Written in five parts, the Fifth Discipline details Peter Senge's model of the "learning organization," which he defines as "an organization that is continually expanding its capacity to create its future."

The first part of his book is devoted to laying the groundwork of the argument that we are the creators of our own reality. This section also describes the Beer Game telling of how all organizations fit into the larger puzzle of organizations, as an introduction to systems thinking. Part two further details the Fifth Discipline, Systems Thinking. This Discipline as Senge feels, is the cornerstone to any successful learning organization. Part three takes each of the other four disciplines and chapter after chapter defines the relationship to the Fifth Discipline. Part four describes some useful prototypes while part five describes what lies ahead after the five disciplines are established in the learning organization.

In his introductory chapter, Senge relates the lever, or leverage points within a system, to the smallest efforts making the biggest differences. This is also where Senge introduces that five disciplines, emphasizing the fact that Systems Thinking, the fifth discipline, is the glue that holds them together.

Learning organizations are where people continually expand their capacity to create the results they truly desire. It is through this that employees determine their future. If a group works together as a group, then they will head for a shared goal or vision. It is through this collaborative effort that they will continue to strive for their vision. Whether they succeed or not isn't the point. The point is that they worked together, continually growing to reach their desired goal.

In this type of organization, they also nurture new and explorative patterns of thinking. It is sometimes taken for granted, but if we look at things from a new or different perspective, we may find what we were looking for. In an effort to do this, group desires must be set free. We must feel that we have to do whatever it takes to achieve the goal. Sometimes this means that we must change our way of thinking or even learn how to learn with each other. As a child we learn and as an adult we learn more. We are continually learning of new ideas, thoughts, or processes. It is through this collaborative learning organization that we explore, exchange and experience what it takes to get to our desired goal.

Senge feels that today and in the future the organization that will truly succeed will be the ones that discover how to tap people's commitment and capacity to learn at all levels in an organization. Learning organizations are fundamentally different from traditional and authoritarian "controlling organizations." An important set of words that Senge uses are Enrollment and Commitment. He doesn't believe in the "Buying In" of a vision. He feels that people must "Enroll" in a vision, if they truly believe in it. Some people will even become "Committed" at such a high level of their beliefs.

More often than we realize, systems cause their own problems, not external forces or individual mistakes. In human systems, structure includes how people make decisions. These decisions are likely based on our perceptions, goals, rules, and norms. The Beer Game shows how rational individuals that are part of a system acting in isolation get trapped in problems related to their own thinking and behaviors.

Structure produces behavior, and changing the structures can produce different patterns of behavior. To explain these structures is to address the underlying causes of behavior, possibly at a level that can be changed. Since structure in human systems includes our perceptions, goals, rules, and norms, redesigning our own decision making redesigns the system structure. Our world is not created of separate unrelated forces but we have difficulty seeing the whole picture. As Senge describes, "Systems thinking is a conceptual framework, a body of knowledge and tools that has been developed over the past fifty years, to make the full patterns clearer, and to help us see how to change things effectively and with the least amount of effort." This is basically about finding the leverage points in any system.

Personal mastery is the discipline of continually redefining and shaping our personal vision. It includes channeling our energies, practicing patience, and seeing reality in a whole new set of eyes. This discipline starts with clarifying the things that really matter to us, living our lives in the service of our highest aspirations. It is doing what we want to do best and then striving to do it at that level.

We have this stigma that keeps us from doing many thing that we want to do. Senge calls them Mental Models which are deeply ingrained assumptions, generalizations, or even images that influence how we understand the world and how we take action in that world. This discipline starts with turning our perspective mirror inward on ourselves. It is learning to reveal our internal pictures of the world and "bring them to the surface and hold them rigorously to scrutiny." Many times we point the finger at those that did something to us. Senge feels that we need to look at that "source of our problem" and define their view of what was happening. It is only then that we will have the true picture.

Senge feels that every learning organization will have a shared vision, or a vision that everyone is either enrolled in or committed to achieving. The practice of shared vision involves the skills of finding an organization's shared "picture of the future." This vision is one that people are compelled to strive for, for no other means than for their own and the organizations own improvement. Senge believes that if the organization is going after a vision under the guise of compliance than they are sure to fail. He also tells of setting up a vision that is shortsighted such as trying to outdo the opposition. Once this vision is accomplished, there is nothing to continue for and what good is that.

The discipline of team learning starts with "dialogue." It is through this dialogue that the members of a team suspend assumptions and enter into genuine "thinking together." Team learning is vital in organizations because teams, not individuals, are the fundamental learning unit in organizations. "Unless teams can learn, the organization cannot learn." This learning leads to growth and growth leads to achievement. Organizations that grow together will achieve at a faster and more successful rate.

At one point in his book, Senge describes The Eleven Laws of the Fifth Discipline:

1. Today's problems come from yesterday's "solutions"
2. The harder you push, the harder the system pushes back
3. Behavior grows better before it grows worse
4. The easy way out usually leads back in
5. The cure can be worse than the disease
6. Faster is slower
7. Cause and Effect are not closely related in time and space
8. Small changes can produce big results - but the areas of highest leverage are often the least obvious
9. You can have your cake and eat it too - but not at once
10. Dividing an elephant in half does not produce two small elephants
11. There is no blame

According to Senge, all of these become much more clearer once we let go of "our linear, unidirectional causation way of thinking, and adopt the systemic perspective. This systematic perspective is where relationships are not always linear, and where causality may be traced through a feedback loop back to its original source and effect it, as well as be effected by it."

The Systems Thinking viewpoint is about the long-term view. It is the examining of the expanded and non-obvious consequences of actions. The fifth discipline of systems thinking is about a new way of thinking and examining:

"Seeing interrelationships rather than linear cause-effect chains, and seeing processes of change (patterns) rather than snapshots (isolated events)."

Senge details his model of a "learning organization" as an "organization that is continually expanding its capacity to create its future." It is this theory of learning organization that has convinced me to try to employ these same ideals in my own office. I enjoyed this book thoroughly. I especially like the anecdotes of Senge. I specifically liked the view of the rubber band. I constantly keep a rubber band with me to remind me of my department's vision. It is this vision that we will strive to create, knowing full well that the tension there could make us "succumb to mediocrity." I also enjoyed the example of the tree and how we all help it to grow. I may plant the tree, but it may be another co-worker who "waters" the tree or another who "fertilizes" the tree. Together we all help the "tree" to grow.

My employees know me as an anecdotal person. I love to use analogies and little stories to relate the current atmosphere or the coming trends. Sometimes they think I'm corny, or hokey, but they get the picture a lot clearer when it's something that they understand. I try to help my department look at other reasons why things happen. I stress not to point the finger. I try to have them look at problems from all sides, even those that they've never seen before. This book made me realize that I seem to be on the right track as a Director of a Technology Department. It is the mind and spirit of myself and my co-workers that I must continue to help develop. Constant systems thinking and learning is a must in the successful learning organization as far as I am concerned.

Peter Senge

Currency Doubleday, New York in 1990

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