Five Disciplines (Senge)

Learning Organizations. Explanation of Five Disciplines of Peter Senge. ('90)

For Peter Senge (1990), change is teaming and learning is change. Thus, it is possible for organizations to learn to change because "deep down, we are all learners". In his book "The Fifth Discipline", Senge wants to destroy the illusion that the world is created out of separate, unrelated forces. When we give up this illusion, we can then build 'learning organizations', 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 free, and where people are continually learning how to learn together. Managers must learn to detect seven organizational 'learning disabilities' and use the "Five Disciplines" as antidotes to them.

The Five Disciplines of Senge

The five components in the model from Senge are:

1. Systems Thinking. The integrative (fifth) discipline that fuses the other 4 into a coherent body of theory and practice.

2. Personal Mastery. People must regard their life and their work such as an artist would regard a work of art.

3. Mental Models. Deeply ingrained assumptions or mental images that influence how we understand the world and how we take action.

4. Building Shared Vision. If there is a genuine vision, people excel and learn, not because they have to, but because they want to.

5. Team Learning. Team-members participate in true dialogue. They suspend their assumptions.

All these 5 disciplines must be employed in a never-ending quest to expand the capacity of the organization to create its future. Learning Organizations are those organizations that can go beyond survival learning, to perform generative learning: a form of learning that enhances their capacity to create.
 

Book: Peter Senge - The Fifth Discipline -

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Paradee - UK

Schools as a learning organisation

"Educational orgainsations also need to develop themselves to be learning organisations. This is mainly because of the changing in the aim of education Claxton (2002, p.46 and 2008) pointed out communities’ expectation on the purpose of education that it is for preparing young people to be able to cultivate the knowledge, skills, habits, attitudes, values and beliefs that they will need in order to get ready to experience life and ‘live happily by themselves as much as they can, without fear or insecurity’. This results in the school development and they are more likely to develop in a way that helps children learn more about themselves and develop their spiritual and emotional security in order to cope with changes and live happily and harmoniously in the society in the uncertainty and unpredictable world. Schools need to help the children to learn how to learn."

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Robert - UK

Three Levels in the 5 Disciplines

"A ‘discipline’ is viewed by Senge as a series of principles and practices that we study, master and integrate into our lives. Each of the five disciplines can be approached at three levels: 1) PRACTICES: what you do. 2) PRINCIPLES: guiding ideas and insights. 3) ESSENCES: the state of being those with high levels of mastery in the discipline."

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Samuel - UK

Senge Summary

"Senge can be summarized as follows: People should put aside their old ways of thinking (developing new mental models for the driving forces behind the organization's values and principles), learn to be open with others (personal mastery), understand how their company really works (as a living entity - systems thinking), form a plan everybody can agree on (shared vision), and then work together to achieve this vision (team learning, involving alternating processes for dialogue and discussion)."

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Samuel - UK

Why creating Learning Organizations is hard

"According to Senge, transforming organizations into learning organizations is not easy, because managers have to surrender their traditional spheres of power and control to the people who are learning. Learners should experiment and be allowed to make mistakes. Also learning organizations require trust and management involvement which are frequently absent."

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Kurt Moore - US

What skills do employees need?

"What skills or traits do employees / knowledge workers need in a Learning Organization?"

4

Kurt Moore - US

What skills do leaders need?

"What skills or traits do leaders or managers need in a Learning Organization?"

2

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Five Disciplines Education & Events

Compare with Senge's Five Disciplines:  Organizational Learning  |  Organizational Memory  |  System Dynamics  |  Theory of Mechanistic and Organic Systems  |  Fourteen Points of Management  |  Eight Attributes of Management Excellence  |  Ten Principles of Reinvention  |  Theory X Theory Y Theory Z  |  Business Process Reengineering

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