Higher Education

For almost 30 years the German Workshop for Improvement of Higher Education exists. As a student I joined – and I kept my membership all those years. With my recent sabbatical from my business career, I attended the Annual Conference of the organisation which was relabeled last year to German Association of Higher Education.

The organisation is well alive, though struggling with financial deficits. – The organisation of engaged individuals is the enigne behind the change in perspective in Higher Education in Germany.

It originally initiated activities at many universities – and now at all universities there are centers for improvement of the quality of teaching, in most career plans at universities didactical and andragogic knowledge is required to get promotion … – and the membershift is now shifting from individuals to institutions.

I just mention this history here, since ECLO is looking backward on a similar paths.  In this case ECLO was founded by some individual learning and development executives in major global companies in Europe who felt uneasy with a simple adoption of the Peter Senge’s simplified systems dynamics approach.

In the beginning there was a balance between executives representing companies and individuals from the consulting and academic researching and teaching scene. With the promotion of the concept of the learning organisation and organisational learning, the interest in the organisation lost momentum, though a few continued to keep up the idea of never-ending prioneering new thoughts and approaches into the field (we were among the first to sponsor the knowledge management move in Europe … which took up speed and influence ever since).

The current ECLO team of active members is now both, a thinktank with a past track record of influencing the conceptualising of change and transformation on organisational, national, regional, and cross-border levels respectively, as well as spear-heading the next moves …. – with the annual conference usually being the culminating point of common thinking where most of the energy is focussing.