The Fifth Discipline

by Peter M Senge

From the Audio Book Publisher

"Author: Peter M. Senge 
Date: 01-JAN-1994 
Narrator: Peter M. Senge 
Provider: Random House 
Audio Running Time: 4 h 17 min 

Peter Senge's groundbreaking ideas on building organizations have made him a household name among corporate managers. His theories help businesses to clarify their goals, to defy the odds, to more clearly understand threats, and to recognize new opportunities. He introduces managers to a new source of competitive advantage, and offers a marvelously empowering approach to work. 
Mastery of Senge's five disciplines enables managers to overcome their obstacles to growth and creates brave new futures for them and their companies. The five disciplines are drawn from science, spiritual wisdom, psychology, the cutting edge of management thought, and Senge's own work with top corporations that employ his methods. Listening to The Fifth Discipline provides a searching personal experience and a dramatic professional shift of mind."

Notes for Editing

The illusion is that our world is made up of separate pieces. However, the whole is somehow greater than the sum of its parts

• Continuing enhancing capacity to create what we want to create
• What makes it a Learning Organisation
• Did it start off great? No, the group learned.
• We can no longer leave this to chance
• We must develop a set of ways that lead to the LO

Rate and pace of change is accelerating

• the past practices will not be adequate for the future
• the world is becoming smaller - interdependence is becoming more relevant - global enterprises
• we used to believe we were independent
• you have 'your job' to do
• more people are now part of dynamic organisations

Our hierarchical organisations fail to tap the capabilities of their people

• do the work and not think
• check your brain at the door philosophy must change
• people learn - not systems
• the human is in the centre of the organisational equation.
• People at all levels - the most important assets
• Knowledge is embodied in the individual

Rules and procedures were created - a product of the way we thought.

• develop new ways of thinking and interacting with one another
• not only a skill set and tool set - how we think and interact
• they are challenging, matter to us, we must care deeply, take time and care
• collective intelligence is greater than individual intelligence
• we don’t understand the nature of the commitment that is needed - change ourselves and this leads to organisational change

Lovers Beer simulation, developed at MIT in the 1960s: retailer, wholesaler and brewer

Marketing

• the retailer has 12 brands of beer, there is a 4 week lag from order to delivery
• communication with the wholesaler is via the weekly order docket passed to the delivery driver
• 4 cases of Lovers Beer sold per week.
• Little or no communication between the retailer and wholesaler
• Likes to keep 12 cases of that beer in stock at any time.

Week 2 - Lovers Beer (LB) sells 8 cases rather than the usual 4

raises replenishment order to 8 cases.

• Week 3; 4 case of LB received, Sell 8, Order 12
• Week 4; Receive 5, Sell all, Order 16
• Week 5; Received 7, Sell all, Order 16
• Week 6; Received 6, Sell all, Order 16
• Week 7; Received 5, Sell all, Order 16
• Week 8, Received 5, Sell all, Order 24

Warehouse - only distributor in city for LB, 4 week turn around from order to delivery, inventory of 12 truckloads of LB and orders of 4 truckloads of LB per week.

• Week 6; Receive 4, Retailer orders 12, Orders on brewery 20 all inventory of LB is gone
• Week 8; Receive 4, Retailer orders 16, Orders on brewery 30
• Week 9; Receive 6, Retailer orders 20, Orders on brewery 30
• Week 10; Receive 8, Retailer orders 26, Orders on brewery 40
• Week 11; Receive 12, Retailer orders 28, Orders on brewery 40 (77 BO)
• Week 12; Receive __, Retailer orders __, Orders on brewery 60
• Weeks 14, 15 Orders on brewery 60
• Week 16; Receive 55, Retailer orders 0, Orders on brewery 0

Distribution and Marketing Manager - two weeks from brew order to ship, keep 1 weeks stock in the warehouse

• Week 6 orders start to rise
• Week 7 brewery stock exhausted
• Week 14 not caught up with back orders
• Week 16 caught up with orders
• Week 19 - 100 truck loads in stock and batches in brew
• Week 20 to 23 no orders for LB - 'We have a discontinuity'
• Week 24 Wholesaler 220 truckloads in stock (52 weeks of stock)
• Retailer 96 cases in stock - 6 weeks to use this stock

The demand pattern

• week 1 - 4 cases
• weeks 2 and later - 8 cases per week
• retail blames the wholesaler who blames the brewery

• In the beer game all had the best intentions, there were no villains but there was a crisis
• There was a systemic structure problem in the production and distribution system
• Multiple stage supply chain and delay and a lack of information exchanged between the stages

What happened in the beer game?

