The Fifth Discipline the Art Practice of the Learning Organization

Peter Senge and the learning organization. Peter Senge's vision of a learning organisation as a grouping of people who are continually enhancing their capabilities to create what they want to create has been deeply influential. We discuss the 5 disciplines he sees as primal to learning organizations and some issues and questions concerning the theory and exercise of learning organizations.

contents: introduction · peter senge · the learning organisation · systems thinking – the cornerstone of the learning organisation · the core disciplines · leading the learning system · bug and problems · conclusion · further reading and references · links

Peter M. Senge (1947- ) was named a 'Strategist of the Century' by the Periodical of Business Strategy, one of 24 men and women who accept 'had the greatest bear upon on the fashion we conduct business today' (September/October 1999). While he has studied how firms and organizations develop adaptive capabilities for many years at MIT (Massachusetts Constitute of Technology), it was Peter Senge's 1990 book The Fifth Discipline that brought him firmly into the limelight and popularized the concept of the 'learning organization'. Since its publication, more than than a million copies have been sold and in 1997, Harvard Business organisation Review identified it as one of the seminal direction books of the by 75 years.

On this page we explore Peter Senge's vision of the learning organization. Nosotros will focus on the arguments in his (1990) volume The 5th Subject field every bit it is hither nosotros detect the well-nigh complete exposition of his thinking.

Peter Senge

Built-in in 1947, Peter Senge graduated in engineering from Stanford and then went on to undertake a masters on social systems modeling at MIT (Massachusetts Plant of Technology) earlier completing his PhD on Management. Said to exist a rather unassuming man, he is is a senior lecturer at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology. He is too founding chair of the Social club for Organizational Learning (SoL). His current areas of special interest focus on decentralizing the part of leadership in organizations so as to enhance the capacity of all people to work productively toward common goals.

Peter Senge describes himself every bit an 'idealistic pragmatist'. This orientation has allowed him to explore and advocate some quite 'utopian' and abstract ideas (specially around systems theory and the necessity of bringing man values to the workplace). At the same time he has been able to mediate these so that they can be worked on and applied by people in very different forms of organisation. His areas of special involvement are said to focus on decentralizing the role of leadership in organizations so as to enhance the chapters of all people to work productively toward common goals. Ane attribute of this is Senge's involvement in the Society for Organizational Learning (SoL), a Cambridge-based, not-turn a profit membership organization. Peter Senge is its chair and co-founder. SoL is office of a 'global community of corporations, researchers, and consultants' defended to discovering, integrating, and implementing 'theories and practices for the interdependent development of people and their institutions'. 1 of the interesting aspects of the Center (and linked to the theme of idealistic pragmatism) has been its ability to attract corporate sponsorship to fund airplane pilot programmes that carry within them relatively idealistic concerns.

Aside from writing The 5th Discipline: The Fine art and Practice of The Learning Organization (1990), Peter Senge has also co-authored a number of other books linked to the themes first developed in The 5th Discipline. These include The Fifth Discipline Fieldbook: Strategies and Tools for Building a Learning Organization (1994); The Dance of Modify: The Challenges to Sustaining Momentum in Learning Organizations (1999) and Schools That Larn (2000).

The learning arrangement

According to Peter Senge (1990: 3) learning organizations are:

…organizations where people continually expand their capacity to create the results they truly desire, where new and expansive patterns of thinking are nurtured, where collective aspiration is set up free, and where people are continually learning to see the whole together.

The basic rationale for such organizations is that in situations of rapid change but those that are flexible, adaptive and productive will excel. For this to happen, information technology is argued, organizations need to 'notice how to tap people'southward commitment and chapters to learn at all levels' (ibid.: iv).

While all people take the chapters to learn, the structures in which they have to function are often not conducive to reflection and engagement. Furthermore, people may lack the tools and guiding ideas to make sense of the situations they face. Organizations that are continually expanding their capacity to create their future require a primal shift of listen among their members.

When you enquire people most what information technology is like existence part of a great team, what is virtually striking is the meaningfulness of the feel. People talk about being part of something larger than themselves, of being connected, of being generative. It become quite clear that, for many, their experiences as role of truly slap-up teams stand out as singular periods of life lived to the fullest. Some spend the rest of their lives looking for ways to recapture that spirit. (Senge 1990: xiii)

For Peter Senge, real learning gets to the heart of what it is to be homo. We become able to re-create ourselves. This applies to both individuals and organizations. Thus, for a 'learning organization information technology is not enough to survive. '"Survival learning" or what is more often termed "adaptive learning" is important – indeed it is necessary. Merely for a learning organization, "adaptive learning" must exist joined by "generative learning", learning that enhances our capacity to create' (Senge 1990:14).

