Book Review The 5th Discipline by Senge

The Fifth Discipline could be a textbook for the science of management. Senge authored the book while the director of the Center for Organizational Learning at MIT's Sloan School of Management. Senge had a vision, which eventually became The Fifth Discipline. From information provided in the introduction of the 1st edition, Senge was meditating one morning in the fall of 1987 and became aware that the learning organization would likely become a new management fad. He continued on this vision and began establishing systems thinking, mental models, personal mastery, shared vision and team learning and dialogue which are the building blocks of a learning organization and are the five individual disciplines.

The Fifth Discipline coins the watchword of "learning organizations". These are organizations where people continually expand their creative capacity, developing the results they desire. A “learning organization” is a place where new and different ways of thinking are accepted and nurtured, where people are allowed to think out loud and together and where people are continually learning not only individ

"Even if we feel uncertain or ignorant, we learn to protect ourselves from the pain of appearing uncertain or ignorant. That very process blocks out any new understandings which might threaten us. The consequence is what Argyris calls 'skilled incompetence' - teams full of people who are incredibly proficient at keeping themselves from learning".

Systems Thinking is based on system dynamics; it is highly conceptual, but it provides ways of understanding practical business issues, looking at systems in terms of particular types of cycles and provides system modeling of complex issues. The discipline of systems thinking lies in changing minds to see relationships and interrelationships rather than linear cause-effect chains, and seeing processes of change rather than snapshots. The practice of systems thinking starts with understanding a simple concept called "feedback" (that’s a true communications word) that shows how actions can reinforce or counteract (balance) each other. It builds to learning to recognize types of structures that recur again and again i.e. the turf warfare between two street gangs. Systems thinking help to simplify life by helping us to see deeper patterns lying behind events and details. The Fifth Discipline is actually Systems Thinking, which encompasses all of the disciplines; personal mastery, mental models, shared vision and team learning. Personal mastery is the discipline of self-awareness and change. One must have a p

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