This research arose from a request to assist the army to develop and maintain its status as a learning organisation. The speaker wanted to know how to measure the army’s learning culture, what the drivers and enablers as well as inhibitors to learning were and what the levers for change were.

A literature review was undertaken looking at learning theories, approaches to education, organisational structures, knowledge, teaching roles and culture but the speaker’s view was much of this was prescriptive and lacked grounding in practice.

A workshop to look at the army as a learning organisation was undertaken with 25 people across two days. Those taking part had been chosen to look at a broad array of expertise and diverse roles. From the workshop 10 army learning organisation characteristics were developed. The research then adopted a mixed method approach so quantitative data was collected through a questionnaire and qualitative data was collected through focus groups and ethnographic observations. It was hoped that the output from this study would be a profile of the army’s learning capability at individual, team and organisational levels. Senior leadership endorsed the study which enabled doors to be opened and meeting people was also important to get them to take part.

4,000 staff responded to the questionnaire and 35 focus groups took place. The groups were made up of different ranks, roles, functions and sites. Topics shared at the focus groups were shared vision, professional mastery, team learning, strategic learning and lessons. A draft model has been developed but the speaker will be undertaking another round of data collection to confirm aspects of the model and amend where needed.