The Fifth Discipline: The Art & Practice of the Learning Organization (Paperback)

~ (Author) "From a very early age, we are taught to break apart problems, to fragment the world..." (more)
Key Phrases: participative openness, managing mental models, eroding goals, People Express, Lover's Beer, Herman Miller (more...)

Editorial Reviews

Amazon.com Review

Peter Senge, founder of the Center for Organizational Learning at MIT's Sloan School of Management, experienced an epiphany while meditating one morning back in the fall of 1987. That was the day he first saw the possibilities of a "learning organization" that used "systems thinking" as the primary tenet of a revolutionary management philosophy. He advanced the concept into this primer, originally released in 1990, written for those interested in integrating his philosophy into their corporate culture.

The Fifth Discipline has turned many readers into true believers; it remains the ideal introduction to Senge's carefully integrated corporate framework, which is structured around "personal mastery," "mental models," "shared vision," and "team learning." Using ideas that originate in fields from science to spirituality, Senge explains why the learning organization matters, provides an unvarnished summary of his management principals, offers some basic tools for practicing it, and shows what it's like to operate under this system. The book's concepts remain stimulating and relevant as ever. --Howard Rothman

From Publishers Weekly

A director at MIT's Sloan School, Senge here proposes the "systems thinking" method to help a corporation to become a "learning organization," one that integrates at all personnel levels indifferently related company functions (sales, product design, etc.) to "expand the ability to produce." He describes requisite disciplines, of which systems-thinking is the fifth. Others include "personal mastery" of one's capacities and "team learning" through group discussion of individual objectives and problems. Employees and managers are also encouraged to examine together their often negative perceptions or "mental models" of company people and procedures. The text is esoteric and flavored with terms like "recontextualized rationality," but the book should help inventory-addled retailers whom the author cites as unaware of their customers' desire for quality. Macmillan Book Clubs selection.
Copyright 1990 Reed Business Information, Inc. --This text refers to an out of print or unavailable edition of this title.

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Product Details

• Paperback: 424 pages
• Publisher: Doubleday Business; 1st edition (October 1, 1994)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0385260954
• ISBN-13: 978-0385260954
• Product Dimensions: 9.1 x 6.4 x 1.3 inches
• Shipping Weight: 1.2 pounds
• Average Customer Review: 4.3 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (135 customer reviews)
• Amazon.com Sales Rank: #75,565 in Books (See Bestsellers in Books)

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

65 of 66 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Where can I find a learning organization?, September 12, 2006

By	Graham Lawes (Stow, MA USA) - See all my reviews (REAL NAME)

This review is from: The Fifth Discipline: The Art & Practice of The Learning Organization (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. Systems thinking -- fusing the four learning disciplines; from seeing the parts to seeing wholes

As Senge explains, the fifth discipline is particularly important because it ties the others together and helps explain the complex behavior and outcomes that happen in organizations. It illuminates the feedback loops -- the growth cycles, control cycles, and delays that drive our organizational systems. Senge's book gives us a language for understanding these systems and explaining their dramatic successes and failures.-- the virtuous cycles and death spirals that are weekly reported in the news -- and shows us a way of thinking that can help us copy patterns of victory and avoid patterns of defeat.

Learning organizations are rare because the five disciplines are hard. It's self-evident that personal mastery, shared vision, self awareness, and team learning are essential components of a great company, but to master these disciplines in a large organization requires a level of communication, relationship-building, conflict resolution, and the attendant time and commitment, than most people have the capability or willingness to invest. Even in a small team this is hard: the changes we need are at odds with conventional wisdom and conventional management. Currently, it is only the exceptional leader who is able to defy conventional wisdoms and have the personal vision to build a learning organization.

This may be about to change. Business and society are experiencing a dramatic shift. Global business and global development are transforming everything. Organizations will have to adapt or they will not survive. Only vital, living organizations will manage to sustain themselves -- and the vitality they need will not be created by accident, it will have to come from mastery of the five disciplines of the learning organization.

Senge's work is essential reading for anyone wanting to understand how to design, build, and sustain -- or even work in -- a learning organization. It may not be the only answer, and the ideas are certainly hard to put into practice, but the experiments are encouraging. There is a better way of working, and the ideas in this book will help us find it.

Graham Lawes

74 of 79 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars positively excellent, March 24, 2004

By	Robert J. Crawford (Balmette Talloires, France) - See all my reviews (TOP 500 REVIEWER)    (REAL NAME)

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.

52 of 54 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars An Intellectual Look Into Creating A World-Class Business, May 13, 2000

By	"guy-72" (Souther California) - See all my reviews

This review is from: The Fifth Discipline (Hardcover)

The Fifth Discipline stresses the importance of cultivating a learning organization. Accordingly, it is a book of learning more than of application. The content is very philosophical compared to other business-oriented books that I've read. The author, Senge, forces the reader to be alert and to be open. With that in mind, this book has a wealth of information to share with its readers. Although I would not recommend this book to the casual reader, it is a must-read for anyone who cares to be intellectually challenged from a business leadership perspective, and who wants to deepen their own knowledge-base in order to become more insightful leaders in their organization.

In chapter two, Senge wastes no time getting to the fact that most business organizations (even the "good" ones) have a real learning deficiency. Often, businesses find some way to get the job done, but have no culture that fosters real growth and accumulation of new, outside knowledge. As a result, many businesses-while growing in the areas of sales, profits, employees, etc.-nonetheless are often doomed to repeat past mistakes, and perhaps set themselves up for a much bigger fall in the future.

Senge's discussion of mental models (chapter 10) and the role they play in every person's interactions with others is of value to the manager who wonders why they are sometimes ineffective when it comes to working with certain other individuals. Our mental models often effect our outward actions towards others in negative or at least non-productive ways, and we are usually not even cognizant of that fact. The "Action Science" theory is also interesting as we try to learn how to more effectively interact with others in the organization. Towards the end of chapter 10, Senge shares some very basic ideas that, if remembered, can help individuals cultivate more fruitful working relationships within the organization.

In chapter eighteen, Senge focuses on what it takes to be a leader in a continually improving, systems-oriented organization. The leader of this type of organization must become a better "designer" of that business's capabilities. This person cannot expect his employees to perform to his expectations if the system that has been designed (within which they perform) is not capable. The leader must continually improve and redesign the overall system/organization so that organizational growth can always be a reality. "'The bad leader is he who the people despise. The good leader is he who the people praise. The great leader is he who the people say, "We did it ourselves."'" In Senge's paraphrase of Lao-tzu, we learn that people have thought about leadership criteria for thousands of years. We also can read that a great leader is one who helps design a system that enables all employees to contribute and grow.

Senge interviewed three executives whose organizations have thrived as learning, systems-oriented businesses, and included their responses in the chapter on leadership (18). Ray Stata, President and CEO of Analog Devices, Inc. notes that "the rate at which organizations learn may become the only sustainable source of competitive advantage" in the future (p349). As worldwide industries mature, and companies become global, we have every reason to believe that certain variables (employee education, technology, etc.) will be increasingly equal. If this assumption holds to be true in the future, then Ray Stata's observation is one that today's business leaders should beware. In the not too distant future, it may be only the learning organizations that survive and prosper.