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The Fifth Discipline: The Art & Practice of the Learning Organization
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Sales rank 11,844
Customers rating (based on 136 reviews)
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Finally in paperback, Senge's national bestseller The Fifth Discipline, which has turned the principles of the learning organization into a movement of snowballing size and strength. The ability to respond to change is the crucial issue of the '90s, but management tools such as "reengineering" and "total quality" simply treat the symptoms. Adopted by Ford, AT&T, and others, here is a cure for the disease Senge calls "learning disabilities."
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| Publisher | Doubleday Business | | Release date | 10/1994 | | Availability | | | Edition | Paperback |
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 Excellent Book !!!
I highly recommend this book because of the sheer number of insights that Peter Senge provides through various examples. The analogy that keeps popping to my mind is that of Srinivas Ramanujan who wrote mathematical formulas which took many mathematicians years to prove. Similarly, there are many formulas for successfully building learning organizations in this book that I think have been and will be discovered in many years to come. Definitely a ground-breaking management book.
I am planning to keep this book as reference and go through some chapters again and again as needed. I believe more and more companies will start transforming into truly learning organizations and the principles outlined in this book will be constantly referred by these learning organizations. So, when these transformations are happening I can refer back to this book to make sense or figure out the strategies of the organization that I am working for.
Senge is the Reader and That Really Makes This Interesting
Aside from content, I want to emphasize the greatness of this book due to Senge as reader. His voice sounds friendly and he has an engaging style.
Senge's approach to creating the five disciplines stems from the business theory of systems thinking. This theoretical approach is concerned with how each individual in an organization interacts with others in the organization (the greater system). The system has subsystems and to be a learning organization must incorporate the disciplines to modify the relationships as needed for the greater good of the whole.
The Fifth Discipline is filled with examples that illustrate that goodness of systems thinking approaches. Its antithesis is the silo organization, a common example in local and national governments. In the silo organization, individuals see their own best interests in building their fiefdoms in order to keep their positions. The learning organization always strives to connect individual's best interests with those of the organization as a whole, necessitating a far greater degree of cooperation and much more nuanced management.
The halcyon days when Senge's book appeared are really just a memory now. But many of his ideas have been incorporated into other author's works and these ideas live on.
I wonder if the linking of the each employee's interests to the interests of the organization as a whole is in many cases de-linked by forces of globalization. Since Senge wrote this book, health care costs have increased dramatically. It would be great to have a new edition to this book published.
 Not as good as the hype
The Fifth Discipline is a reasonably good book but very over-hyped. It starts off with a very interesting example of systems thinking (the well-known 'Beer Game'), but then peters out fast in terms of interesting and helpful examples. The book does provide a reasonable list of factors that will facilitate learning, though it is very light on practical example and application. Some material (such as avoiding groupthink and improving team communication and organizational citizenship behavior) has been extensively discussed elsewhere, and there are much better sources for this (including Janis's original Groupthink work and the subsequent research on that topic, and William Starbuck's books on learning and decision errors). The Fifth Discipline did little to add to the existing material on those topics. Perhaps the The Fifth Discipline Fieldbook (coauthored by Art Kleiner - editor of the excellent magazine "Strategy+Business") is more practical and helpful to organizations. This is a reasonably good book but was very light in practical examples and recommendations. I was very disappointed in this book after reading it.
Reviewing the Fifth Discipline by Nick
I received the book by mail and in a very good shape.
I found the book easy to be read and the subject can help who wants to improve in business administration constantly.
Interesting....
This was a good book if you are interested in the topic. Had to read some of it for school. Most of the time though I just thought it was too detailed, but I guess that is why it is a school book to give my brain a workout.
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