---
title: "In a Rapidly Changing FMCG Market, How Can Companies Build a Learning Organization?"
description: "In several consulting projects this year, I shared the success stories of excellent companies with brand executives. A profound observation: executives from excellent companies have a strong learning atmosphere, taking notes seriously and discussing unclear points after meetings, with light in their eyes. In contrast, executives from mediocre companies appear busy, indifferent to learning, or only listen briefly without taking notes, frequently checking their phones and sending messages, appearing listless. Management guru Peter Drucker said, 'In a fiercely competitive and rapidly changing world, only learning organizations can survive and develop.'"
author: "高级研究员 海游"
publisher: "New Distribution"
email: "zhaobo258@gmail.com"
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published: "2022-11-17"
language: "en"
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# In a Rapidly Changing FMCG Market, How Can Companies Build a Learning Organization?

> In several consulting projects this year, I shared the success stories of excellent companies with brand executives. A profound observation: executives from excellent companies have a strong learning atmosphere, taking notes seriously and discussing unclear points after meetings, with light in their eyes. In contrast, executives from mediocre companies appear busy, indifferent to learning, or only listen briefly without taking notes, frequently checking their phones and sending messages, appearing listless. Management guru Peter Drucker said, 'In a fiercely competitive and rapidly changing world, only learning organizations can survive and develop.'

In several consulting projects this year, I shared the success stories of excellent companies with brand executives. A profound observation: executives from excellent companies have a strong learning atmosphere, taking notes seriously and discussing unclear points after meetings, with light in their eyes. In contrast, executives from mediocre companies appear busy, indifferent to learning, or only listen briefly without taking notes, frequently checking their phones and sending messages, appearing listless.

Management guru Peter Drucker said, "In a fiercely competitive and rapidly changing world, only learning organizations can survive and develop."

**The continuous learning ability of talent is the core competitiveness for a company's sustainable development. A company without a learning atmosphere is unlikely to develop, and a company whose executives lack learning ability to manage regional marketing teams is a disaster.** Today, let's discuss how to build a learning team.

**01 Regarding Learning Ability**
**What Types of Executives Are There?**

The movie *The Godfather* has a classic line: "Those who see the essence of things in a second, and those who spend a lifetime without understanding the essence, are destined to have completely different lives."

Why can some people see the essence of things at a glance, while most can only see the surface? Essentially, it's because they haven't improved their cognitive system through learning and thinking. Based on the executives I've encountered, they fall into the following types:

1. **Point-based thinking model executives: Learning ability 1 star**
   The biggest characteristic of this group is that they lack a systematic approach to marketing. Through their own hard work, they dig deep into specific marketing points they can access, view problems from point to surface, and learn selectively. They have depth in learning but severely lack breadth.

2. **Linear thinking model executives: Learning ability 2 stars**
   The current situation for some executives is: they replace deep thinking with linear thinking, are lazy to find new paths, and even prefer to do anything to avoid real thinking. This group follows a routine, exploring within their own thinking cocoon, learning and researching inside the cocoon, but ignoring everything outside it.

3. **Half-bottle vinegar model executives: Learning ability 2 stars**
   There are three main reasons why executives get promoted: first, platform strength type—they work quietly in a company with good development, and with enough seniority, they get promoted; second, upward management type—they follow a good leader and get promoted when the leader does, or they are good at "handling things"; third, outstanding ability type—they make exceptional contributions to the company in their position, beyond ordinary people.

   Once the first and second types of executives become inflated, they become half-bottle vinegar types: they feel good about themselves, have no systematic knowledge, block themselves off, and talk eloquently about a "point" they know, but essentially it's all correct nonsense. This group almost has no willingness or ability to learn actively, but if there are learning targets from above, they will be very attentive.

4. **Knowledge discussion type executives: Learning ability 3 stars**
   Knowledge discussion type executives have strong subjective learning initiative. The most important manifestation is that after listening to a lecture, they proactively contact the speaker to discuss areas they don't fully understand or that don't align with their existing cognitive system. Their lecture notes are well-organized, and they even highlight areas that can be borrowed, discussing the feasibility of ideas.

**Summary:** The learning attitude of executives basically determines the learning motivation of their subordinate teams. Fifteen years ago, during the demographic dividend stage, many executives believed that drinking capacity determined sales, and some "good-for-nothings" were promoted quickly. Today's market conditions can no longer accommodate such people. In a rapidly changing market, executives without learning ability must be replaced as soon as possible. This is responsible to the company, the team, and the distributors.

**02 Learning Should Be at the Strategic Level**
**Requiring Direct Attention from the Boss**

In actual operations, why do many ideas fail to be implemented? The reason is simple: only when the organization has capability can many things be planned and implemented. If organizational capability is insufficient, no matter how good the ideas, they cannot be realized.

After realizing this problem, many companies have established their own business schools and training institutions to continuously strengthen the team's business capabilities. What should be done specifically? I have the following three suggestions:

1. **Create a learning atmosphere for the team**
   This year, I deeply felt that when a company has a learning atmosphere, everyone learns; without it, no one learns. So first, we must create a good learning atmosphere. Peter Senge, the father of the learning organization, said in *The Fifth Discipline*: "Now it is no longer the era of individual cultivation, but the era of collective cultivation."

