Chapter 8: Working And Learning In Communities Of Practice1

In the days before formal education learning came not from teachers or textbooks, but from one’s social networks.
(Daniel Pink, author of Free Agent Nation)

Re-Visiting Assumptions About Learning

The need for organisations to adapt and change in today’s everchanging and complex business world has led to a focus on continuous learning. ‘We need to become better at learning’ and ‘We need to learn faster than our competitors’ are some of the common mantras among today’s business leaders.

But what do these business leaders understand learning to be? What assumptions do they, and indeed HR practitioners, hold about learning? Often when organisations refer to learning they have a narrow view of learning, one where learning is perceived as an individual process, which occurs through teaching in locations held away from the workplace.

Etienne Wenger (1998), a leading researcher and writer in the field of learning, believes that this is an assumption that many institutions hold about learning. It is for this reason, Wenger argues, that many of us find learning irrelevant and boring, and end up believing that it is something that we are not cut out for.

So is there an alternative way of thinking about learning? Wenger argues that there is. He has developed a theory of learning, which he refers to as a social theory of learning, based on the assumptions that (a) learning is as much a part of human nature as eating and sleeping and (b) learning occurs naturally through our active participation in the practices of different social communities.

Wenger points out that communities exist naturally within the workplace and, over time, these communities develop and shape their own practices. In his book, Communities of Practice, Wenger illustrates this point through a vignette on the lives of individuals in the Claims Department of a large medical insurance company. He refers to the Claims Department as being a natural community of practice, as:

• Individuals share the same environmental conditions.

• They also share the same assumptions about work, its good and bad points.

• Members collude, conspire and conform to make the Claims Department what it is.

• Individuals within the community make their job possible by inventing and maintaining ways of squaring institutional demands with the shifting realities of their work.

• Individuals operate within a communal memory that enables them to do their job without having to know everything.

• Newcomers are helped to join the community.

• Collectively they make their job liveable by creating an environment where the monotonous nature of their jobs is woven into the rituals, customs, events and dreams of community life.

• They have a developed a practice – a way of doing things and getting things done – that is set within a historical and social context, and which gives structure and meaning to what is done.

Engaging in practice, Wenger argues, involves the whole person – both acting and knowing – it involves doing, working out relationships, inventing processes, resolving conflicts and producing artefacts.

The social perspective on learning encompasses the principles shown in Table 8.1

Table 8.1: Principles associated with adopting a social perspective of learning (source: Wenger, 1998)

Principles relating to a social perspective on learning	Description
Learning is inherent in human nature	Learning is integral to our lives, not a separate activity.
Learning is the ability to create new meaning	Involves the whole person, and shouldn’t be reduced to pure mechanics. Links knowing and learning and the processes by which competence is developed.
Learning creates emergent structures	Requires structures for continuity but sufficient discontinuities for meanings to be renegotiated.
Learning is experiential and social	Involves our own experience as well as the competencies within learning communities.
Learning constitutes trajectories of participation	Builds personal histories, connecting an individual’s past and future. Practice involves shared learning.
Learning is about engagement	Requires opportunities actively to contribute (i.e. by adding value) to learning communities and make creative use of learning repertoires.
Learning is about imagination	Requires reflection and orientation to place practices into a broader context.
Learning cannot be designed	Learning is a living experience – it cannot be designed, only designed for.

^[1]I am indebted to Elizabeth Lank, independent consultant, and previously head of ICL’s Mobilising Knowledge Programme, for helping me develop this chapter by sharing her experience of building and supporting Communities of Practice within organisations.