Learning Climate

A climate in which: leaders express their own fallibility and need for team members’ assistance and input; team members feel that they are essential, valued, and knowledgeable partners in the change process; individuals feel psychologically safe to try new methods; and there is sufficient time and space for reflective thinking and evaluation (in general, not just in a single implementation) [1][2][3]. These interrelated practices and beliefs support and enable employee and organizational skill development, learning, and growth to maximize an organization’s absorptive capacity for new knowledge and methods [4]. Quantitative measurement instruments are available for measuring an organization’s ‘learning’ capability [5].

We include learning “climate” instead of “culture” (as described in most of the literature) because we are interested in the learning climate of micro-environments related to specific implementations. The degree to which an organization demonstrates “learning” attributes will vary across sub-groups and local manifestations of these attributes may have a stronger influence than a measure of overall organizational learning [6]. The literature on team learning has emphasized the organization’s role in creating the climate to enable learning and fosters collaboration within and between cross-disciplinary teams [7]. Quantitative measurement instruments are available for measuring an organization’s “learning” capability [5][8]. However, there is not agreement on precisely how to operationalize this construct. Despite this, we can make some generalizations. In a positive learning climate, stakeholders are not constrained by failure. A climate of psychological safety is promoted. Having the time and space for reflective thinking and evaluation (see Reflecting and Evaluating) is another important characteristic at least, in part, because it promotes learning from past successes and failures to inform future implementations [6][9][10]. Developing a climate that promotes learning is a “core property” that health care organizations need for on-going quality improvement [11, pg. 287]. A learning climate is an important contributor for increasing absorptive capacity for new knowledge: the ability of an organization to fully assimilate interventions [4]. Greenhalgh, et al. include learning organization culture within their concept of absorptive capacity of new knowledge along with existing knowledge and skills (tacit and explicit), and within proactive leadership.