Senge's Five Disciplines and the Learning Organization

Introduction

As Senge (2006) points out, one of the most important aspects of managing effectively is the ability to recognize the value of intrinsic motivation. Senge (2006) notes that after writing his book The Fifth Discipline, a copy ended up in the hands of Dr. W. Edwards Deming, a world-renowned leader in the quality management revolution of the 1980s and 1990s. Deming wrote to the author to share his own perspective on the subject and noted especially that "our prevailing system of management has destroyed our people. People are born with intrinsic motivation, self-respect, dignity, curiosity to learn, joy in learning" (Senge, 2006, p. xii). This motivation is destroyed throughout the life of the person, with rewards for performance in school and in the workplace — i.e., extrinsic motivators — sapping the strength of intrinsic motivation. Today, managers try to extrinsically motivate when what they should be doing is seeking ways to enhance and strengthen the intrinsic motivation that people are born with but lose sight of along the way. Senge's (2006) The Fifth Discipline is about managers tapping into that intrinsic motivation and finding ways to unlock it.

Purpose of the Five Disciplines

The five disciplines have one main goal, according to Senge (2006): to develop three core learning competencies — (1) the ability to foster aspiration, (2) the ability to develop reflective conversation, and (3) the ability to understand complexity. Fragmentation of problems — breaking them down in order to solve them — has led to the specialization of tasks, with one group of workers trained to focus only on one specific section of one specific problem, without any awareness of what goes on in other parts of the production process. In a sense, it is the inevitable outcome of Adam Smith's (2013) Wealth of Nations example of the pin factory worker, who is tasked with one simple, non-complex job of packing pins in boxes, while another worker seals the boxes, and so on. There is no focus on aspiring for something greater; there is nothing truly human about such work at all.

This is the opposite of the concept of Buddhist economics, as proposed by Schumacher (1966). As Schumacher notes, work "should give man a chance to utilize and develop his faculties; to enable him to overcome his ego-centredness by joining with other people in a common task; and to bring forth the goods and services needed for a becoming existence" (Schumacher, 1966, p. 2). This is exactly what is missing for the worker in the pin factory — and it is exactly what the five disciplines proposed by Senge (2006) seek to encourage.

Systems Thinking

Through systems thinking, personal mastery, mental models, shared vision, and team learning, the five disciplines of a learning organization can be utilized to create the kind of performance needed by a successful business (Senge, 2006). Systems thinking — also known as the Fifth Discipline, the title concept of Senge's book — is what allows the other four disciplines to be integrated so that they can all work together to produce the desired effect. Senge (2006) gives the example of a painter: "vision without systems thinking ends up painting lovely pictures of the future with no deep understanding of the forces that must be mastered to move from here to there" (p. 12). Vision is absolutely necessary, but systems thinking allows that vision to be applied to the whole rather than to just a small piece of the process.

Systems thinking is what allows leaders to see the big picture and to work back from that macro perspective to install, at the micro level, a reflection of the vision applied at the macro. The pillars to support that vision are erected at the micro level, stacked on top of one another and integrated with the floors that provide further support and stability along the way to allow the company to achieve its vision. Sometimes such thinking calls for a totally new way of doing business and organizing the company, as occurred with Caterpillar when it completely redesigned its internal organizational processes (Neilson & Pasternack, 2005). What Senge (2006) shows is that systems thinking provides the framework for the business and reveals how the strategy to achieve goals is to be implemented.

In systems thinking, everyone matters and everyone is connected. No stakeholder can be viewed as unimportant within the system. From the most entry-level job to the most highly skilled position, every role must be performed and performed well in order for the system to operate effectively. To ensure that this level of effort is achieved, the same vision has to be communicated throughout the organization. Organizational culture is especially important in helping to promote that vision.

An organization is one that "is continually expanding its capacity to create its future" (Senge, 2006, p. 14) — an important point Senge makes: a company must be forward-looking, just as Caterpillar was when its leaders decided it needed to decentralize and undertake a major transformation to remain competitive. Even though it was already dominant in the market, its leaders recognized that the coming years would see a shift in how businesses evolved, and unless Caterpillar adapted accordingly, it would fall behind. Its leaders used systems thinking to give the organization a solid edge in reaching and maintaining their objectives.

The important point to keep in mind about systems thinking — which relates to what Senge noted when quoting W. E. Deming — is that it requires a certain capacity for intrinsic motivation. The reason is straightforward: if everything is going well in the present, the external signals all suggest a job well done. There is no external reward for looking beyond the present and examining what comes next. That drive must come from within. This is why personal mastery is so essential to the overall picture: it is the essence of intrinsic motivation.

Conclusion

The Fifth Discipline by Senge (2006) demonstrates how systems thinking, personal mastery, mental models, shared vision, and team learning all contribute to the growth of an organization. At the heart of this framework is the idea that every person must be personally motivated to want to improve and to succeed. This idea is what drives success, innovation, and a willingness to change for the better. As Senge (2006) notes early in the book, intrinsic motivation is the key to both personal development and organizational development: without it, there can be no reflection, no vision, and no learning.