{"id":9896,"date":"2016-03-15T10:47:11","date_gmt":"2016-03-15T15:47:11","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/meganstrange.com\/?p=9896"},"modified":"2016-03-15T10:47:11","modified_gmt":"2016-03-15T15:47:11","slug":"book-review-the-fifth-discipline","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/meganstrange.com\/?p=9896","title":{"rendered":"Book Review: The Fifth Discipline"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"71zpp045YWL\"<\/a><\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

“A great teacher is someone around whom others learn. \u00a0Great teachers create space for learning and invite people into that space.<\/em>” Peter Senge, The Fifth Discipline: The Art and Practice of the Learning Organization<\/em><\/a><\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

The Fifth Discipline: The Art and Practice of the Learning Organization<\/em><\/a> by Peter Senge is an excellent read for anyone that desires to study systems thinking, vision, mastery, and learning. \u00a0This book is a great combination of sound business principles as well as a primer for those desiring to create..or build on…a culture of thinking and learning. \u00a0This is a big book, but a super easy read. \u00a0I read it in an evening because the text flows so well around the theme of creating a thinking and learning culture.<\/p>\n

I highlighted several things while reading and have posted those notes below…<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

<\/p>\n

\n
    \n
  • The organizations that will truly excel in the future will be the organizations that discover how to tap people\u2019s commitment and capacity to learn at all levels in an organization.<\/li>\n
  • An organization\u2019s commitment to and capacity for learning can be no greater than that of its members.<\/li>\n
  • When teams are truly learning, not only are they producing extraordinary results, but the individual members are growing more rapidly than could have occurred otherwise.<\/li>\n
  • The most powerful learning comes from direct experience.<\/li>\n
  • We all tend to blame someone else\u2014the competitors, the press, the changing mood of the marketplace, the government\u2014for our problems. \u00a0Systems thinking shows us that there is no separate \u201cother\u201d; that you and the someone else are part of a single system. \u00a0The cure lies in your relationship with your \u201cenemy\u201d.<\/li>\n
  • Seeing the major interrelationships underlying a problem leads to new insight into what might be done.<\/li>\n
  • Don\u2019t push growth; remove the factors limiting growth.<\/li>\n
  • People with a high level of personal mastery live in a \u00a0continual learning mode. \u00a0They never \u201carrive.\u201d<\/li>\n
  • The principle of creative tension is the central principle of personal mastery, integrating all elements of the discipline. \u00a0Yet, it is easily misunderstood. \u00a0For example, the very term \u201ctension\u201d suggests anxiety or stress. \u00a0But creative tension doesn\u2019t feel any particular way. \u00a0It is the force that comes into play at the moment when we acknowledge a vision that is at odds with current reality.<\/li>\n
  • A mistake is an event, the full benefit of which has not yet been turned to your advantage.<\/li>\n
  • The sense of connectedness and compassion characteristic of individuals with high levels of personal mastery naturally leads to a broader vision. \u00a0Without it, all the subconscious visualizing in the world is deeply self-centered\u2014simply a way to get what I want.<\/li>\n
  • At its simplest level, a shared vision is the answer to the question, \u201cWhat do we want to create?\u201d \u00a0Just as personal visions are pictures or images people carry in their heads and hearts, so too are shared visions pictures that people throughout an organization carry. \u00a0They create a sense of commonality that permeates the organization and gives coherence to diverse activities.<\/li>\n
  • A shared vision, especially one that is intrinsic, uplifts people\u2019s aspirations.<\/li>\n
  • Organizations intent on building shared visions continually encourage members to develop their personal visions.<\/li>\n
  • Vision paints the picture of what we want to create. \u00a0Systems thinking reveals how we have created what we currently have.<\/li>\n
  • There are two primary types of discourse, dialogue and discussion. \u00a0Both are important to a team capable of continual generative learning, but their power lies in their synergy, which is not likely to be present when the distinctions between them are not appreciated.<\/li>\n
  • In dialogue, people become observers of their own thinking.<\/li>\n
  • A unique relationship develops among team members who enter into dialogue regularly. \u00a0They develop a deep trust that cannot help but to carry over to discussions. \u00a0They develop a richer understand of the uniqueness of each person\u2019s point of view. \u00a0Moreover, they experience how larger understandings emerge by holding one\u2019s own point of view \u201cgently.\u201d \u00a0They learn to master the art of holding a position, rather than being \u201cheld by their positions.\u201d When it is appropriate to defend a point of view, they do it more gracefully and with less rigidity, that is without putting \u201cwinning\u201d as a first priority.<\/li>\n
  • In great teams conflict becomes productive.<\/li>\n
  • The commitment to personal growth is important\u2014and it is most important for those in positions of leadership.<\/li>\n
  • Leaders who appreciate organizations as living systems approach design work differently. They realize that they can create organizational artifacts like new metrics, or formal roles and processes, or intranet Web sites, or innovative meetings\u2014but it is what happens when people use the artifacts or processes or participate in the meetings that matters.<\/li>\n
  • A great teacher is someone around whom others learn. \u00a0Great teachers create space for learning and invite people into that space.<\/li>\n
  • \u201cThe innovations that will have the big impact will be ones that integrate complete value chains around securing long term viability for social and ecological as well as economic systems.\u201d \u00a0Darcy Winslow, NIKE<\/li>\n
  • Our interconnected world confronts all societies with a mandate to revive the capacity to talk together and live together.<\/li>\n
  • \u201cTo be a teacher is to be a prophet. \u00a0We are not preparing children for the world we have lived in but for a future that we can barely imagine.\u201d \u00a0Gordon Brown, Former dean of the MIT Engineering School and champion of systems thinking<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

      “A great teacher is someone around whom others learn. \u00a0Great teachers create space for learning and invite people into that space.” Peter Senge, The Fifth Discipline: The Art and Practice of the Learning Organization   The Fifth Discipline: The Art and Practice of the Learning Organization by Peter Senge is an excellent read for […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[14,35,25,28,17],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-9896","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-book-review","category-creative","category-education","category-integrity","category-leadership"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/meganstrange.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/9896","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/meganstrange.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/meganstrange.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/meganstrange.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/meganstrange.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=9896"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/meganstrange.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/9896\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/meganstrange.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=9896"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/meganstrange.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=9896"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/meganstrange.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=9896"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}