Notes

Internal Learning and Growth For this perspective, our approach comes close to the ideas of Kaplan and Norton. They suggest that this perspective includes employee training and in stitutional cultural attitudes related to both individual and institutional self- improvement. Where our approach deviates is that we believe that each individual employee is motivated bya work-related identity, similar conceptu- ally to the museum-related identity described in Chapter 5. The basis for assess ment needs to be predicated on understanding these worker identities and helping to ensure that they are positive and maximally enacted. As we have pointed out repeatedly in this book, in the Knowledge Age, people the most robust repository of institutional knowledge-are an organization's most valuable asset. In the current climate of rapid societal and technological change, t is becoming necessary for knowledge workers to be in a continuous learning mode. Museums often find themselves unable to hire new employees with the mix of skills and backgrounds they need, the aging of the Baby Boom genera- tion threatens many institutions with the imminent retirement of their most knowledge-able employees, yet at the same time there is a decline in training of existing employees. Metrics can be put into place to guide managers in focusing training funds where they can help the most; however, remember that in the workplace as in the leisure world, free-choice learning is the predominant mode in which individuals gain their knowledge and foster innovation. So in addition to tra ditional training, employees need mentors and tutors, as well as the encour agement to develop and support informal "knowledge-sharing" groups, Each individual associated with the organization should be encouraged to under stand his or her work-related identity needs, to set annual learning goals and have these goals monitored and supported. To help foster a learning organiza- all members of the organization, from floor staff to trustees, should be empowered to act as both learners and teachers, as both trainees and trainers.