The Fifth Discipline Fieldbook

Book excerpt: Create your own guide to mastering the disciplines of organizational learning with this invaluable guide based on the national bestseller The Fifth Discipline. “The Fieldbook is a must read for anyone serious about building communities of common purpose, collective action, and continuous learning.”—H. Thomas Johnson, author of Relevance Lost and Relevance Regained Peter Senge’s The Fifth Discipline revolutionized the practice of management by introducing the theory of learning organizations. Now Dr. Senge moves from the philosophical to the practical by answering the first question all lovers of the learning organization ask: What do they do on Monday morning? The Fieldbook is an intensely pragmatic guide. It shows how to create an organization of learners where memories are brought to life, where collaboration is the lifeblood of every endeavor, and where the tough questions are fearlessly asked. The stories here show that companies, businesses, schools, agencies, and even communities can undo their “learning issues” and achieve superior performance. If ever a work gave meaning to the phrase hands-on, this is it. Senge and his four co-authors cover it all, including: • Reinventing relationships • Being loyal to the truth • Strategies for developing personal mastery • Building a shared vision • Systems thinking in an organization • Designing a dialogue session • Strategies for team learning • Organizations as communities • Designing an organization’s governing ideas The Fieldbook is designed to be referred to in meetings, planning sessions, during reflections, or anytime a conflict or challenge arises. Open it up anywhere and icons and cross-references will lead you from defining the problem to thinking about how to solve it. Mark up the pages, write in the margins, draw, scribble, and daydream—and watch your own guide to mastering the disciplines of organizational learning evolve.