Systems Theory
Dr. Peter Senge

The Fifth Discipline
Bantom Doubleday Dell Publishing Group, Inc.
New York, New York

Dr. Senge states, "We do not learn nearly as much from discovering the answer as we do from exploring the question. The goal is to help people think more clearly and understand the problem fully."

He shares with us, five disciplines that drive a learning organization.

• Personal Mastery is the discipline of personal and professional growth. It is the origin of every significant innovation.
• Shared Vision is a picture of the future that is known, embraced and fervently pursued by the people of the organization.
• Mental Models are the sum of our experiences and cause us to view the world each in our own unique way.
• Team Learning is the ability of a group to raise its collective IQ beyond the IQ of the individual participants.
• Systems Thinking is the ability to see and understand the interrelated nature of the individual parts of an organization.

As with change facilitation and motivation, people can not be forced to engage these disciplines. Effective leaders must educate people about the disciplines and then create the conditions under which the disciplines will flourish.