Learning Organization

Five Key Disciplines for Learning Organizations

Prior to looking at the definition of a learning organization, it is important to first understand the five elements (“disciplines”) that Senge envisioned as being central to learning organizations:

• Personal mastery—continually clarifying and deepening employees’ personal vision, focusing their energies, developing patience, and seeing reality objectively
• Mental models—deeply ingrained assumptions, generalizations, or even pictures or images that influence how employees view the world and how they take action
• Building shared vision—suggests that if any one idea about leadership has inspired organizations for thousands of years, it’s the capacity to hold a shared picture of the future the organization seeks to create
• Team learning—vital because teams, not individuals, are the fundamental learning unit in modern organizations
• Systems thinking—the “Fifth Discipline” that integrates the other four disciplines: essentially, the ability to understand how a system’s constituent parts interrelate and how systems work over time and within larger systems

In addition, Senge saw the leader of the learning organization as occupying three key roles:

• 1.
  Leader as Designer: Senge likens this to being the designer of a ship rather than its captain. He defined it in three ways:

  • creating a common vision with shared values and purpose
  • determining the policies, strategies, and structures that translate guiding ideas into business decisions, and developing a culture that strategy is everyone’s business
  • creating effective learning processes which will allow for continuous improvement of the policies, strategies, and structures
• 2.
  Leader as Teacher: The leader here is seen as a coach who works with the goals and objectives present in the organization. He or she must understand the usually tacit concepts of reality and restructure these views.
• 3.
  Leader as Steward: This refers largely to the attitude of the leader. Senge emphasizes the importance of a leader who feels a part of something greater; whose desire is first and foremost not to lead, but to serve the greater purpose of building better organizations and reshaping the way businesses operate.

The creation of a learning culture and environment acts as the foundation for a learning organization. This begins with a shift to employees’ seeing themselves as integral components in the workplace, rather than as separate and unimportant cogs in a wheel. An environment that is conducive to learning, with a clearly stated outcome that inspires learners’ physical and mental engagement, and activities that precipitate critical thinking and problem solving are important training processes as well.

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