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Mental Models describe the presumptions and

generalizations people have which influence
their actions. The first step in having people
change their Mental Models is to have people
reflect on their own behavior and beliefs. One of
the mental models in every organization is the
official hierarchy. Personal values can overcome
the shortcomings of hierarchical power. One
important Value Senge describes is openness.
One part of openness is to quit playing ´power
games´ and be open and honest about what
your real needs are.

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Personal Mastery describes the strength of
people to be proactive and keep on learning to
continuously achieve results which are
important for them. Two factors which are of
importance in this discipline are: defining what is
The title of Peter Senge´s book The Fifth important to us (1) and being able to see the
Discipline cites one of the five Disciplines to current reality as it is (2).
create a Learning Organization.

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Team learning includes two aspects. Effective
These five disciplines: teamwork leads to results which individuals
THE FIVE DISCIPLINES OF CREATING A could not have achieved on their own (1) and
1) A shared Vision LEARNING ORGANIZATION individuals within a team learn more and faster
2) Mental Models in more detail, are: than they would have without the team (2). The
3) Team Learning team members have to be willing to shift their

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4) Personal Mastery; and A Shared Vision means all employees in a mental models and be open to learn from their
5) System Thinking company share the same vision of where the colleagues.
organization needs to go (instead of a vision-

The fifth Discipline, System Thinking, is the one
discipline that binds the other four and therefore
the discipline where the focus of Change
Management should be.
The 5 disciplines will shortly be addressed, as
well as three levels of explanations, seven
learning constraints and nine system archetypes
which will help practicing Systems Thinking.
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statement where management has written
where the organization should be going).
Only when the vision is authentic and shared,
employees will automatically participate in
the improvement processes to get the
company closer to accomplishing its vision.
Senge describes a shared vision as follows:
People are not playing according to the rules
of the game, but feel responsible for the
game.
System Thinking is used to analyze patterns in
an organization by looking at it from a holistic
viewpoint rather than small unrelated
manageable parts. Senge himself describes the
elephant metaphor. When you split an elephant
in two, you do not have two small elephants
which you can take care of. You can only take
care of the one complete elephant. An
organization is like a living organism and should
according to Senge also be managed as one.

Summarized by mudamaster.com Visual Presentation by CPIM JKR Sarawak THE FIFTH DISCIPLINE - PETER SENGE - SUMMARY 1
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One way in which systems thinking is executed
is the way in which situations are explained by
employees.
Senge describes
THREE LEVELS OF EXPLAINATION:
1) a reactive explanation based on events;
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2) a responsive explanation based on behavior;
and
3) a generative explanation based on structural
level.
These three ways of explaining are linked to one
another. A System (level 3) leads to a certain
behaviors (level 2) which can lead to certain
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events (level 1). The best way to change events
is therefore to change the system, which will
lead to different behavior.
Lifelong learning is important for an organization
because learning results in creating. The more
people in an organization learn, the more value
they can create for the company.
5 an organization
Traditionally there are
SEVEN LEARNING CONSTRAINTS.
1 value
The first one is the I-am-my-position syndrome.
This syndrome is described by people talking
about what tasks they perform in an
organization instead of what value they add to
the company goal. Talking in terms of tasks only
6 they can create for
results in lack of accountability for the product
or service the company delivers.
Summarized by mudamaster.com Visual Presentation by CPIM JKR Sarawak
The second constraint for learning is the result The final constraint Senge describes is the myth
from the first syndrome and is called the enemy of the management team in which people truly
is there syndrome. When people are task- believe that management can solve all problems.
focused, they are likely to not able to see their When one thinks about it, it is obviously
own influence on the company goals and as a impossible that one manager knows everything
result point to others in organization as the root about all processes and has all capabilities
cause of all problems. needed to solve each problem.
The illusion of taking charge is the third
constraint for learning, and describes the
Learning
danger of reactive action instead of proactive
action. Proactive action is defined by people
daring to face the results of their own behavior
and the willingness to change it to prevent
problems from reoccurring in the future.
results in
The forth constraint is the fixation on events
creating.
instead of focus on small continuous
improvements. Learning and improving should
be part of everybody´s daily job and not just a
temporary one day event or a project. Projects,
by definition, are temporary and project teams
are eliminated after a certain problem is solved.
The more people in
Constraint five is the parable of the boiled frog.
A Frog held in a pan in which the water
temperature slowly increases will die as soon as
the water eventually boils, because the frog will
learn, the more
not notice the temperature increase. To prevent
this from happening to organizations in
changing environments, changes of processes
should be measured and evaluated.
The delusion of learning from experienceis
described because people seldom really know
the outcome of their actions on the long term, the company.
while we tend to believe that we can know the
long term outcome by looking at the short term
outcome.
THE FIFTH DISCIPLINE - PETER SENGE - SUMMARY 2
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As a starting point for systems thinking, Senge
describes 9 SYSTEM ARCHETYPES or behavior
patterns which deserve management’s
attention:
1 holistic
There is always a delay between the execution
of actions and the final (long-term) results.
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A pattern of limited growth is the result of
focusing on improving activities which focus on
improving growth accelerating factors instead
of reducing growth limiting factors.
3
Moving the problem instead of solving it. This
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is what happens when only symptoms of the
problem are addressed and not the root cause,
The problem can than re-occur, in the same
form but also in another department.
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Deteriorating Goals when situations get tuff.
Goals are set aside due to a crisis or because of
any other reason. This is simply not acceptable.
The vision and its goals give direction to the
company, especially in these difficult times!
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An escalation loop is a loop in which actors
influence one another with a lose-lose situation
as outcome. An example is a price-war between
supermarkets, where multiple competitors
eventually fight one another on being the
cheapest, and none of them ends up with profit
in the end. According to Senge, one should only
encourage a culture in which win-win situations
are created.
Summarized by mudamaster.com Visual Presentation by CPIM JKR Sarawak
Success to the successful is the archetype in
which resources are allocated to the most
successful activity which makes the
unsuccessful ones even more unsuccessful
because they receive fewer resources. This is
not necessarily the best policy fir the long term.
The politics to receive resources (for instance
the budgeting game) is a situation w he r e
departments make up and alter numbers to
receive more resources for their department
instead of being able to see the scope of the
entire organization and act accordingly.
Solutions which do not solve, is a situation
where short terms positive results lead to long
term losses. For instance reducing Preventative
maintenance on machines in a factory.
Growth and underinvestment, is the trap
where investing does not seem necessary
because all is well at the moment. Not investing
today, however, might lead to a lost opportunity
for growth in the future because of a lack of
skills or capacity.
THE FIFTH DISCIPLINE - PETER SENGE - SUMMARY
In the Fifth Discipline (which is Systems
Thinking) Senge encourages managers to
look at problems from a
perspective.
Stop trying to divide problems into
smaller pieces and then try to solve each
part. The metaphor Senge uses is the
example of the broken mirror. When all
small pieces of a broken mirror are glued
back together, the reflection of the mirror
will not be the same as the reflection from
the originally unbroken mirror.
Within Systems Thinking, the nine
archetypes can help to prevent common
situations from happening and focus on
improving the organization as a whole.
It is the Principle which brings
the other four principles
together: Shared Vision,
Mental Models, Team
Learning and Personal
Mastery.
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