   The learning atmosphere is crucial for creating a learning team. This atmosphere provides the most favorable conditions for team members to learn, allowing every member to grow and be nurtured through immersion.

   Huawei is a true learning organization. In addition to advocating lifelong learning and all-member learning, it also vigorously promotes "whole-process learning," which means learning must run through the entire process of the enterprise's organizational system, penetrating every aspect of enterprise operation, making every process full of learning atmosphere.

2. **Internal cultivation: Regular exchange and learning**
   I found that some companies establish regular internal learning times, where they share with each other and grow together, with good results.

   When uncertainty becomes the new normal, the only advantage of a company is the ability to learn quickly and transform itself. The growth process of talent is the development process of the enterprise.

   Internal exchange learning is one of the best ways to share. It brings knowledgeable people together to share and innovate. This long-term mechanism can help companies quickly replicate excellent talent.

   Secondly, employees can learn from each other's skills, stimulating their sense of dissatisfaction and self-learning needs, turning abstract things like "sense of participation," "sense of achievement," and "sense of dissatisfaction" into concrete things. With these motivations, employees can invest energy to continuously improve.

3. **Leverage external brains: Invite consulting or training institutions for exchange**
   The hardest thing for people is to see their own shortcomings. Closing the door to the outside world is not advisable. Consulting companies, as "external brains," are tools for enterprise development. An excellent consulting company has a set of methodologies honed through repeated practice, which can formulate training tailored to specific needs, repeatedly activating the self-driving ability of bosses and employees.

   Enterprises should be good at thoroughly analyzing and studying all peers. Once a peer's practice is effective, immediately rush to learn it, thoroughly understand its methods, and never let go of anything that can be borrowed. Huawei is very fond of consulting companies because if you learn one set of skills from a top expert, it's enough to dominate the martial arts world.

**Summary:** A learning organization must be directly managed by the boss. We always emphasize seeking benefits from the organization. One of the benefits is continuous learning and optimization, but this is not about immediate gains; it requires strong support from the boss.

**03 Building a Learning Organization**
**Strengthening Key Personnel Capabilities**

When I provide consulting solutions to companies, I first discuss the most suitable marketing model. Once the model is determined, I then discuss the best organization and processes, and based on the organization and processes, match the best positions. At the same time, I intervene in building a learning organization.

How to build a learning organization? You can learn from the five elements proposed by Peter Senge in *The Fifth Discipline*:

1. **Build a shared vision**: Vision is the long-term goal of enterprise development. The organization should reach a consensus on the vision, ensuring that all members have a clear understanding of the company's future positioning, responsibilities, and goals.

2. **Team learning**: The wisdom of a team is greater than the average of any individual's wisdom. Through team learning, collective thinking and analysis, the organization can make correct decisions and strengthen team cohesion.

3. **Change mental models**: Organizational obstacles come from the old thinking of individual members or departmentalism. Only through team learning can this mental model be changed, enabling innovation under new models.

4. **Personal mastery**: The growth of the organization depends on each employee. Only when individuals achieve growth and transcendence can the entire organization achieve transcendence.

5. **Systems thinking**: In company management, including when employees face specific work scenarios, if they cannot think systematically, they can only form partial advantages at certain stages, not overall advantages.

**Summary:** In the past relatively stable competitive environment, a relatively simple, mechanized organization could win; but in a rapidly changing, unpredictable environment, to win, the organization must continuously transform—it must become a learning organization.

With a learning organization, it's better to cultivate excellent talent in key positions, reducing the probability of the inferior types of executives mentioned at the beginning of the article.

**04 Under a Learning Organization**
**Helping Teams Grow**

Business is diverse, and organizational members' understanding of business is also diverse. Specifically, how can we improve team combat effectiveness through a learning organization? I've summarized several common methods:

1. **Establish a mentoring mechanism**: Every position should have a direct "teacher," who can be a superior, peer, or even a subordinate. "When three people walk together, there must be one who can be my teacher." Learning from each other's strengths is the first principle of learning.

2. **Use market cases for discussion**: All our abilities and cognition are based on business development. Case study seminars based on business scenarios bring what needs to be learned in actual work into the classroom, discussing with everyone, learning through a combination of training and combat.

3. **Organize study tours**: Hearing ten times is not as good as seeing once, and seeing ten times is not as good as doing once. Going on study tours to excellent markets is one of the most efficient ways to build a learning organization.

4. **Establish a mobile learning platform**: The PepsiCo 5G New Distributor Platform, created by PepsiCo Foods in collaboration with New Distribution, is a good case. Using distributors to teach distributors, and using excellent distributor cases to replicate in weak regions, has been very effective.

5. **Job rotation system**: Establishing a job rotation system can efficiently improve the organization's comprehensive capabilities.

6. **Necessary exams**: Training without exams loses more than half its value. A learning organization must have a scientific examination system.

MIT and *Fortune* magazine pointed out that successful companies in the 1990s were those that built learning organizations. Especially FMCG companies, facing a rapidly changing market, should create learning organizations to strengthen self-hematopoiesis ability, team cohesion, and enterprise innovation.

Extended reading:
Hai You: Special contributor to New Distribution, senior researcher, practitioner of offline channel marketing, designer of enterprise channel coverage models. He has provided channel consulting for more than ten first-tier brands, gaining a good reputation.


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