The dimension that distinguishes learning from more traditional organizations is the mastery of sure bones disciplines or 'component technologies'. The five that Peter Senge identifies are said to be converging to innovate learning organizations. They are:

Systems thinking

Personal mastery

Mental models

Building shared vision

Team learning

He adds to this recognition that people are agents, able to act upon the structures and systems of which they are a part. All the disciplines are, in this way, 'concerned with a shift of listen from seeing parts to seeing wholes, from seeing people every bit helpless reactors to seeing them as agile participants in shaping their reality, from reacting to the nowadays to creating the future' (Senge 1990: 69). Information technology is to the disciplines that we volition now turn.

Systems thinking – the cornerstone of the learning organization

A great virtue of Peter Senge's work is the fashion in which he puts systems theory to work. The Fifth Bailiwick provides a practiced introduction to the nuts and uses of such theory – and the style in which it tin can be brought together with other theoretical devices in social club to make sense of organizational questions and issues. Systemic thinking is the conceptual cornerstone ('The 5th Bailiwick') of his approach. Information technology is the discipline that integrates the others, fusing them into a coherent body of theory and practice (ibid.: 12). Systems theory's ability to comprehend and accost the whole, and to examine the interrelationship between the parts provides, for Peter Senge, both the incentive and the means to integrate the disciplines.

Here is not the place to get into a detailed exploration of Senge's presentation of systems theory (I accept included some links to primers below). However, it is necessary to highlight one or two elements of his argument. Start, while the basic tools of systems theory are adequately straightforward they can build into sophisticated models. Peter Senge argues that one of the key issues with much that is written about, and done in the name of management, is that rather simplistic frameworks are applied to what are complex systems. Nosotros tend to focus on the parts rather than seeing the whole, and to fail to encounter system as a dynamic procedure. Thus, the argument runs, a better appreciation of systems volition atomic number 82 to more appropriate action.

'Nosotros learn best from our feel, merely we never straight experience the consequences of many of our near important decisions', Peter Senge (1990: 23) argues with regard to organizations. Nosotros tend to think that cause and effect will be relatively about to one another. Thus when faced with a problem, it is the 'solutions' that are shut by that we focus upon. Classically we look to deportment that produce improvements in a relatively short time span. Still, when viewed in systems terms short-term improvements often involve very significant long-term costs. For example, cutting back on enquiry and blueprint tin can bring very quick toll savings, merely can severely damage the long-term viability of anorganization. Role of the problem is the nature of the feedback we receive. Some of the feedback volition exist reinforcing (or amplifying) – with small changes building on themselves. 'Any move occurs is amplified, producing more movement in the same direction. A pocket-sized action snowballs, with more than and more and withal more of the same, resembling compound interest' (Senge 1990: 81). Thus, we may cut our advertising budgets, encounter the benefits in terms of cost savings, and in plough further trim spending in this area. In the short run there may exist little impact on people'due south demands for our goods and services, merely longer term the turn down in visibility may accept astringent penalties. An appreciation of systems volition lead to recognition of the use of, and bug with, such reinforcing feedback, and also an understanding of the identify of balancing (or stabilizing) feedback. (See, besides Kurt Lewin on feedback). A further key aspect of systems is the extent to which they inevitably involve delays – 'interruptions in the flow of influence which make the consequences of an action occur gradually' (ibid.: xc). Peter Senge (1990: 92) concludes:

The systems viewpoint is generally oriented toward the long-term view. That's why delays and feedback loops are and so of import. In the short term, you tin frequently ignore them; they're inconsequential. They only come dorsum to haunt you lot in the long term.

Peter Senge advocates the use of 'systems maps' – diagrams that prove the key elements of systems and how they connect. Notwithstanding, people often have a problem 'seeing' systems, and information technology takes work to acquire the basic building blocks of systems theory, and to apply them to your organization. On the other hand, failure to understand system dynamics can lead u.s. into 'cycles of blaming and cocky-defense force: the enemy is e'er out there, and bug are always acquired past someone else' Bolam and Deal 1997: 27; see, too, Senge 1990: 231).

