Product Description

Peter Senge, founder and director of the Society for Organisational Learning and senior lecturer at MIT, has found the means of creating a 'learning organisation'. In "The Fifth Discipline", he draws the blueprints for an organisation where people expand their capacity to create the results they truly desire, where new and expansive patterns of thinking are nutured, where collective aspiration is set free, and where people are contually learning together. "The Fifth Discipline" fuses these features together into a coherent body of theory and practice, making the whole of an organisation more effective than the sum of its parts. Mastering the disciplines will: reignite the spark of learning, driven by people focused on what truly matters to them; bridge teamwork into macro-creativity; free you from confining assumptions and mind-sets; teach you to see the forest and the trees; and end the struggle between work and family time. "The Fifth Discipline" is a remarkable book that draws on science, spiritual values, psychology, the cutting edge of management thought and Senge's work with leading companies which employ Fifth Discipline methods. Reading it provides a searching personal experience and a dramatic professional shift of mind. This edition contains more than 100 pages of new material about how companies are actually using and benefiting from Fifth Discipline practices, as well as a new foreword from Peter Senge about his work with the Fifth Discipline over the last 15 years.

Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #5325 in Books
• Published on: 2006-04-06
• Original language: English
• Binding: Paperback
• 464 pages

From the Publisher
In the long run, the only sustainable source of competitive advantage is your organisation's ability to learn faster than its competitors.

From the Back Cover
Peter Senge, founder and director of the Society for Organisational Learning and senior lecturer at MIT, has found the means of creating a 'learning organisation'. In The Fifth Discipline, he draws the blueprints for an organisation where people create the results they truly desire, where collective aspiration is set free and where people are contually learning together.
The Fifth Discipline fuses these features together into a coherent body of theory and practice, making the whole of an organisation more effective than the sum of its parts.

Mastering the disciplines will:
*Reignite the spark of learning, driven by people fosucsed on what truly matters to them
*Bridge teamwork into macro-creativity
*Free you from confining assumptions and mind-sets
*Teach you to see the forest and the trees
*End the struggle between work and family time

The Fifth Discipline is a remarkable book that draws on science, spiritual values, psychology, the cutting edge of management thought and Senge's work with leading companies which employ Fifth Discipline methods. Reading it provides a searching personal experience and a dramatic professional shift of mind.

Named one of the seminal management books of the last 75 years by Harvard Business Review, The Fifth Discipline sold more than 2.5 million copies worldwide in it first edition. This second edition contains more than 100 pages of new material about how companies are actually using and benefiting from Fifth Discipline practices, as well as a new foreword from Peter Senge about his work with the Fifth Discipline over the last 15 years.

About the Author
Dr Peter Senge is the founding chairperson of the Society for Organisational Learning and a senior lecturer at MIT. He has lectured extensively throughout the world, translating the abstract ideas of system theory into tools for better understanding of economic and organisational change. The Journal of Business Strategy named Dr Senge as one of the 24 people who had the greatest influence on business strategy over the last 100 years.

Customer Reviews

Thought Leadership, and Breakthrough ideas
I found this book highly simulating but required heavy study to transfer the ideas into the working environment. I found the framework was incomplete especially around the issues of creating a learning environment. Senges' framework for Systems is best described in terms of 'systems dynamics' which leads onto a more developed theory by others on system complexity and emergence.

He describes what might be an end state without detailing how to get there, the later follow up field book on tools and methods now fills this gap neatly. Both books together are perfect.

This book sets out theory very well, it also provides Thought Leadership, Breakthrough ideas and Inspiration. Its well written and enjoyable.

Great for Introducing Systems Thinking to Business People
Thinking about how one thing affects another either comes naturally to you or it doesn't. For most people it is the latter. For these people, The Fifth Discipline is a wonderful gift.

Our emotions tell us to do one thing, and that one thing is usually not in our own best interest.

I had heard clients of mine talk about the beer game, and I was delighted to see it described in this book.

For the average reader, this book will make you expert enough in systems thinking to be much more successful with your decisions. If you feel that you would like more help in this area, please read The Fifth Discipline Fieldbook. It is a very helpful companion book that will give you practical advice for implementing what you learn in this book. Follow that up with The Dance of Change which focuses on how to sustain a learning organization.

If you have colleagues or friends who often make decisions that do not turn out well, it may be because they do not understand how to think about business as a system. Give them this book, and you will have done the person a great favor. Follow-up by discussing what they have learned, and help them with an exercise or two from the Fieldbook. You'll be glad you did.

True wisdom inside
Over 15 years and a few hundred more pages later this book remains number one on the list of management must reads.
Systems thinking remains, in my opinion the way to go and the idea of learning organizations is still valid today. What is really special here is the idea that it's all about people. Some say the concepts are a bit too "new age" and Senge acknowledges this and admits that the term "carries a lot of baggage". W Edwards Deming spoke of a new economic age which was his terminology.
Great book, will alway be near at hand for me.