I am using a series of posts to explore broad shifts in Organisational Learning (as part of a wider discussion around the evolution of the Organisation itself). I find it increasingly difficult to separate conversations about ‘learning’ from the other strands of the Social Age, considering leadership, Org Design, technology, culture, or change, as ‘learning’ has fundamentally shifted from static to dynamic, from central to dispersed, and from owned to co-created. Today i am considering one of the tensions: that between structure and space, between control and freedom.

Organisations are built from a range of materials, principles, and commitments: from bricks and silicon chips, from rules and law, from engagement and loyalty. From belonging.

But there is nothing magical about this mix: indeed, the recipe we used yesterday may be unfit for tomorrow.

Take some of the fundamentals: in ‘The Socially Dynamic Organisation’, a book that explores the evolution…