meyrick on +44 1865 798623 and quote the reference LON/Fool.
Team Learning
In The Fifth Discipline: The Art & Practice of The Learning Organisation Peter Senge describes team learning as the process of aligning and developing the capacity of a team to create the results its members truly desire. It builds on the discipline of shared vision, mentioned in the last issue. Individuals are learning all the time, even if they are not always aware of it, but this does not necessarily mean that the organisations in which they operate are also learning. If teams learn, says Senge, they become a microcosm for learning throughout the organisation. Within organisations, team learning has three critical dimensions: the need to think insightfully about complex issues; the need for innovative, co-ordinated action; the role of team members on other teams. Senge refers to the physicist David Bohm as a significant contributor to the emerging discipline of team learning. For those of you who see, or try to see, the world in its wholeness I recommend Bohm’s classic 1980 text, Wholeness and the Implicate Order.
