ABSTRACT
The fourth of our revolutions in management is societal learning. Societal learning can be thought of as network learning or learning from the network of companies, customers, suppliers, and others who are trying to improve the ways their companies function. Such mutual learning is necessary because the methods of organizational change and improvement are not a theory a company can simply learn and follow. Rather, our companies are continuing a vast societal and organizational experiment. They have developed new practices through trial and error. People learn how to do things by doing them and by learning what they must do. This changes as they learn more and as the world changes. Furthermore, it is too limiting for each company to discover the organizational means of developing its organizational change and improvement capability by itself. Reinventing the wheel consumes time and resources that even the largest and smartest company can't afford. Reinventing the wheel also risks developing an inferior version.