- goals, costs and fears - the key interrelationships - we are part of the structure

• cause of instability in production, decision makers and distribution systems
• 10 weeks later huge shipments arrive
• then the retailers stop ordering

The first principle of systems thinking

• we assume that someone else screwed up when things aren't working as expected.
• We tend to think that someone else is doing something wrong
• maybe something else is going wrong
• The ways that structure effects the operation
• Many re-organisations do not result in change

The Systemic structure - the underlying patterns of interdependency - how things get done

• the customer, the supplier
• the sales, the inventory
• retailer does not know the wholesalers inventory
• objective - to serve the customer and minimise costs
• do we strive to make the system work?
• All have similar information
• Structure influences behaviour

• we tend to be unaware of the interdependencies that exist
• we have a partial world view
• Our stories make it sound as if we are independent rather than interdependent
• We live in webs of interdependence
• Our reactions - we sometimes get angry or upset
• Something must be wrong - the supplier also must be trying to do his best
• We tend to blame someone else or blame self (guilt)
• For example, driving along the road - our lives are in the hands of others.

- it looks like everyone screwed up

• only the retailer knows the customer demand
• customer demand was a constant 8 cases per week
• The world is highly interdependent
• An awareness of the interdependencies
• Blame and guilt are common reactions
• Our own actions effect our own realities
• End Track 7
• Players asked to estimate the customer demand - usually say unstable demand - customers are fickle - EG summer beer boom -
• After looking at the results - customer orders flat - the players are stunned - the players generated wild fluctuations in customer orders / demand.

• independence - we can blame someone else
• interdependence - our own actions may effect our own realities - rather than someone else caused this

Children friendship patterns

• friend interactions - no immediate interactions - then friendship changed
• the action is removed from the result
• cause and effect are not close in time and space - we miss the connections and are poor at learning
• when the consequences become distant we miss the connections
• systems may be complex - action, delay, consequence (not immediate)
• we build our mental models
• our actions might make good sense and have disastrous results in the long term.
• EG depletion of the ozone layer - doing our best might be causing the problems.
• The problems might occur because of our best efforts -the outcomes are not what we want
• Maybe doing our best is causing the problems

• we have met the enemy - and they is us
• occasionally a team does much better in the Beer Game
• perception of interdependence - how the team reacts to the breakdown. EG I'm ordering more beer and receiving less beer
• to create what we really want, we need to be more perceptive
• When a breakdown occurs - the successful teams place less orders - work with the wholesaler and the brewer to make the system work better. The retailer and wholesaler placing more orders - makes the outcome worse.
• EG adjusting the shower when there is a long pipe between the faucet and the output - eg a slow response - and identifying the slowness of the response
• A shift in awareness - discover the analogies - there may be a delay (in the system) - awareness of the interdependencies
• the key leverage point is patience - take two ASA tablets and wait
• How we think and recognise the systems - discover the system we are in - we are part of the system - begin to see the interdependencies. The key leverage point is patience
• We work hard and produce undesirable outcomes. Once we are caught in a system that we don't recognise we feel victimised. We are working hard and are producing undesired results.

• I am my position - and our actions effect other positions.
• But the positions interact
• Did someone screw up?
• Proactive or Reactive - taking charge - or reacting to the situation
• Proactive - seeing how we contribute to our problems - seeing the whole picture
• Not seeing the consequences of our actions until it is too late.
• Use the opportunity to learn from the experience - we never experience the consequences of many of our decisions.

