Learning organization structure of Microsoft

In this past 20 years, Microsoft was practicing the knowledge management. For Microsoft to build up a learning organization’s strategy, it can be concluded into 3 ideals and 4 principles which suggested by “Microsoft secret”. The first ideal is self-criticism. The second ideal is message feedback. And the third one is a wide-ranging exchange. Now, I introduce an example which held in Microsoft. One of the Microsoft managers promoted their product in a fair and won 9 prizes out of 10 prizes. After that, this manager sent an e-mail to his team members to announce this good news. However, he got the feedback from his members not said “congratulation” that kind’s formal sentence. They asked “Why we couldn’t get the last prize?” “What we could learn from this fair?” “How could we get that last prize in next year?” From this example, we may see that the employees in Microsoft could practice these three ideals.

They always try to improve themselves and avoid having those mistakes again, concern the feedbacks and always take an active role in discussing the work-related issues. Also, Microsoft forms a “Post-Mortem” as a platform to give their employees discussing their work-related issues and suggesting how to improve. For the 4 principles, the first one is learning from the past and on-going projects systematically. The second principle is using standardize statistics to improve their products. The third principle is customer-oriented and uses their feedback for improvement. The fourth principle is to encourage department collaboration and resource sharing. Let take the example in Microsoft, they always let the customers get the trial to use the new product and encourage them to give the feedback. Although some feedbacks were negative and complain, but Microsoft always welcome it and strive to improve it, sometimes they may get “thank-you letter” from Microsoft.

“Building up a learning organization” Bill Gates has never mention this item. But we may find that he always suggests company should adapt the knowledge management in order to enhance the “Corporate Intelligence (IQ)” and led to success. The corporate IQ is exactly what the learning organization is. The learning organization is an organization that set up communication channels, has mutual coordination and inspiration atmosphere in order to practicing knowledge management and knowledge sharing. In a learning organization, it’s essential for employees to share their information and collaborate on work activities throughout the entire organization, include across functional specialties and even different organizational levels, in order to lower or eliminating the existing structural and physical boundaries. Bill Gates suggested that “knowledge is the power and even is the key to success”

In Microsoft, it set up the knowledge sharing project. It gives the reward to employees who shared their knowledge openly. Though this project, more and more employees could learn from each other. It makes Microsoft has a learning organizational culture. Microsoft performs this structure can benefit from this as it builds a shared vision and increase the collaboration, like improving information sharing among different departments. It helps Microsoft to increase its initial competitiveness and its innovation. Also, it can lower its operating cost and lower the side effects when the employees resigned.

Works Cited

“Microsoft”. Microsoft Corporation. 30 Sept 2009. 30 Sept 2009 .