The Five Disciplines

By Author: Morten L
Total Articles: 1
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Senge identifies five disciplines, that are related to how we think, what we really want, how we interact and learn together (Senge, 1999). He stresses the importance of the five disciplines developing as a whole and on this basis he introduces system thinking (the fifth discipline) as a means to integrate the other disciplines.

System Thinking: This discipline integrates all five disciplines. This discipline focuses on all disciplines and reminds us that the whole is greater than the sum of its parts. System thinking is based on the idea that we are all part of extensive systems and that everything is connected by invisible patterns. As integrated parts of the system, we may struggle to see these patterns. In system thinking, seeing the bigger picture and this extensive system, rather than focusing on the single parts, is essential.

Personal Mastery: This discipline aims to concentrate energy and define personal visions - this is important for TLO because the learning ability of an organisation is only as great as that of its members. Personal mastery is about understanding what achievements are important to an ...
... individual and when he personally masters something, at a high level, he is able to achieve the goals that matter the most to him. According to Senge, managers rarely urge their employees to develop in this way, which is why there are enormous untapped resources because once individuals are employed, they stop developing. However, the TLO theory has helped to give this problem some focus.

Mental Models: Mental models are rather profound assumptions that influence our understanding of the world. They are often unconscious, but they are significant to how we act and how we perceive different situations. Senge states that managers' mental models have to be made visible. This discipline is about working with mental models in a way that enables individuals to be critical of their own mental models.

Team Learning: This discipline is based on dialogue and focus is on participants' ability to engage in shared thinking. The aspect of dialogue is about bringing interaction patterns to the surface in the team, that undermine learning, to the surface. It is important that the team allows room for different opinions to flow freely within the team, as this creates an insight that no one could obtain on their own.

Building Shared Visions: If a shared vision links members of an organisation together around a shared identity, according to Senge, members develop and learn because they want to, not because they have to. Therefore, turning individual visions into shared visions is essential; it should not be a manual, but rather a collection of principles and practical instructions.

Culture in the Learning Organisation

In an organisation that aspires to become a learning organisation, a culture based on jealousy, on negative attitude towards other colleagues' success and on everybody keeping their knowledge a secret needs to change remarkably both internally and externally. Rather, a culture that encourages knowledge sharing should be cultivated in a way that makes knowledge sharing more prestigious instead of being the only 'expert' in a given field; a culture in which learning is considered an end goal per se. Empowerment (delegation of responsibility and competence) is an important step on the path to creating such a culture - often boosting employee motivation and job satisfaction.

Successful empowerment requires an environment of trust, confidence, curiosity and development rather than scepticism and fear of change. Creativity is also essential in order to meet the changing demands of the surrounding environment. Attitudes that hold the organisation back have to be attended to by the learning organisation through core values, coaching, confidence, feedback, unlearning, risk tolerance and exercises of creativity. This could be done through consultation with a business psychologist, workshops, team building and creation of autonomous units/teams.

Structure of the Learning Organisation

Although TLO focuses on organisational processes, the organisation also has to work with its structure. The organisational structure has to be adapted to contribute in the best possible way to the creation of a learning space and the possibility of knowledge sharing which is central to the learning organisation. If the structure of an organisation is rigidly hierarchical, knowledge sharing becomes much harder to practice, than if the organisation is made up from a number of autonomous units in an independently connected network. As organisational structure on its own does not constitute an end, but is merely a means, it can be done in many different ways.

Morten L is the author of this article on the five disciples. Find more information, about the PROBANA Business School here