1. Reactive stance - events- who did what to whom
2. Patterns of behaviour - begins to break
3. The structural level - what causes the patterns of behaviour (patterns of instabilities) -

• Structure - behaviour - can change the pattern of behaviour - built in delays
• Must be able to see the big picture - Systems Thinking - patterns of behaviour can be changed

- Develop a discipline for seeing "wholes" - a framework for interdependencies

Look for patterns of change rather than snapshots

Specific tools and techniques – structures for System Thinking - principles plus tools and techniques

• Feedback concepts
• servo engineering (delay, accelerating force, retarding force)

Purpose – to make the full system clearer, recognise patterns - to be aware or the subtle interconnections, to identify the patterns and to build an organisation to learn systems thinking

• continually clarifying and deepening our personal vision, focusing our energies
• seeing reality objectively and focusing our energies

• translate individual visions into collective visions
• what would the people really like to do or create

• learning to unearth our internal pictures of the world in order to see how they shape our actions

• starts with dialogue - suspending our assumptions - thinking together
• discussion – defends of promotes a view - conversations

• weaves together the first four disciplines, fuses the other four disciplines into a coherent …
• how learning organisations interact with their world
• age of interdependence, active participants

• Seeing the structures
• Seeing Wholes and creating the future
• The cornerstones of how organisations think about their world
• Real leverage requires understanding of dynamic complexity. It requires a shift of mindset, processes of change rather than static view, look for feedback and delay.

• Detail complexity - many variables - strategic plans
• Distinguishing high level from low level change
• Dynamic complexity - Cause and effect are often subtle, and is effective over time

• leverage understanding in dynamic complexity
• a process of change - not a process itself

• How actions reinforce or counteract others
• Patterns of change - behind the events and details
• Everybody shares responsibility for the problems that a systems generates - there are no scapegoats

• we have latent skills in this although it is often formally repressed
• Circles of Causality - we see straight lines - this is a limitation
• Our language is based on linearity - subject, verb object
• We need a language of inter relationship - otherwise we see fragmented views
• EG filling a glass of water
• Linear - I am filling a glass of water - one way causality, describes only half of the process
• Systems thinking - water regulation system - desired water level, current water level, difference, rate of flow, faucet position
• Feedback - any reciprocal flow of influence - usually influence in both directions.
• Circles of influence, patterns that repeat themselves.
• The circle diagram - the desired water level
• The current water level, the desired water level, the difference, the faucet handle position.

My intent to fill a glass of water create a system that causes me to turn off the tap when the water level reaches the desired water level. See the structure not just the actions

Imagine the multiple feedback processes in an business organisation.

Dealing with dynamic complexity - every influence is both cause and effect -it requires systems thinking

Reinforcing feedback and balancing feedback.

Balancing feedback - goal oriented - eg drive a car at 100 kph

Delays - interruption in the influence

Everyone shares the responsibility, scape goats serve no purpose

EG The extent to which intentions reinforce the outcome

The self fulfilling prophecy

A small action snowballs - like compound interest

Vicious cycles - eg the fuel shortage crisis - panic and hoarding sets in. Arms race, Price Wars, the arms race, band wagon, business momentum

Virtuous Cycles - eg exercise, feel better, exercise more, sale of VW Beetles, the rich get richer

Reinforcing spirals - the rats are jumping ship. - eroding confidence, the effect of word of mouth

Good news and bad news reinforcing loops - the Lilly pads in the pond - doubles, fills the pond in 30 days. Environmental dangers follow this pattern, gradual decline then rapid demise.

Reinforcing processes rarely occur in isolation - with out limits - Balancing Feedback

System seeking stability - the system is seeking a goal

Human decisions often act against the balancing forces of nature - EG budgets and the amount of work that is required to be performed

The system has its own implicit goal. A self correction process.

Homeostasis - of the human body - eat when we need food, rest, etc in a changing environments

Organisations have many balancing processes

Planning creates longer term balancing processes - EG short term discounts

R&D plans for product development, people and capital

Goals are often implicit and unrecognised. The unwritten norms

We must understand the explicit and implicit balancing processes.

Balancing loops are more difficult to see - it looks like nothing is happening.

Whenever there is "resistance to change" there is a balancing loop in operation - and it might be hidden.