The core disciplines

Alongside systems thinking, there stand four other 'component technologies' or disciplines. A 'subject' is viewed by Peter Senge as a series of principles and practices that we study, primary and integrate into our lives. The five disciplines can be approached at 1 of three levels:

Practices: what y'all do.

Principles: guiding ideas and insights.

Essences: the state of being those with high levels of mastery in the discipline (Senge 1990: 373).

Each discipline provides a vital dimension. Each is necessary to the others if organizations are to 'acquire'.

Personal mastery. 'Organizations acquire only through individuals who learn. Individual learning does not guarantee organizational learning. But without it no organizational learning occurs' (Senge 1990: 139). Personal mastery is the discipline of continually clarifying and deepening our personal vision, of focusing our energies, of developing patience, and of seeing reality objectively' (ibid.: vii). It goes across competence and skills, although it involves them. It goes beyond spiritual opening, although it involves spiritual growth (ibid.: 141). Mastery is seen every bit a special kind of proficiency. It is not about dominance, but rather nearly calling. Vision is vocation rather than simply only a good thought.

People with a high level of personal mastery live in a continual learning way. They never 'go far'. Sometimes, linguistic communication, such as the term 'personal mastery' creates a misleading sense of definiteness, of black and white. But personal mastery is not something you lot possess. It is a process. It is a lifelong subject area. People with a high level of personal mastery are acutely enlightened of their ignorance, their incompetence, their growth areas. And they are deeply self-confident. Paradoxical? Only for those who practise non run across the 'journey is the advantage'. (Senge 1990: 142)

In writing such as this we can see the appeal of Peter Senge'south vision. It has deep echoes in the concerns of writers such every bit M. Scott Peck (1990) and Erich Fromm (1979). The subject area entails developing personal vision; holding artistic tension (managing the gap between our vision and reality); recognizing structural tensions and constraints, and our ain ability (or lack of it) with regard to them; a delivery to truth; and using the sub-conscious (ibid.: 147-167).

Mental models. These are 'deeply ingrained assumptions, generalizations, or even pictures and images that influence how nosotros sympathise the earth and how we take activity' (Senge 1990: 8). Equally such they resemble what Donald A Schön talked about as a professional'southward 'repertoire'. We are often non that aware of the impact of such assumptions etc. on our behaviour – and, thus, a fundamental part of our task (as Schön would put it) is to develop the ability to <href="#_the_reflective_practitioner">reflect-in- and –on-action. Peter Senge is as well influenced hither by Schön'southward collaborator on a number of projects, Chris Argyris.

The bailiwick of mental models starts with turning the mirror inward; learning to unearth our internal pictures of the globe, to bring them to the surface and concur them rigorously to scrutiny. It also includes the ability to acquit on 'learningful' conversations that residual enquiry and advocacy, where people expose their own thinking finer and brand that thinking open to the influence of others. (Senge 1990: nine)

If organizations are to develop a capacity to work with mental models then it will be necessary for people to learn new skills and develop new orientations, and for their to exist institutional changes that foster such modify. 'Entrenched mental models… thwart changes that could come from systems thinking' (ibid.: 203). Moving the system in the right direction entails working to transcend the sorts of internal politics and game playing that dominate traditional organizations. In other words it means fostering openness (Senge 1990: 273-286). It too involves seeking to distribute business responsibly far more than widely while retaining coordination and control. Learning organizations are localized organizations (ibid.: 287-301).

Building shared vision. Peter Senge starts from the position that if any one idea about leadership has inspired organizations for thousands of years, 'it's the capacity to concur a share picture of the future we seek to create' (1990: 9). Such a vision has the power to be uplifting – and to encourage experimentation and innovation. Crucially, it is argued, it can also foster a sense of the long-term, something that is fundamental to the 'fifth discipline'.

When there is a genuine vision (as opposed to the all-to-familiar 'vision argument'), people excel and larn, non because they are told to, but because they desire to. Just many leaders take personal visions that never get translated into shared visions that galvanize an organization… What has been lacking is a subject for translating vision into shared vision – not a 'cookbook' but a set of principles and guiding practices.

The exercise of shared vision involves the skills of unearthing shared 'pictures of the future' that foster 18-carat delivery and enrolment rather than compliance. In mastering this discipline, leaders learn the counter-productiveness of trying to dictate a vision, no thing how heartfelt. (Senge 1990: nine)

Visions spread because of a reinforcing process. Increased clarity, enthusiasm and delivery rub off on others in the arrangement. 'As people talk, the vision grows clearer. As information technology gets clearer, enthusiasm for its benefits grow' (ibid.: 227). There are 'limits to growth' in this respect, only developing the sorts of mental models outlined above can significantly improve matters. Where organizations can transcend linear and grasp system thinking, there is the possibility of bringing vision to fruition.

