Using Peter Senge’s five disciplines of the learning organization, describe what leadership efforts would be required in your organization to begin practicing these five disciplines, and document them both from the organization and from the literature.
Systems Thinking
Systems thinking deals with seeing ‘wholes,’ or what some would say ‘the big picture.’ It is a discipline that enables us to see interrelationships and patterns of change, as opposed to snapshots of situations. It helps us to decide cause and effect, a critical point because it is never influenced in just one direction. When managers try to implement a change, they often find themselves caught in a balancing process. They are surprised to discover resistance by staff. Managers must therefore model what it is they are advocating. In the case of discouraging staff from working long hours, managers must practice what they are preaching. As Senge states: ‘Whenever there is resistance to change, you can count on there being one or more hidden balancing processes.’
Personal Mastery
Personal mastery is the term used by Senge and his followers to describe the discipline of personal growth and learning. People who have high degrees of personal mastery are continually increasing their abilities to create the results they seek. Their never-ending quests for self-improvement and self-discovery underlie the spirit of the learning organization. Systems thinking brings out the subtler aspects of personal mastery, for example, combining reason and intuition, seeing the interconnectedness of events in the world, compassion, and commitment to the whole. To embark on a journey of personal growth means that one has made a conscious choice. It is impossible to force an individual to engage in personal growth. As Senge says, ‘It is guaranteed to backfire.’ There is a key lesson here for managers: you cannot push against a string. People must want to do change. Managers help create the environment, which includes modelling the desired behaviors.
Mental Models
Each of us carries our own sets of assumptions, views, and prejudices that affect how we interact with others. And while we often try to deny certain views or prejudices we hold, it’s difficult to maintain this stance when our actions are not consistent with our words. Chris Argyris explains: “Although people do not always behave congruently with their espoused theories (what they say), they do behave congruently with their theories-in-use (their mental models).” Our mental models strongly affect what we do because they affect what we see. As Albert Einstein put it: “Our theories determine what we measure.” To be an effective systems thinker needs the discipline of mental models. These two disciplines fit together naturally. Systems thinking concentrates on how to change assumptions to show the true causes of problems. Mental models, in contrast, look at revealing our hidden assumptions. For managers, it becomes essential that they take the time to reflect on their existing mental models until their assumptions and beliefs are brought out into the open. Until then, their mental models will not change, and it is pointless to try to engage in systems thinking.
Shared Vision
When we talk about shared vision, we do not mean an idea. Instead, we are referring to a force that is in peoples’ hearts. Senge states: “When people truly share a vision they are connected, bound together by a common aspiration. Personal visions derive their power from an individual’s deep caring for the vision.” Shared vision is an essential part of a learning organization because it gives the focus and energy for learning. The underlying force is the desire by people to create and carry out something. And the ‘bedrock,’ as Senge calls it, for developing shared visions is personal mastery. This attitude, as Senge explains, “…can be elusive to pin down because in many organizations the belief ‘We cannot create our own future’ is so threatening that it can never be acknowledged.” To be a ‘good’ manager (or leader) means that you oversee your own future. A manager (or non-manager for that matter) who openly questions the organization’s ability to carry out what it is trying is quickly labeled as being not on board or as rocking the boat. The underlying cause for this occurrence is that organizations tend to be dominated by linear thinkers instead of systems thinkers.
Team Learning
Team learning builds on the discipline of personal mastery. It is a process that encompasses aligning and developing the ability of a team to achieve the goals that its members truly want. While individual learning at one level is important, it is irrelevant at another level. Individuals may learn but the organization does not. There is no organizational learning. Teams become, therefore, the essential ingredient for learning, a ‘microcosm’ for learning as Senge calls it. For a team to grow and develop, and to be effective, it is necessary that conflict be present. This notion may no doubt surprise some people, but unless a team’s members disagree at times, the team will not learn. To think creatively, there must be the free flow of conflicting ideas.
These five methods can be used in the organization I work for in the military. The system thinking approach gives the leaders the big picture of what the top leaders visions are, and they can be easily implemented by the lower level leaders and it never influenced in just one certain direction. Personal mastery gives those leaders who are go getters and their mind is set in accomplishing the mission most of the leaders in the military this is their main object in accomplishing the mission. The mental models are defiantly a useful tool because the military is always taking risk weather is the right call or not. Everyone on the team uses the shared vision approach and they feel part of the team if they fully understand the senior leader’s intent. Once everyone on the team has master their craft and contribute their part then they can say they have met their team learning skills because everyone has come together as one.
