ABSTRACT
In this chapter, we explore some of the ways in which issues of health and well-being have become entwined with both individual and organizational learning. Specifically, we:
Interrogate the assumption that learning is automatically or necessarily good for us.
Introduce the metaphor of organization-as-brain, highlighting how many of the most desirable characteristics of organization (intelligence, inventiveness, connectivity, flexibility, etc.) take the brain and its capacity to learn as their implicit blueprint.
Suggest that a prioritisation of organizational learning constructs the ‘perfect employee’ as someone committed to ongoing self-development and self-reinvention.
Explore interrelations between learning and well-being, suggesting both that learning enhances well-being (learning enough to be well) and that well-being enhances learning (being well enough to learn).
Reflect on how an emphasis on learning casts the individual as an agent of his or her own employability, and hence responsible for the health benefits that continuous employment produces.
Consider the emotional costs of discourses of learning and reinvention, such as feelings of guilt, shame and a sense that one is never quite good enough.
Reflect on how individualised responsibility for both learning and well-being casts popular organizational tools, such as personal development plans (PDPs), in a different light.
