The Fifth Discipline

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Summary: New Perception & Generative Learning
Review: Learning disabilities caused corporations to vanish. Senge named seven organizational learning disabilities: Equating identity with a job, blaming outsiders for wrongs, reacting construed as proactive, event-orientation rather than process-thinking, the boiled frog mentality to threats, the delusion of learning from experience, and the myth of the management team.

To create generative learning, Senge suggested the Laws of the Fifth Discipline. Yesterday's "solution" could be today's problem. The harder you push, the more resistant the system would become. Things usually go better before they eventually plummet. The easy way out usually leads back in. The cure can be worse than the disease. Faster is slower. Cause and effect often located miles apart in time and space. Dividing an elephant in half does not produce two small elephants. He called for systemic thinking, blaming no one else for problems, seeing the long-term and the structural problems, and identifying the least obvious leverage points.

To build a learning organization, Senge suggested four core disciplines. They were personal mastery, mental models, shared vision, and team learning. Personal mastery included personal vision, holding creative tension, commitment to the truth, and integrating reason and intuition. Mental models incubated a new business worldview. Shared vision called for enrollment, commitment, and compliance from the team. And team learning encouraged dialogue, discussion and practice within the group.

Senge's call for systemic thinking and a new worldview is prophetic. It demands a rethinking of oneself and a new business outlook. In a world prevalent of short-term success, pragmatic results, and practical skills, Senge's approach could help organizations achieve long-term and continual health.

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Summary: La mejor obra para ver la organizacion como un todo
Review: La introducción del concepto de la vision sistemica junto con las cuatro disciplinas son un excelente aporte para la vision global de las organizaciones. Estamos llenos de problemas en las empresas por todo el tiempo, muchos años, que llevabamos mirandolas como funciones, discutiendo y peleando por los resultados individuales y no los globales. Senge hizo el milagro de darnos una herramienta para que las organizaciones si las miraramos como un organismo completo. Excelentes los arquetipos

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Summary: A must buy IF...
Review: A must buy if you wish to think at all about any organisation you work in. Senge takes readers on a journey through five levels of organisational learning, each interconnecting what motivates individuals to learn, to share knowhow with colleagues and the steps leaders must take to stop organisations getting dumber and dumber (some would say dumbing happens by default unless leaders are proactive about learning) : "Personal Mastery" which is about individual motivation and focus; Three levels, namely "Mental Models, Shared Vision and Team Learning" which progressively show how intricate teamworking intelligence needs to be to win the most organisational advantage, And the Fifth Discipline : "System Archetypes". If people in your organisation are not aware of systems archetypes, everyday decision-making is more likely to be vicious than virtuous. The company or society that recognises - and therefore knows how to avoid being tripped up by - these archetypes is likely to be an unbeatable competitor. Looked at another way select such an organisation as a most valuable partner provided your organisation can keep up with such systematic intelligence. Senge is one of the favourite works of our virtual network Organising Creativity. For further details, do contact me. Chris Macrae, editor of Brand Chartering Handbook and MELNET www.brad.ac.uk/branding/ E-mail me at [e-mail]

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Summary: This book will change the way you look at organizations.
Review: Senge has written of great truths about organizations, and how to improve them. I read this book in 1992. It changed forever the way I think about the way people should work together, and the way I think about what my role should be.

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Summary: UWM Book Analysis
Review: Most best sellers are based on some concept that they create their argument off of - Senge's concept is systems thinking. Unlike other best sellers out there, it is not just a personal journey the author has taken; Senge's book has a multitude of research and analysis behind his theories that makes the reader more willing to "buy in" to systems thinking. A little long winded but worth the read. Make sure to jump around to those chapters that appeal to you more.

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Summary: UWM Book Analysis
Review: Senge is a demigod to many people. I spent in excess of $50.00 on this book and The Fifth Discipline Fieldbook. Having read them both, I have no doubt that Senge in a smart guy. But there are some deeply problematic issues here.

