Peter Senge On The Challenges Of Creating a Learning Organization

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Peter Senge on the Challenges of Creating a Learning OrganizationIn the article “Why Organizations Still Aren’t Learning,” Peter Senge discusses the challengesorganizations face in implementing the concept of a learning organization. Based onSenge'sperspective, what are the key barriers preventing companies from becoming successful learningorganizations? How do Senge’s five disciplines (systems thinking, personal mastery, mentalmodels, shared vision, and team learning) help address these challenges? In your response,critically analyze how Senge’s ideas can be applied in modern organizational settings. (Wordcount: 600-800 words)

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Peter Senge sounds off on easy answers, the cult of the CEO, and other nuisances that stand in the wayof the learning organization.It is a whole lot easier to talk about a "learning organization" than to create one. Peter M. Senge knewthat even in 1990, when he introduced the concept to the business world in his landmark book The FifthDiscipline: The Art and Practice of the Learning Organization (Doubleday/Currency). But a decade offeverish effort on the part of Senge and his many disciples has shown the task to be considerably moreformidable than he anticipated. The frustration shows in the subtitle of his latest book, The Dance ofChange: The Challenges to Sustaining Momentum in Learning Organizations (Doubleday/Currency,1999), co-authored with several colleagues.The Fifth Discipline sold 650,000 copies, a home run by business-book standards, and catapulted Senge,director of the Center for Organizational Learning at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology's SloanSchool of Management, into the first rank of management gurus. In that book, he described thesuccessful organization of the future as an "organism" with the developed capacity to continuallyenhance its capabilities and shape its own future. At its core, a learning organization is a company,association, church, school or government agency that understands itself as a complex, organic system.It has a conscious vision and purpose. It is aware of its feedback systems and alignment mechanisms,and deliberate about the way it uses them.Throughout the 1990s, the learning organization has been a particular cause celebre for trainers andorganization development specialists, and not just because "learning" is in the name. Trainers also areattracted to Senge's championship of human values in the workplace, to his view that teams are thecore performance units in organizations, and to his insistence that leadership is something that occurs atmany levels in an organization, not just in the executive suite. Indeed, he argues that line managers andeven non-managers must function as leaders in order for any meaningful and lasting organizationalchange to occur.At 51, Senge maintains his position at MIT, has a busy consulting practice, and is a member of theSociety for Organizational Learning, a research group comprising both companies and individuals. Butfor all the action and energy around the idea of the learning organization, it remains a slippery conceptto put into practice. TRAINING's senior editor Ron Zemke caught up with Senge by phone.TRAINING: What bottom-line results are you seeing that can be attributed to people putting your ideasto work in their organizations?

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