The norm is entrenched. Don't push harder - focus on the implicit or entrenched norms

Interruptions between action(s) and result(s)

High leverage through minimising delays - eg in the production process.

The effect of one variable on another takes time. The delays might be unrecognised or poorly understood. EG start construction, complete construction. Over ordering in the beer game.

Aggressive actions produces oscillation. Japanese concentrated on eliminating delays to improve production output - rather than concentrate on inventory control

Delays can be ignored in the short term, but they come back to haunt you

Master the language of systems thinking and the other 4 disciplines.

Seeing and acting systemically.

Organisational Learning

Personal mastery - expand ability to create the results you seek

The spirit of the LO

Spiritual and secular traditions

Vast untapped resources - staff do what matters personally on the weekend.

Hierarchical organisation do not provide for peoples higher needs.

one's life as a creative work. Living life from creative rather than reactive viewpoint

• A hierarchy system is not designed to satisfy the worker's higher order values
• continually clarifying what is important to us - personal growth and learning
• continually learning how to see current reality more clearly
• we must know where we are now
• Mastery - a special level of proficiency.
• Personal and Professional mastery (level of proficiency)
• Special sense of purpose behind the goals - vision is a calling - current reality is an ally - work with change - inquisitive committed to seeing reality more accurately, connected to others, part of a large creative process that they can influence
• Live in a continual learning mode, a life long discipline, self aware and self confident
• The Journey is the reward
• Personal mastery - a discipline, a series of principles and practices
• Master artist through continual practice.
• Start of Disk 2 Track 5

• The importance of vision. A new idea 10 years ago.
• The domain of vision - the necessary starting point - people create visions.
• Visions are now part of the business jargon
• Committees do not create visions - people create visions
• Where there is no vision, the people perish.
• Quality of our lives is related to our goals
• Edward Demming - the Quality Management revolution - when we destroy peoples' capacity to orient themselves around a vision…a part of us dies
• Vision - what do I truly want, what really matters to me.
• Our desires are often conflicting (track 0205 end)
• Personal vision - then organisational vision - what we want for its own sake.
• A vision does not always have a personal benefit to the vision holder
• Focus on realistic goals - look in domains of your life where you focus on a goal, because you care about it. EG being a parent - a life long process - life in its fullness - we deeply care.
• Irony of no vision - the best we get is the absence of problems
• What is it that I truly want, what is it that I deeply care about.
• Harmony comes from diversity
• Personal Mastery starts with personal visions. - what is it that I truly want to create in my life. We truly want the vision - for its own sake - because you care enough about it.

