The Fifth Discipline The Arts & Practice of The Learning Organization By Peter Senge

1. The Fifth Discipline The Arts & Practice of The Learning Organization By Peter Senge Presented by: Vanessa Muldrow July 20-21, 2007 HIAD 8405

2. What is it all about? “…brings the word of ‘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.”

3. LearningOrganizations • People have ability to learn • ‘Tap into people’s commitment and capacity to learn at all levels’ • Senge says that real learning gets to the heart of what it is to be human • We learn are able to recreate ourselves • Not enough to survive • Difference from traditional learning is the mastery of certain basic disciplines

4. Need for learning organizations in higher education Higher education, like most businesses of today, are multifaceted, energetic and competitive. By using the method of learning organizations, higher education will be able to provide clearer understanding, knowledge and training Adapted from: http://www.rtis.com/nat/user/jfullerton/review/learning.htm

5. “Leading the Learning Organizations” • Leaders are designers • Integrating five disciplines • Designing the governing ideas: purpose, vision and core principles • Designing organization so employees feel productive when dealing with issues • Leaders are stewards • Steward of vision • Leaders are to manage the vision for the benefit of others around them, must listen to other people’s visions and be willing to change own • Leaders see vision as something bigger • Leaders are teachers • Fostering learning

6. Five Disciplines Individual Application • Systems thinking • Personal mastery • Mental Models Group Application • Building a shared vision • Team learning

7. Systems Thinking • Cornerstone of the learning organization • Based on system dynamics and finding “leverage” • Conceptual (theoretic) • Integrates the four disciplines • “The whole is greater than the parts” • View organizations holistically • Looks at archetypes • Includes “system modeling for complex issues” • Helps us to see how to change things successfully and with less effort • Book recognizes as the discipline that fuses the others “into a coherent body of theory and practice”

8. Personal Mastery • Continuous focusing on building and deepening our personal vision • Learning to be patient • Spirit of OL • (HE) can only learn through the individuals who are learn • What really matters to us-our highest aspirations

9. Mental Models • Embedded assumptions, generalizations, photographs/images that impact how we see the world • Determine how we take action • Action is taken by working with our individual mental models and “turning the mirror inward to unearth our internal images of the world” • In order to change mental model, one must be open to the deficiency in his or her way of viewing the world

10. Shared Vision • Finding shared “pictures of the future” that advance commitment and staffing • Not compliance • Commitment to the long-term outcomes

11. Team Learning • Begins with dialogue • “Thinking together” • Points out that dialogue is different from discussion • If teams are not learning, the organization does not learn • Looking at the bigger picture that is past what the INDIVIDUAL views as his or her viewpoint

12. Learning Disabilities: Why orgs fail? • “I am my position” • “The enemy out there” • The Illusion of Taking Charge • The Fixation of Events • The Parable of the Boiled Frog • The Delusion of Learning from Experience • The Myth of the Management Team Through mastering the disciplines, organizations can overcome these disabilities

13. The Laws of the Fifth Discipline • Today’s problems come from yesterday’s “solutions” • The harder you push, the harder the system pushes back • Behavior will grow worse before it grows better • The easy way out usually leads back in • The cure can be worse than the disease • Faster is slower • Cause and effect are not closely related in time and space • Small changes can produce big results…but the areas of highest leverage are often the least obvious • You can have your cake and eat it too…but not all at once • Dividing an elephant in half does not produce two small elephants • There is no blame

14. Personal Summary • Good book • Easy read, overall • Hard to finish from cover to end • Very touchy feely • Common sense that is perhaps not common among everyone all the time