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The Fifth Discipline: The Art & Practice of The Learning Organization [Deckle Edge] [Paperback]

Peter M. Senge
4.2 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (107 customer reviews)

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Book Description

March 21, 2006
Completely Updated and Revised

This revised edition of Peter Senge’s bestselling classic, The Fifth Discipline, is based on fifteen years of experience in putting the book’s ideas into practice. As Senge makes clear, in the long run the only sustainable competitive advantage is your organization’s ability to learn faster than the competition. The leadership stories in the book demonstrate the many ways that the core ideas in The Fifth Discipline, many of which seemed radical when first published in 1990, have become deeply integrated into people’s ways of seeing the world and their managerial practices.

In The Fifth Discipline, Senge describes how companies can rid themselves of the learning “disabilities” that threaten their productivity and success by adopting the strategies of learning organizations—ones in which new and expansive patterns of thinking are nurtured, collective aspiration is set free, and people are continually learning how to create results they truly desire.

The updated and revised Currency edition of this business classic contains over one hundred pages of new material based on interviews with dozens of practitioners at companies like BP, Unilever, Intel, Ford, HP, Saudi Aramco, and organizations like Roca, Oxfam, and The World Bank. It features a new Foreword about the success Peter Senge has achieved with learning organizations since the book’s inception, as well as new chapters on Impetus (getting started), Strategies, Leaders’ New Work, Systems Citizens, and Frontiers for the Future.

Mastering the disciplines Senge outlines in the book will:

• Reignite the spark of genuine learning driven by people focused on what truly matters to them
• Bridge teamwork into macro-creativity
• Free you of confining assumptions and mindsets
• Teach you to see the forest and the trees
• End the struggle between work and personal time

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The Fifth Discipline: The Art & Practice of The Learning Organization + The Fifth Discipline Fieldbook: Strategies and Tools for Building a Learning Organization
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Editorial Reviews

Review

"Forget your old, tired ideas about leadership. The  most successful corporation of the 1990s will be  something called a learning organization." --  Fortune Magazine.

About the Author

PETER M. SENGE is the founding chairperson of the Society for Organizational Learning and a senior lecturer at MIT. He is the co-author of The Fifth Discipline Fieldbook, The Dance of Change, and Schools That Learn (part of the Fifth Discipline Fieldbook series) and has lectured extensively throughout the world. He lives in Cambridge, Massachusetts.

Product Details

  • Paperback: 445 pages
  • Publisher: Doubleday; Revised & Updated edition (March 21, 2006)
  • Language: English
  • ISBN-10: 0385517254
  • ISBN-13: 978-0385517256
  • Product Dimensions: 6.3 x 1 x 9 inches
  • Shipping Weight: 1.4 pounds (View shipping rates and policies)
  • Average Customer Review: 4.2 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (107 customer reviews)
  • Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #2,422 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

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Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews
119 of 120 people found the following review helpful
5.0 out of 5 stars Where can I find a learning organization? September 12, 2006
Format:Paperback
Since I read this book 15 years ago, the idea of the learning organization has embedded itself in my brain and not let go. I've been on a search to find or create the learning organization ever since. I've never been sure that it really exists in practice, so it's good to see that the revised edition adds the reflections of some successful practitioners, demonstrating that learning organizations have emerged, even if they are almost as rare as they were before the first edition of Senge's book was published.

But learning may be about to become less rare in our organizations. The 21st century brings a networked world of business -- and in this era only living, learning organizations will be able to adapt and survive. All companies will be linked in a global ecosystem. No company will know when and where the next competitor will emerge. To sustain themselves, all organizations will need to constantly innovate and learn.

Senge's book is worth having and keeping on your bookshelf because it gets to the essence of what's needed to create a learning organization. Senge describes five disciplines that must be mastered at all levels of the organization:

1. Personal mastery -- clarifying personal vision, focusing energy, and seeing reality

2. Shared vision -- transforming individual vision into shared vision

3. Mental models -- unearthing internal pictures and understanding how they shape actions

4. Team learning -- suspending judgments and creating dialogue

5.
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40 of 40 people found the following review helpful
5.0 out of 5 stars A Must-Read for Business and Life August 11, 2006
Format:Paperback
I read many business books-this is the best I've read in years, maybe ever. Now I know why so many other business books, methods and cultures leave me feeling empty. The insight in Fifth Discipline aligns with my mental models and suggests a path for achieving great things, rather than for getting promoted or making a buck.