Squad learning. Such learning is viewed as 'the procedure of aligning and developing the capacities of a team to create the results its members truly want' (Senge 1990: 236). It builds on personal mastery and shared vision – but these are not enough. People need to exist able to act together. When teams acquire together, Peter Senge suggests, non just tin in that location exist good results for the organization, members will grow more than quickly than could take occurred otherwise.

The bailiwick of squad learning starts with 'dialogue', the capacity of members of a team to suspend assumptions and enter into a 18-carat 'thinking together'. To the Greeks dia-logos meant a free-flowing if meaning through a grouping, allowing the group to notice insights non attainable individually…. [It] also involves learning how to recognize the patterns of interaction in teams that undermine learning. (Senge 1990: 10)

The notion of dialogue that flows through The Fifth Discipline is very heavily dependent on the work of the physicist, David Bohm (where a group 'becomes open to the flow of a larger intelligence', and thought is approached largely as collective phenomenon). When dialogue is joined with systems thinking, Senge argues, in that location is the possibility of creating a language more suited for dealing with complication, and of focusing on deep-seated structural bug and forces rather than beingness diverted by questions of personality and leadership manner. Indeed, such is the emphasis on dialogue in his piece of work that information technology could almost be put alongside systems thinking as a central feature of his arroyo.

Leading the learning arrangement

Peter Senge argues that learning organizations require a new view of leadership. He sees the traditional view of leaders (equally special people who set up the management, make central decisions and energize the troops as deriving from a deeply individualistic and non-systemic worldview (1990: 340). At its center the traditional view of leadership, 'is based on assumptions of people's powerlessness, their lack of personal vision and inability to principal the forces of change, deficits which can be remedied merely by a few great leaders' (op. cit.). Confronting this traditional view he sets a 'new' view of leadership that centres on 'subtler and more important tasks'.

In a learning system, leaders are designers, stewards and teachers. They are responsible for edifice organizations were people continually aggrandize their capabilities to understand complexity, analyze vision, and improve shared mental models – that is they are responsible for learning…. Learning organizations volition remain a 'good thought'… until people accept a stand up for building such organizations. Taking this stand is the first leadership act, the get-go of inspiring (literally 'to breathe life into') the vision of the learning system. (Senge 1990: 340)

Many of the qualities that Peter Senge discusses with regard to leading the learning organisation tin be found in the shared leadershipmodel (discussed elsewhere on these pages). For example, what Senge approaches as inspiration, tin can be approached every bit animation. Here we will look at the three aspects of leadership that he identifies – and link his discussion with some other writers on leadership.

Leader as designer. The functions of blueprint are rarely visible, Peter Senge argues, yet no ane has a more sweeping influence than the designer (1990: 341). The organization's policies, strategies and 'systems' are key area of design, only leadership goes across this. Integrating the 5 component technologies is fundamental. However, the get-go task entails designing the governing ideas – the purpose, vision and core values past which people should alive. Building a shared vision is crucial early on as it 'fosters a long-term orientation and an imperative for learning' (ibid.: 344). Other disciplines also need to be attended to, but but how they are to be approached is dependent upon the state of affairs faced. In essence, 'the leaders' task is designing the learning processes whereby people throughout the organization can deal productively with the critical issues they confront, and develop their mastery in the learning disciplines' (ibid.: 345).

Leader every bit steward. While the notion of leader equally steward is, perhaps, near usually associated with writers such as Peter Block (1993), Peter Senge has some interesting insights on this strand. His starting point was the 'purpose stories' that the managers he interviewed told about their organization. He came to realize that the managers were doing more than telling stories, they were relating the story: 'the overarching explanation of why they do what they do, how their system needs to evolve, and how that evolution is role of something larger' (Senge 1990: 346). Such purpose stories provide a unmarried set of integrating ideas that give meaning to all aspects of the leader's work – and not unexpectedly 'the leader develops a unique relationship to his or her ain personal vision. He or she becomes a steward of the vision' (op. cit.). 1 of the important things to grasp here is that stewardship involves a commitment to, and responsibility for the vision, but it does not mean that the leader owns information technology. It is not their possession. Leaders are stewards of the vision, their task is to manage it for the benefit of others (hence the subtitle of Cake's book – 'Choosing service over self-interest'). Leaders learn to see their vision as office of something larger. Purpose stories evolve every bit they are being told, 'in fact, they are equally a result of beingness told' (Senge 1990: 351). Leaders have to larn to listen to other people's vision and to alter their own where necessary. Telling the story in this fashion allows others to be involved and to assist develop a vision that is both individual and shared.

