HOW ORGANIZATIONS LEARN

Townsend and Gebhardt detail the three step learning cycle of organizations: investigating the situation, identifying failures and successes, and institutionalizing the lessons. They consider how the cycle is used by the US Army, which has influenced companies such as General Electric, Motorola, Harley-Davidson, and Amoco. They discuss the army's After-Action Review method that examines an event and focuses on performance standards, draw parallels between the army's experience and the quality movement, and describe the work of CALL (Center for Army Lessons Learned). The authors both grew up as military dependents and Townsend spent 20 years in the Marine Corps. They have published other books on quality, leadership, and recognition, and conduct seminars on leadership and the definition and implementation of the continual improvement process. Annotation c2008 Book News, Inc., Portland, OR (booknews.com)