Here's my take on a couple of the disciplines:

Systems Thinking: Believing in myths about business leads us to make the same mistakes again and again. We cannot escape these bad cycles unless we see the whole system of how problems occur and then change the structure that create the problems.

Shared Vision: Forget work-life balance. Think work-life integration. Know why the work you are doing is important to you. Transform your work and workplace to create a learning organization where everyone strives to accomplish a shared vision. That vision sounds idealistic, but it is more realistic than trying to lead two separate lives-work and home.
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83 of 97 people found the following review helpful
1.0 out of 5 stars The Sixth Discipline February 18, 2008
Format:Paperback
The Fifth Discipline contains some great concepts which are very usable in the day to day management of an organization.

Unfortunately, the author is very long-winded and over-explains concepts repeatedly - taking what should have been less than 50 pages of information and turning it into a 400 page behemoth that is difficult to slog through.

Several people to whom I have recommended this book have suggested that one order the fieldbook instead, as it contains all of the original work's raw information and models in a 17 page executive summary at the beginning. Most people seem to find that more usable than this book.
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21 of 27 people found the following review helpful
Format:Paperback|Amazon Verified Purchase
Systems thinking is vital for success in business in and life. Anyone in an organization or leadership position can observe the ripple effects across board from a seemingly simple event. Mr Senge does provide some good pointers and lessons in The Fifth Discipline to understand particular systems. Unfortunately, and most tragically, his explanations to their nature are so weak that he does a tremendous disservice to this new science. I would recommend this book only on the condition that one read Appendix 2 for the archetypes models and chapters 17 and 18.

I could write a hundred page essay on the good and bad points of this book. Instead, I will focus on the fundamental error: this is philosophical topic - which the author implicility acknowledges - without a consistent philosophy to back it up. By philosophical, I refer to epistemology, the theory of knowledge. Systems thinking is the conceptual means of observing the interrelationships among actions and phenomena. To explain this, Mr. Senge falls back on a hodgpodge of philosophies, all meshed together, each to rationalize his work. To the layman of philosophy, his work sounds complex and esoteric; to those familiar, confusing and mostly contradictory. Basically, he tries to "prove" an objective, scientific process, such as systems, using empircal data with mysticism (knowledge by a non-objective means or process). Systems are, more or less, a series of sequential logical effects initiated from a cause. Reading Senge, he portays them as some autonomous Hegelian archetype floating around, dominating people and process. The reason we do not see systems is because, according to him, western thought is "linear" (no satisfactory explanation is provided for how and why).
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Most Recent Customer Reviews
4.0 out of 5 stars Cal Poly Pomona Book Review Assignment
One of the top sources of systems thinking you'll find in a library and a must have for any manager's book collection. Read more
Published 10 days ago by TehKons
4.0 out of 5 stars good read
This book might be a little off-putting and intimidating from just the look of the book. In the beginning the reading is quiet hard to grasp on to. Read more
Published 10 days ago by ziyiz
5.0 out of 5 stars IME 415 CPP
The fifth discipline is a great book that will help companies to go to the next level. In which every individual in the said company can work together towards achieving a mutual... Read more
Published 10 days ago by renato
5.0 out of 5 stars Book Review Assignment
I'm writing this review for my Industrial Engineering Course in Cal Poly Pomona, Spring 2013.
The book is divided into 5 parts by its famous author Dr. Read more
Published 10 days ago by samantha
4.0 out of 5 stars Learning About Learning Organizations
The most competitive companies are the ones that can learn and adapt to changes the quickest. Although these learning organizations seem simple to make by gathering as many bright... Read more
Published 11 days ago by Randy
5.0 out of 5 stars Helps with the 'church governance' concept
All five disciplines seem to me vital to any human organization, from couples to civilizations. I'm trying to apply the book in a leadership role in a very liberal 'church'... Read more
Published 1 month ago by Carl L. Kruhm
5.0 out of 5 stars Eye opening!
This was the right book to read at the right time! Great framework for change. Great framework for a metanoia.
Published 2 months ago by Stephanie B. Taylor
5.0 out of 5 stars Awesome !!
This is a great book to build a strong organization to survive in the complex world. Worth to read and use it for the team development.
Published 2 months ago by keiji fujimoto
5.0 out of 5 stars Different perspective in looking at organizational structures
I have a traditional approach with my MBA. This was a refreshing "other" view that gave better answers to common situations
Published 2 months ago by BG
5.0 out of 5 stars Perfect for my needs
I really enjoy the illustrative examples that Senge uses throughout the entire text. I would highly recommend "The Fifth Discipline"
Published 2 months ago by Eugenia J. Dumas
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