Leader as teacher. Peter Senge starts here with Max de Pree's (1990) injunction that the first responsibility of a leader is to ascertain reality. While leaders may describe inspiration and spiritual reserves from their sense of stewardship, 'much of the leverage leaders tin actually exert lies in helping people achieve more accurate, more insightful and more empowering views of reality (Senge 1990: 353). Building on an existing 'bureaucracy of explanation' leaders, Peter Senge argues, tin influence people'due south view of reality at four levels: events, patterns of behaviour, systemic structures and the 'purpose story'. More often than not most managers and leaders tend to focus on the first 2 of these levels (and under their influence organizations do likewise). Leaders in learning organizations nourish to all iv, 'but focus predominantly on purpose and systemic structure. Moreover they "teach" people throughout the arrangement to do also' (Senge 1993: 353). This allows them to encounter 'the big picture' and to appreciate the structural forces that condition behaviour. Past attending to purpose, leaders can cultivate an understanding of what the arrangement (and its members) are seeking to become. One of the issues hither is that leaders often have strengths in one or 2 of the areas but are unable, for example, to develop systemic understanding. A key to success is existence able to conceptualize insights so that they become public knowledge, 'open to claiming and further improvement' (ibid.: 356).

"Leader as teacher" is non about "teaching" people how to accomplish their vision. It is almost fostering learning, for everyone. Such leaders help people throughout the organization develop systemic understandings. Accepting this responsibility is the antitoxin to one of the most common downfalls of otherwise gifted teachers – losing their commitment to the truth. (Senge 1990: 356)

Leaders have to create and manage creative tension – especially around the gap betwixt vision and reality. Mastery of such tension allows for a fundamental shift. It enables the leader to see the truth in changing situations.

Issues and problems

When making judgements about Peter Senge's piece of work, and the ideas he promotes, we demand to place his contribution in context. His is not meant to be a definitive addition to the 'academic' literature of organizational learning. Peter Senge writes for practicing and aspiring managers and leaders. The concern is to identify how interventions tin exist made to plough organizations into 'learning organizations'. Much of his, and similar theorists' efforts, accept been 'devoted to identifying templates, which real organizations could attempt to emulate' (Easterby-Smith and Araujo 1999: 2). In this field some of the meaning contributions accept been based effectually studies of organizational practice, others have 'relied more than on theoretical principles, such equally systems dynamics or psychological learning theory, from which implications for design and implementation take been derived' (op. cit.). Peter Senge, while making utilise of individual case studies, tends to the latter orientation.

The most appropriate question in respect of this contribution would seem to exist whether it fosters praxis– informed, committed action on the office of those information technology is aimed at? This is an especially pertinent question as Peter Senge looks to promote a more holistic vision of organizations and the lives of people within them. Hither we focus on three aspects. Nosotros showtime with the organization.

Organizational imperatives. Here the case against Peter Senge is adequately simple. We tin can observe very few organizations that come close to the combination of characteristics that he identifies with the learning organization. Within a backer organization his vision of companies and organizations turning wholehearted to the cultivation of the learning of their members can only come into fruition in a limited number of instances. While those in charge of organizations will commonly look in some manner to the long-term growth and sustainability of their enterprise, they may not focus on developing the homo resources that the organization houses. The focus may well be on enhancing brand recognition and status (Klein 2001); developing intellectual capital and knowledge (Leadbeater 2000); delivering product innovation; and ensuring that production and distribution costs are kept downward. As Will Hutton (1995: 8) has argued, British companies' priorities are overwhelmingly fiscal. What is more than, 'the targets for profit are too loftier and time horizons too short' (1995: xi). Such conditions are hardly conducive to building the sort of system that Peter Senge proposes. Hither the instance against Senge is that inside backer organizations, where the bottom line is profit, a cardinal concern with the learning and evolution of employees and associates is simply likewise idealistic.

Yet in that location are some currents running in Peter Senge'southward favour. The need to focus on knowledge generation inside an increasingly globalized economy does bring us back in some important respects to the people who have to create intellectual capital.