• the inner state of the artist - when the artist sees the vision - the result we are seeking t create
• look into domains in your life where you operate with a vision - your energies naturally flow to it
• EG the domain of being a parent - a life long process - life in its fullness and richness
• the capacity to articulate a vision - objectively assess the current state of or work
• End 5D0206
• Artist work in the creative orientation. The artist deeply cares. Parents deeply care.
• A tread mill of problem solving - and with vision, we deeply care.
• Visions come from pondering - what is it that I truly want.
• Dynamic of Vision - the inner state of the artist. - to conceive of and see the end result
• A capacity to see current reality objectively (not as we wish it would be.
• Vision + seeing current reality -> creative tension (not stress which is emotional tension)
• Distinguish between creative tension and emotional tension. Creative tension simply 'is' - when we tell ourselves the truth about current reality and the vision.
• Vision ß --à current reality
• Reality moving in the direction of the vision - creative tension is resolved
• Alternatively lower the vision - the dynamics of compromise
• Pervasive mediocrity when we lower our vision and dreams
• We spend most time focusing on emotional tension.
• We usually take action to reduce the emotional tension - which of the vision and current reality can I change? Do we have the emotional maturity to live with the emotional tension? Our emotions are often a poor standard for making decisions.
• We must learn to live with the emotional tension - another facet of current reality.
• The larger principle is creative tension.
• Current reality - how things are and how we feel about them.
• Timeless elements of human understanding
• Vision
• Commitment to the truth
• …and the truth shall set you free - acknowledges creative tension
• Dickens - A Christmas Carol - Scrooge, the opportunity to change, that which was, Christmas Past, ghost of Christmas present, ghost of Christmas future - was, is, will be. What is - Scrooge can make a choice
• Things are the way they are - what do we truly want
• Personal Mastery not easy to implement in organisations
• Personal vision is a personal choice - can't be mandated - people feel manipulated if the org insists on a Personal Vision / Personal Mastery (assumes freedom of choice)
• Commit yourself to your own practice. See reality objectively. Adopt your own (desired) practices.
• Movie "Spartacus" - I am Spartacus - the loyalty to a shared vision that Spartacus had inspired.
• Personal vision leads to shared vision. The shared vision "exists"
• What do we want to create - pictures that we carry in our hearts - deep common caring
• Is vital for the learning organisation
• Expanding your ability to create seems abstract and meaningless until the stared vision is present
• Focuses the vision of thousands of employees, can be extrinsic
• Intrinsic vision - internal standards of excellence - eg be the best in your field
• Personal mastery a foundation, hold the creative tension - create the future
• Be the best in your field - for those who can hold the creative tension
• Can start at the top of the org or in the middle. EG in DEC the networked org.
• DECs end result - tie the org together electronically - interconnected
• Shared the vision with colleagues - it was not possible at the time - but it was not yet technologically possible at that time. They knew about 15% of what they needed to know. Date would be a resource like capital and people. Networking would tie it together. How can we make it happen - it must be your vision - get enrolled. Wiring up the corporation, watching the vision build. The idea started to take hold - network , data, applications, office automation, facilities management
• Today over 43000 computers inter connected. The networked corporation now a pioneer in the networked org.
• Visions genuinely shared require ongoing conversations
• New insights emerge, by-products of interactions
• Listening often more difficult than talking - entertain a diversity of ideas
• Multiple visions coexist, they require openness
• How does a vision spread, how do you enrol, how do you get commitment
• Management by commitment - real commitment is rare in most org - we most often get compliance in high commitment work systems.
• Selling ß à Enrolling
• Enrolled - still the other persons vision - becoming part of something through choice.
• Committed - enrolled plus responsible for making the vision happen - the cause can count on you.
• Many compliant, several enrolled, a few committed.
• Committed person brings energy passion and excitement, does not play by the rules - he is responsible for the game. The cause can count on them
• The committed group is an awesome force - they truly want the vision
• Enrolment - a genuine enthusiasm for the vision, energy and passion
• Be on the level with people - describe the vision simply and honestly. Don't try to sell the vision - leave it to a free choice.
• Compliance is sometimes the minimum level for support - even though enrolment would be the preferred result - there is freedom of choice - you can't make someone enrol or commit. Compliant - accepts the vision, this must be a free choice.

• A vision needs to be consistent with personal values. What do we believe in?
• What (the vision), Why (purpose or mission), How (core values - how do we act - EG integrity, merit, loyalty - while pursuing the shared vision)
• Org will sometimes only pull together when threatened - negative visions - EG anti Drugs, anti-crime, etc.
• Negative visions - the message of powerlessness, are short term - as long as the threat persists.
• Sources of energy - Fear and Aspiration (drives positive vision - endures) - what "is" in light of the vision
• The concept of personal mastery - creative tension - reality pulled to the vision.
• Why shared visions don't spread - not created by a committee.
• The shared visions grow our of personal visions and evolve from people thinking about their personal visions, and discovering part of something bigger.
• We don't realise that shared visions take a lot of time.
• Visioning is the work - the statement is not the work. It is what the vision does that matters - it is on-going. It is what the vision does, not what the vision is.
• Xerox Park - developments of the mouse, and user interface (EG McIntosh interface) iconic interface - the Dynabook - learn to read and can read any book - interact with the book - we no longer just read Plato, we talk with Plato.
• It is not what the vision is - it is what the vision does
• A forcing function for change - we have no concept of what it is to build shared vision.
• Initially we don't have a concept of the shared vision
• Building a Learning Org - when the vision was present - it was energised
• Precondition - systems thinking - people believe they can create the future
• Who created the current reality - who created the current problems
• People must believe that we can create our own current reality and our future.
• Systems thinking - we have partly created the current reality - and the current problems - what would we like to create (shared vision).

