Peter Michael Senge is an American systems scientist who is a senior
lecturer at the MIT Sloan School of Management, co-faculty at the New
England Complex Systems Institute, and the founder of the Society for
Organizational Learning. He is known as the author of the book The Fifth
Discipline: The Art and Practice of the Learning Organization.
Life and career Peter Senge was born in Stanford,
California. He received a B.S. in Aerospace engineering from Stanford
University. While at Stanford, Senge also studied philosophy. He later earned
an M.S. in social systems modeling from MIT in 1972, as well as a PhD in
Management from the MIT Sloan School of Management in 1978.
He is the founding chair of the Society for Organizational Learning. This
organization helps with the communication of ideas between large
corporations. It replaced the previous organization known as the Center for
Organizational Learning at MIT. He has had a regular meditation practice
since 1996 and began meditating with a trip to Tassajara, a Zen Buddhist
monastery, before attending Stanford. He recommends meditation or similar forms
of contemplative practice. Work
An engineer by training, Peter was a protégé of John H. Hopkins and has
followed closely the works of Michael Peters and Robert Fritz and based his
books on pioneering works with the five disciplines at Ford, Chrysler, Shell,
AT&T Corporation, Hanover Insurance, and Harley-Davidson since the 70s and 80s
through today. = Organization development =
Senge emerged in the 1990s as a major figure in organizational development
with his book The Fifth Discipline where he developed the notion of a learning
organization. This views organizations as dynamical systems in a state of
continuous adaptation and improvement. In 1997, Harvard Business Review
identified The Fifth Discipline as one of the seminal management books of the
previous 75 years. For this work, he was named by Journal of Business Strategy as
the 'Strategist of the Century'. They further said that he was one of a very
few people who 'had the greatest impact on the way we conduct business today'.
Too many businesses are engaged in endless search for a heroic leader who
can inspire people to change. This effort creates grand strategies that are
never fully developed. The effort to change creates resistance that finally
overcomes the effort. Senge believes that real firms in real
markets face both opportunities and natural limits to their development.
Most efforts to change run directly into interpersonal and cultural issues
embedded in the prevailing system that resist change. No amount of expert
advice is useful. It's essential to develop reflection and inquiry skills so
that the real issues can be opened for discussion.
According to Senge, there are four challenges in initiating changes.
There must be a compelling case for change.
There must be time to change. There must be help during the change
process. As the perceived barriers to change are
removed, it is important that some new problem, not before considered important
or perhaps not even recognized, doesn't become a critical barrier.
= Learning organization and systems thinking =
According to Senge 'learning organizations' are those organizations
where people continually expand their capacity to create the results they
truly desire, where new and expansive patterns of thinking are nurtured, where
collective aspiration is set free, and where people are continually learning to
see the whole together." He argues that only those organizations that are able
to adapt quickly and effectively will be able to excel in their field or market.
In order to be a learning organization there must be two conditions present at
all times. The first is the ability to design the organization to match the
intended or desired outcomes and second, the ability to recognize when the
initial direction of the organization is different from the desired outcome and
follow the necessary steps to correct this mismatch. Organizations that are
able to do this are exemplary. Senge also believed in the theory of
systems thinking which has sometimes been referred to as the 'Cornerstone' of
the learning organization. Systems thinking focuses on how the individual
that is being studied interacts with the other constituents of the system. Rather
than focusing on the individuals within an organization it prefers to look at a
larger number of interactions within the organization and in between
organizations as a whole. Publications
Peter Senge has written several books and articles throughout his career. A
selection of his works: 1990, The Fifth Discipline: The art and
practice of the learning organization, Doubleday, New York.
1994, The Fifth Discipline Fieldbook 1999, The Dance of Change
2000, Schools that Learn: A Fifth Discipline Fieldbook for Educators,
Parents, and Everyone Who Cares about Education
2004, Presence: Human Purpose and the Field of the Future
2005, Presence: An Exploration of Profound Change in People,
'Organizations, and Society' 2008, The Necessary Revolution: How
Individuals and Organizations Are Working Together to Create a Sustainable
World See also
Organizational learning System dynamics
Systems thinking Strategy dynamics
Strategic management Organizational communication
References Notes
External links SoL, Society for Organizational Learning
- which Senge founded Systems Thinking in Action Conference,
an annual event that Senge has keynoted for the last 19 years
Leading The Necessary Revolution Moral Development in Learning
Organizations