Productivity and competitiveness are, more often than not, a office of knowledge generation and information processing: firms and territories are organized in networks of production, management and distribution; the core economical activities are global – that is they have the chapters to work as a unit of measurement in real time, or chosen time, on a planetary calibration. (Castells 2001: 52)

A failure to attend to the learning of groups and individuals in the arrangement spells disaster in this context. As Leadbeater (2000: 70) has argued, companies need to invest not just in new mechanism to make product more efficient, only in the catamenia of know-how that will sustain their business. Organizations demand to be good at knowledge generation, appropriation and exploitation. This procedure is non that easy:

Knowledge that is visible tends to be explicit, teachable, independent, detachable, it also easy for competitors to imitate. Knowledge that is intangible, tacit, less teachable, less observable, is more than complex but more difficult to detach from the person who created it or the context in which information technology is embedded. Cognition carried by an individual only realizes its commercial potential when it is replicated past an system and becomes organizational knowledge. (ibid.: 71)

Here nosotros take a very significant force per unit area for the fostering of 'learning organizations'. The sort of know-how that Leadbeater is talking about here cannot be simply transmitted. It has to exist engaged with, talking almost and embedded in organizational structures and strategies. It has to become people's own.

A question of sophistication and disposition. One of the biggest bug with Peter Senge'south arroyo is nothing to do with the theory, information technology's rightness, nor the fashion information technology is presented. The issue hither is that the people to whom it is addressed practice not have the disposition or theoretical tools to follow it through. One clue lies in his option of 'disciplines' to describe the cadre of his approach. As nosotros saw a discipline is a series of principles and practices that nosotros study, master and integrate into our lives. In other words, the approach entails meaning endeavor on the function of the practitioner. It also entails developing quite complicated mental models, and beingness able to apply and suit these to different situations – often on the hoof. Classically, the approach involves a shift from product to process (and dorsum again). The question so becomes whether many people in organizations tin can handle this. All this has a directly parallel within formal instruction. One of the reasons that product approaches to curriculum (as exemplified in the concern for SATs tests, test performance and schoolhouse attendance) have causeless such a dominance is that alternative process approaches are much more hard to do well. They may be superior – but many teachers lack the sophistication to bear them forwards. There are also psychological and social barriers. As Lawrence Stenhouse put information technology some years ago: 'The close test of one's professional person performance is personally threatening; and the social climate in which teachers work generally offers little back up to those who might be tending to face that threat' (1975: 159). We can brand the same case for people in most organizations.

The process of exploring 1'southward operation, personality and key aims in life (and this is what Peter Senge is proposing) is a daunting task for most people. To do information technology nosotros need considerable support, and the motivation to carry the task through some very uncomfortable periods. It calls for the integration of different aspects of our lives and experiences. There is, hither, a straightforward question concerning the vision – will people want to sign upwards to it? To make sense of the sorts of experiences generated and explored in a fully operation 'learning organization' there needs to be 'spiritual growth' and the ability to locate these inside some sort of framework of commitment. Thus, as employees, nosotros are non simply asked to do our jobs and to get paid. We are also requested to join in something bigger. Many of us may merely want to earn a living!

Politics and vision. Here we need to note two key trouble areas. First, at that place is a question of how Peter Senge applies systems theory. While he introduces all sorts of broader appreciations and attends to values – his theory is not fully set in a political or moral framework. In that location is not a consideration of questions of social justice, commonwealth and exclusion. His approach largely operates at the level of organizational interests. This is would not be such a pregnant problem if there was a more explicit vision of the sort of society that he would like to run across attained, and attention to this with regard to direction and leadership. As a dissimilarity we might plow to Peter Drucker'south (1977: 36) elegant discussion of the dimensions of management. He argued that there are 3 tasks – 'equally of import but essentially different' – that face the direction of every organization. These are:

To think through and ascertain the specific purpose and mission of the establishment, whether business concern enterprise, hospital, or university.

To make work productive and the worker achieving.

To manage social impacts and social responsibilities. (op. cit.)

He continues:

None of our institutions exists by itself and equally an end in itself. Every one is an organ of society and exists for the sake of society. Business is non exception. 'Free enterprise' cannot be justified as being good for business. It can merely be justified as being practiced for society. (Drucker 1977: 40)

If Peter Senge had attempted greater connection betwixt the notion of the 'learning arrangement' and the 'learning social club', and paid attention to the political and social affect of organizational activity and then this area of criticism would be limited to the question of the particular vision of society and man flourishing involved.