• question the assumptions
• developing shared commitment - Systems Thinking and building shared vision fold together.
• We are creating, not just reading.
• More than compliance

• a core discipline
• new insights may conflict with our current mental models (what is familiar) These can be simple assumptions. The assumptions are active, they shape how we act.
• Mental models effect what people do, they effect what we see.
• Our theories determine what we measure
• Mental models example USA car styling - cars are status symbols, workers have no effect on the end product (quality). Preferences can gradually change while the mental model remains - imported / Japanese cars gained market share
• Models are simulations - we might be unaware of our mental models - which can diverge from reality.
• Managing inventory for example - minimise inventory to keep down costs - while this adversely effects delivery times. Prompt delivery satisfies customers.
• The mental models need to be consistent with reality. If the models do not keep up with reality - the changes will not be fully taken into account .
• Wonder Tech computer - rapid growth in the first 3 years. A backlog of orders developed. Delivery times slipped - to 14 weeks. Sales and marketing were pushed. Sales force doubled, when sales fell off marketing had to turn the sales around - new sales promotions - more sales produced longer delivery times and eventually a sales crisis. The company collapsed. The management could not see how their own mental models got in the way.
• Reinforcing process - hiring more sales and marketing staff and reinvesting.
• Sales slowed down by customer dissatisfaction with delivery times - long delivery times remained. This was the balancing loop.
• Avoid pushing hard on a reinforcing process. The level is determined by the balancing process.
• Delivery time lag was the cause for concern. The effect of gossip led to a reputation for long delivery times and customers walked away.
• The symptomatic response was to hire more sales people.
• The fundamental response - would be to increase the manufacturing capacity and improve the delivery times.
• The point of leverage was the 8 week delivery target. The delivery time standard was set - but was not met.
• There is a need to describe the situation in terms of systems thinking.
• Customer standards mattered most
• Exceptional potential , resources
• Mental model deep below the surface - not challenged - leads to the limitation and limits our growth
• Can describe the model - all the pieces, but still not know how the pieces fit together.
• Eg inventory control, financial control, but cant keep up with competitors taking away market share
• Wonder tech - there is more than intellectual insight involved in learning - limitations of our ways of putting the info together
• People Express airlines - early rapid growth 79, bankrupt in 86.
• CEO - visionary, personal mastery, personal vision - but could not put all the pieces together. PE failed because it could generate demand faster than it could provide the service. PE had lower operating costs, more time in air, treated its staff as people, teamwork, job rotation - this took time to generate the service capacity
• Could grow demand, but the HR system did not allow the staff/service capacity grow as quickly as demand - vision is not enough.
• Started as a small high quality service, gradually the quality level fell. The leaders mental model did not make sense of the information - what is the story? - what causes the imbalance? - the strategy could not therefore be adjusted.
• Blind to internal inconsistencies, innovation is based around team work, the mental models shape the way we see the information.

• asking tough questions that challenge current thinking - usually not rewarded
• diverging problems -complexity - multiple solutions, multiple points of vies
• how to surface, and expose to bring out the mental models creatively
• balancing A and I - make your view and reasoning explicit and say how you got there, encourage others to give their views, clearly state the assumptions, state the data, only question if you are prepared to listen - are there any other ways to look at the situation.
• design ways to reduce the communication barriers, be willing to express the limitations of your model and assumptions - a willingness to be wrong
• learning results in changes and actions - reveal the gap in the current mental model
• The mental model might be different from what you say. Gaps arise a consequence of vision - there might be a gap - a potential for creative change - recognise the gap between current reality and our vision. Do we value the difference or the beliefs. Others can help to uncover the assumptions. It takes practice with other people.

• Builds on the other disciplines. Shared vision, personal mastery and talent are not enough.
• A great need for team learning today - a key learning unit in org. can set the tone for other units and the larger org.