Let's take a look at one of his pearls of wisdom. One of his central points is "today's solutions are tomorrow's problems." Some say that statement is powerful. But people can easily use such thinking as an excuse for inaction. A friend of mine (who never seems to accomplish anything) is always referencing this quote. If people in organizations are always worried about whether today's actions are going to cause problems, no action would be taken. The organization would constantly be spinning its wheels.

He also says that learning from experience is a "delusion." You pretty much have to believe that in order to believe this book. Much of this stuff flies in the face of what most of us have experienced.

Moreover, he insists that authoritarian leadership should be replaced with "team learning." But how can team learning exist without being enforced (by an authority figure)?

This book has good ideas- GREAT ideas. Too great for this blue ball we call the planet Earth.

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Summary: positively excellent
Review: All too often, I find myself acting cynically about my field and ready to dismiss just about anything as mediocre, no matter how popular or praised. Well, this is one book that I think is really excellent - for content, for clarity, for sincerity, for the stories reported in it.

When I plow through a business book, I try to see if I can remember the central ideas, the essence of what the author has to say from the mass of details and stories that make up every business book. Most often, they are appalingly banal and pathetically over-applied, touted as able to solve just about every problem, in particular if a fee is paid to the authors to come and talk about it in person. I was preparted to treat this book the same way, and was simply delighted to find a truly excellent and useful book. And gee, I am glad that I can get inspired by a book in my chosen field, rather than bored!

As I see it, this book has three principal ideas. First, we must think of organizations and their missions as complex systems rather than as conglomerations of isolated problems. It is pitch for the development of a holistic view - how everything interacts and what factors act upon what other factors. This is an analytical tool that can pinpoint what should be done, breaking mental habits of looking only at the bottom line of sales revenues, for example, rather than the need to provide better service or delivery times. Second, employees must be empowered to make their own decisions locally, requiring honesty and openness throughout the organization as standard practice. This enables them to question and learn, not just individually but as part of a unified team, hence the subtitle of a learning organization. Mistakes are part of this process and should be allowed as valid experiments. Third, the task of a leader is to design an organizational system within which this can all be accomplished. Rather than control all decisions in a centralized manner in accordance with a rigid plan, the leader must develop a vision of where they organization should go and then allow his employees to pursue that vision as a team with great autonomy.

I have wanted to read this book for almost ten years. It was first pointed out to me by a remarkable business leader in mainland China, Zhang Ruimin, the founder of the Haier Group, as a seminal text for him. He said that he had built a learning organization in accordance with Senge's prescriptions, and after so many years, I see that indeed he did. What this book did for me was to give me a better idea of Zhang's mind and what went on in it. But it has also given me a clearer idea of many other remarkable entrepreneurs whom I have had the pleasure and honor to meet over the years in my work. As Senge explained, these men had a vision, but used the gap that existed between their vision and current reality to inspire their workers to achieve remarkable things. And they created self-reinforcing systems to do so.

Another fascinating aspect of this book is that, in spite of being nearly 15 years old, it felt fresh and its examples did not feel stale and in need of updates. Many books that old extoll Japan as the model to emulate and explain why that country does everything better than everyone else. Just take a look at Porter's books! While this book has some examples from Japan, it does not fall into that trap - for me, that means its analyses have stood the test of time.

This is one of the best business books I ever read - and I have read way way too many of them! Warmly recommended.

Rating:
Summary: The Foggy Disciplne
Review: Its clear to me that Senge has a firm grasp of the concepts he is trying to relay and after reading the book I am clearer on the idea of systems thinking and building learning organizations. I am also planning to buy some of his other work to gain additional clarification where I still feel foggy. The style is interesting and holds your attention and you would not need a Masters in Organization & Management to use this book to improve your own management mindset or that of your organization.

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Summary: Little Value for Practitioner
Review: The Audible.com version of this book is proprietary and the conversion programs offered by the company do not work. The download process is not intuitive. The company is very slow to respond to customer inquiries and complaints.