Second, there is some question with regard to political processes concerning his emphasis on dialogue and shared vision. While Peter Senge clearly recognizes the political dimensions of organizational life, there is sneaking suspicion that he may desire to transcend information technology. In some means there is link here with the concerns and interests of communitarian thinkers like Amitai Etzioni (1995, 1997). As Richard Sennett (1998: 143) argues with regard to political communitarianism, information technology 'falsely emphasizes unity equally the source of strength in a community and mistakenly fears that when conflicts arise in a community, social bonds are threatened'. Within information technology (and arguably aspects of Peter Senge's vision of the learning arrangement) in that location seems, at times, to be a dislike of politics and a tendency to see danger in plurality and difference. Hither there is a tension betwixt the concern for dialogue and the interest in building a shared vision. An culling reading is that departure is adept for democratic life (and organizational life) provided that we cultivate a sense of reciprocity, and means of working that encourage deliberation. The search is not for the sort of mutual good that many communitarians seek (Guttman and Thompson 1996: 92) but rather for ways in which people may share in a mutual life. Moral disagreement will persist – the fundamental is whether we can acquire to respect and engage with each other'south ideas, behaviours and behavior.

Conclusion

John van Maurik (2001: 201) has suggested that Peter Senge has been ahead of his time and that his arguments are insightful and revolutionary. He goes on to say that it is a matter of regret 'that more organizations take not taken his advice and accept remained geared to the quick fix'. As nosotros have seen there are very deep-seated reasons why this may have been the case. Beyond this, though, there is the questions of whether Senge's vision of the learning organization and the disciplines information technology requires has contributed to more informed and committed action with regard to organizational life? Here nosotros take lilliputian concrete bear witness to go on. Withal, we can make some judgements near the possibilities of his theories and proposed practices. We could say that while in that location are some issues and issues with his conceptualization, at least it does carry inside information technology some questions around what might make for human flourishing. The emphases on building a shared vision, squad working, personal mastery and the development of more than sophisticated mental models and the way he runs the notion of dialogue through these does have the potential of allowing workplaces to exist more than convivial and artistic. The cartoon together of the elements via the 5th Discipline of systemic thinking, while non beingness to everyone'south sense of taste, as well allows usa to approach a more holistic understanding of organizational life (although Peter Senge does himself stop brusque of asking some of import questions in this respect). These are still substantial achievements – and when linked to his popularizing of the notion of the 'learning organization' – it is understandable why Peter Senge has been recognized every bit a key thinker.

Further reading and references

Block, P. (1993) Stewardship. Choosing service over self-interest, San Francisco: Berrett-Koehler. 264 + xxiv pages. Calls for a new mode of thinking near the workplace – arguing that notions of leadership and management need replacing by that of 'stewardship'. Organizations should supplant traditional direction tools of control and consistency with partnership and pick. 'Individuals who come across themselves equally stewards will choose responsibleness over entitlement and concur themselves accountable to those over whom they practise power'. There is a need to cull service over cocky-interest.

Heifetz, R. A. (1994) Leadership Without Like shooting fish in a barrel Answers, Cambridge, Mass.: Belknap Printing. 348 + xi pages. Just almost the best of the more recent books on leadership. Looks to bring back ethical questions to the centre of debates around leadership, and turns to the leader as educator. A detail emphasis on the exploration of leadership inside authority and non-authority relationships. Good on distinguishing betwixt technical and adaptive situations.

Senge, P. M. (1990) The 5th Bailiwick. The fine art and practice of the learning arrangement, London: Random Business firm. 424 + viii pages. A seminal and highly readable book in which Senge sets out the 5 'competent technologies' that build and sustain learning organizations. His accent on systems thinking every bit the fifth, and cornerstone bailiwick allows him to develop a more holistic appreciation of organisation (and the lives of people associated with them).

References

Argyris, C., & Schön, D. (1978) Organizational learning: A theory of activity perspective, Reading, Mass: Addison Wesley.

Argyris, C. and Schön, D. (1996) Organizational learning II: Theory, method and practice, Reading, Mass: Addison Wesley.

Bolman, L. G. and Deal, T. Due east. (1997) Reframing Organizations. Artistry, choice and leadership 2e, San Francisco: Jossey-Bass. 450 pages.

