Senge, 1990, The Fifth Discipline, New York, Doubleday, 90-2991.
The Fifth Discipline could be a textbook for the science of management. Senge authored the book while the director of the Center for Organizational Learning at MIT's Sloan School of Management. Senge had a vision, which eventually became The Fifth Discipline. From information provided in the introduction of the 1st edition, Senge was meditating one morning in the fall of 1987 and became aware that the learning organization would likely become a new management fad. He continued on this vision and began establishing systems thinking, mental models, personal mastery, shared vision and team learning and dialogue which are the building blocks of a learning organization and are the five individual disciplines.
Main Idea: .
The Fifth Discipline coins the watchword of "learning organizations". These are organizations where people continually expand their creative capacity, developing the results they desire. A "learning organization" is a place where new and different ways of thinking are accepted and nurtured, where people are allowed to think out loud and together and where people are continually learning not only individually, but together. The five disciplines are systems thinking, personal mastery, mental models, shared vision and team learning. The need for learning organizations is due to organizations and businesses becoming more complex, dynamic, and globally competitive. Excelling in a dynamic business environment requires more understanding, knowledge, preparation, and agreement than one person's expertise and experience provides. Just because a business is dynamic, doesn't mean that everything happens at the snap of the fingers or overnight. It takes time! If you want to improve at anything, you need to devote time to training and learning. This is especially important in a time when many organizations try to improve profits and productivity by reducing personnel and increasing the workload of the employees.