What’s the point of history other than to teach us ways not to repeat the same mistakes?

This is why it is so gratifying to hear Eskom CEO Jacob Maroga say that the last year’s load-shedding debacle was a learning experience for the organization.

In an article : http://www.southafrica.info/business/economy/infrastructure/eskom-260109.htm,Maroga said his organisation had put in place measures to prevent past mistakes, including putting in place a maintenance schedule,improving infrastructure and beefing up capacity and skills.

“The challenges we faced in the past have made us to be wiser to deal with other challenges,” he said.

Peter Senge was not wrong in his seminal text – The 5th Discipline. I always keep my 5th Discipline Fieldbook – Strategies and Tools for Building a Learning Organization, close to hand. This book I feel is vital reading for any manager driving change.

On Page 49 he writes: ”Learning in organizations means the continuous testing of experience, and the transformation of that experience into knowledge– accessible to the whole organization, and relevant to its core purpose”

Have you read the Fieldbook? It combines OD and practicalities in a way that makes it essential reading for Reputation Managers, Organizational Development and Performance Enhancement experts.

The Mandarin word for Crisis contains two ideograms, the one shows that the word presents opportunity and the other that it presents danger and potential disaster.

This implies that how we respond to challenges is crucial. It is a pity that Eskom had to first damage their reputation, before they started to learn, but it is commendable that they have been prepared to, and are doing so.

Positive action and behavior supplanted by major communication interventions will eventually restore a tarnished reputation.