Castells, Yard. (2001) 'Information technology and global capitalism' in W. Hutton and A. Giddens (eds.) On the Border. Living with global capitalism, London: Vintage.

DePree, M. (1990) Leadership is an Art, New York: Dell.

Drucker, P. (1977) Direction, London: Pan.

Easterby-Smith, M. and Araujo, L. 'Electric current debates and opportunities' in M. Easterby-Smith, 50. Araujo and J. Burgoyne (eds.) Organizational Learning and the Learning Organization, London: Sage.

Edmondson, A. and Moingeon, B. (1999) 'Learning, trust and organizational change' in Yard. Easterby-Smith, 50. Araujo and J. Burgoyne (eds.) Organizational Learning and the Learning Organization, London: Sage.

Etzioni, A. (1995) The Spirit of Community. Rights responsibilities and the communitarian agenda, London: Fontana Press.

Etzioni, A. (1997) The New Aureate Rule. Community and morality in a democratic club, London: Profile Books.

Finger, M. and Make, S. B. (1999) 'The concept of the "learning organization" applied to the transformation of the public sector' in Chiliad. Easterby-Smith, L. Araujo and J. Burgoyne (eds.) Organizational Learning and the Learning Organization, London: Sage.

Fromm, E. (1979) To Have or To Be? London: Abacus.

Guttman, A. and Thompson, D. (1996) Democracy and Disagreement, Cambridge, Mass.: Belknap Press.

Hutton, W. (1995) The Land We're In, London: Jonathan Cape.

Klein, N. (2001) No Logo, London: Flamingo.

Leadbeater, C. (2000) Living on Thin Air. The new economy, London: Penguin.

Van Maurik, J. (2001) Writers on Leadership, London: Penguin.

O'Neill, J. (1995) 'On schools as learning organizations. An interview with Peter Senge' Educational Leadership, 52(7) http://www.ascd.org/readingroom/edlead/9504/oneil.html

Peck, M. S. (1990) The Road Less Travelled, London: Pointer.

Schultz, J. R. (1999) 'Peter Senge: Master of modify' Executive Update Online, http://www.gwsae.org/ExecutiveUpdate/1999/June_July/CoverStory2.htm

Senge, P. (1998) 'The Practice of Innovation', Leader to Leader nine http://pfdf.org/leaderbooks/l2l/summer98/senge.html

Senge, P. et. al. (1994) The Fifth Subject field Fieldbook: Strategies and Tools for Building a Learning Organization

Senge, P., Kleiner, A., Roberts, C., Ross, R., Roth, K. and Smith, B. (1999) The Dance of Change: The Challenges of Sustaining Momentum in Learning Organizations, New York: Doubleday/Currency).

Senge, P., Cambron-McCabe, N. Lucas, T., Smith, B., Dutton, J. and Kleiner, A. (2000) Schools That Acquire. A 5th Discipline Fieldbook for Educators, Parents, and Everyone Who Cares About Education, New York: Doubleday/Currency

Stenhouse, L. (1975) An Introduction to Curriculum Research and Development, London: Heinemann.

Sennett, R. (1998) The Corrosion of Grapheme. The personal consequences of piece of work in the new capitalism, New York: Norton.

Links

Dialogue from Peter Senge's perspective – brief, but helpful, overview by Martha Merrill

fieldbook.com – 'home to The Fifth Discipline Fieldbook Project' – includes textile on Schools that Learn and The Trip the light fantastic of Alter

Peter Senge resource – GWSAE online listing includes interview with Senge by Jane R. Schultz.

A Primer on Systems Thinking & Organizational Learning – useful set of pages put together by John Shibley @ The Portland Learning Organization Group

Resource on Peter Senge'south learning organization – useful list of resources from the Metropolitan Community College, Omaha.

sistemika – online Peter Senge resource

Gild for Organizational Learning – diverse resource relating to Senge's project.

Systems thinking – useful introductory article past Daniel Aronson on thinking.net.

Acknowledgement: Photograph of Peter Senge past Larry Lawfer (used with permission of SoL)

Bibliographic reference: Smith, M. One thousand. (2001) 'Peter Senge and the learning system', The encyclopedia of pedagogy and informal teaching. [https://infed.org/mobi/peter-senge-and-the-learning-system/. Retrieved: insert date]

© Mark K. Smith 2001

Concluding Updated on April 4, 2013 by

deasonsureed2002.blogspot.com

Source: https://infed.org/peter-senge-and-the-learning-organization/

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