The Fifth Discipline The Art and practice of the learning Organization by Senge P. M. (1994)

The Fifth Discipline The Art and practice of the learning Organizationby Senge P. M. (1994) Presented By Cheung Hensel Fok Philips Lee Mabel Yan Chi Yuen

Outlines • Introduction (Yan) • Building Learning Organization (Yan) • Five Disciplines of Learning Organization (Yan & Hensel) • The Fifth Discipline (Hensel) • Learning Disabilities (Mabel) • Conclusion (Philips)

Problem in Prevailing Education • Break apart problems, fragment the world into pieces • Knowledge is fragmented • Cannot see the whole picture of problem

Author’s Intention • Destroy the illusion that the world is created of separate, unrelated forces • Build up “Learning Organization” • people expand their capacity to create something they desire • nurture new and expansive patterns of thinking • has free collective aspiration • people continually learn how to learn together

Importance of Building Learning Organization • Excellent organization in the future: can tap people’s commitment and capacity to learn at all levels • Material affluence nowadays shifted people’s orientation toward work, from “instrumental” view to “sacred” view • Instrumental: a means to an end • Sacred: “intrinsic” benefits

Disciplines of Learning Organization • Discipline: • Not “enforced order” or “means of punishment” • A body of theory and technique that must be studied and mastered to be put into practice • A developmental path for acquiring certain skills or competencies • Components for the human behavior innovation learning organization (For engineering innovation learning organization: technologies)

Five Disciplines of Learning Organization • Systems Thinking • Personal Mastery • Mental Models • Building Shared Vision • Team Learning

Systems Thinking • A conceptual framework, a body of knowledge and tools • Make the patterns of an event clearer • Identify the relationship between different phenomena • cause - result

Personal Mastery • A special level of proficiency on specific skills or knowledge • Achievable by one’s commitment to lifelong learning • Clarify what our aspirations are

Mental Models • Ingrained assumptions, generalizations that influence our understanding of the world and thus our action • Examine what really happens in the world • Reflect on our misunderstanding of the world

Building Shared Vision • People voluntarily learn to pursue a genuine vision • Translate individual vision into shared vision

Team Learning • Intelligence of the team exceeds collective intelligence of the individual in the team • Teams develop extraordinary capacities for coordinated action • Individual members in the team grow more rapidly

Team Learning (con’t) • Dialogue and thinking together, suspend assumptions • Recognize interaction in teams that accelerates learning • Free-flowing of ideas through the teams and discovers insights

The Five Learning Disciplines • Not personal • How we think, how we truly want, how we interact and learn with others • Practice disciplines  To be a lifelong learner • Organizations can benefit from disciplines

The Five Learning Disciplines (con’t) • To enhance members’ capacities for innovation and creativity • To craft strategy, design policy and structure through taking into new disciplines • Whole can exceed the sum of the parts

The Fifth Discipline • Systems thinking is the fifth discipline • It integrates the disciplines, fusing them into a clear body of theory and practice • It needs other 4 disciplines to realize its potential

A Shift of Mind (Metanoia) • Learning involves a fundamental shift or movement of mind • Adaptive learning must be joined by generative learning that enhances our capacity to create.

A Shift of Mind (Metanoia) (con’t) • Through learning • Extend our capacity to create and re-create ourselves • Reperceive the world and our relationship

Seven Learning Disabilities • General Scenarios: • Companies ‘died’ because of a failure to recognize imminent threats, understand their implications or come up with alternatives • Corporations remain mediocre not able to work up to excellence

I. “I am my Position” • Most people see themselves within a ‘system’. They tend to see their responsibilities as limited to the boundaries of their positions. • e.g. an American auto maker, unlike their Japanese counterparts, used 3 bolts i/o 1 • People having little sense of responsibility for a common product

II. “The Enemy is Out There” • A Tendency for us to blame sb. or sth. for a mistake, e.g. marketing  manufacturing  engineering • A by-product of “I am my Position”, Focusing on our position without seeing the consequences of our actions. • Misperceiving these new problems as externally caused

III. The Illusion of Taking Charge • Being proactive is in fashion • Managers taking initiatives to face up to difficult issues, stop waiting passively • ‘Proactiveness’ is reactiveness in disguise • True ‘proactiveness’ is to analyze how we are responsible for the problem. It is a product of our way of thinking but not an emotional state.

IV. The Fixation of Events • Life is thought to be a series of events and for each, at least one direct cause can be identified or used to explain the event. • Such explanations distract us from seeing the longer-term patterns of change and from understanding the causes. • Ironically, primary threats to our survival come not from sudden threats but slow, gradual processes.

V. The Parable of the Boiled Frog • Maladaptation to gradually building threats to survival is common with corporate failure. • The Frog was boiled as its alertness to threats was geared to sudden changes i/o slow, gradual changes. (e.g. American automobile industry from 60’s to 80’s)

VI. The Delusion of Learning from Experience • When the consequences of our actions are beyond our learning horizon, impossible to learn from direct experience. • Most critical decisions have systemwide consequences that stretch over years. (e.g. R&D decisions, promoting people to leadership positions) • Cycles are hard to trace if over 1-2 years

VII. The Myth of the Management Team • Managers want to maintain the appearance of cohesive team, e.g. stop disagreement • Management teams function well with routine issues but not complex issues • “Skilled incompetence” – teams proficient at keeping themselves from learning

We are repeating History • Leaders not seeing the consequences of their policies. • Same learning disabilities appearing in the past and the present along with consequences. • Five disciplines of the learning organization can act as solutions to these learning disabilities.

Conclusion • Organization is built up by individuals and advanced technology brings individuals together • To increase effectiveness and efficiency, organizations must become “learningful” • Transform from “old” to “new”, difficulties and disabilities arise. Five disciplines are the solution.

Conclusion (cont.) • Author tries to • bring innovation to organization • bring concept of knowledge society into organization

Strengths and Weaknesses • Strengths • Speedup in achieving organization goal • Deliver equity concept, create a positive organizational climate • Distribution of knowledge within organization

Strengths and Weaknesses (cont.) • Weaknesses • Individuals with have their own goal which differs from organization goal • Office politics exist between different teams • “Learning Organization” means open up information. Important and sensitive information may not easily be disclosed

The Fifth Discipline The Art and practice of the learning Organization by Senge P. M. (1994)