1. Think insightfully about complex issues - tap the potential of many minds
2. Innovative coordinated action - like sports teams - operational trust - can act to complement actions
3. Role of team members on other teams - team learning inculcated team learning more broadly

• Mastering dialogue and discussion
• Dialogue - deep listening and suspending ones own views - free and creative exploration
• Discussions - defending views - a search for the best view
• David Bohm - a method of dialogue - becoming open to the flow of a larger intelligence - dialogue used by ancient Greeks and native American cultures
• Systems / holistic view of nature
• Our assumptions
• Universe - an indivisible whole - observing effects the observed - perception and action cannot be separated. The observer and the observed are bound together
• How what is happening is guided by our perceptions
• There is an undivided whole in dynamic flux
• Thought - largely a collective phenomenon - the general counter-productiveness of thought
• Thought is incoherent and usually counter productive
• We cannot usually improve thought individually. We need the synergy of Dialogue and Discussion.
• Discussion à analysis and dissect
• Dialogue à through the meaning / word - meaning passing - like a stream - a group accesses a common pool of meaning that cant be accessed individually - goes beyond individual understanding - the whole organises the parts
• Dialoguing gains insights - participating in the pool of common meaning and developing a new common meaning.
• A group explores the complex issues - communicates the assumptions and views - and goers beyond individual views - reveals the incoherence

1. Thought stops tracking reality
2. Thought 'goes' on its own
3. Thought establishes its own standard of reference

• EG prejudice - stereotypes - determines some of the actions. Thought presents itself and pretends that it does not represent. The map - the territory
• Reality may change -
• Dialogue - become more sensitive to our incoherence - observers of our own thinking. EG out thoughts are in conflict - we are not in conflict - our thinking is active
• Pool of culturally acceptable assumptions - where our thoughts come from
• Dialogue - thinking an ongoing process (not thoughts) - collective thinking an ongoing stream - connecting the incoherence of our thinking
• We see the stream of common meaning - capable of change -
• Our thought - like a coarse net
• In dialogue - it is like a fine net, there is sensitivity, we get the subtleties.
• Team learning is vital - we see the inconsistencies - becomes coherent - order harmony consistency
• Don’t strive for coherence - become sensitive to incoherence - our thinking produces consequences that we don't really want - confusion

1. We must suspend our assumptions for dialogue
2. We must regard others a colleagues for dialogue
3. The facilitator must hold the concept of dialogue

• In dialogue, hot topics become discussible - windows to deeper insight.

• hold the assumptions - in view for examination - be aware of the assumptions - cant be done if we are defending the assumptions. This blocks the flow of dialogue. The mind wants to move away from suspending assumptions

• sets a positive tone - we feel like we are building something. Friendship develops - willingness to hold assumptions in suspension. Colleague-ship - differences of view are OK. Colleagues with different views - not adversaries. Hierarchies are the antithesis of dialogue
• There is mutual risk and safety in facing the shared risks
• We must truly want the benefits of dialogue - more than the privilege or rank, or the security of non disclosure
• End track 0309
• Fear and judgment must give way - what will be expected of us, in advance
• All participants must be willing
• A facilitator who holds the context of dialogue -
• Our thoughts pull us toward discussion, although there is a deep down desire for dialogue.
• Facilitator - help people maintain ownership of the outcomes. Hold the assumptions in suspension. Look at whether the dialogue conditions are still being met. EG but the opposite might also be true. We believe in our own views.
• Experiencing the flow of meaning - the things that must be said now - only what is needed. This influences the flow of development. The facilitator demonstrates dialogue
• Dialogue emerges when the team has developed their skill or understanding - (talking stick)

• With the team together - ground rules explained - way to enforce the rules - create the context to raise issues. A team - those who need one another to act.
• Data Quest Drives - Founder retired - reorganisation - invitation to dialogue - clarify assumptions - understand others views. Input from a larger group to examine the directions
• End TR0310
• To be together as colleagues - equals - first step to establishing ongoing dialogue

1. Suspension of assumptions - do not take and hold a position and defend it.
2. Acting as colleagues - leave your position at the door, no hierarchy allowed.
3. Spirit of Inquiry - explore the thinking behind your views - what leads you to say this

• The R&D and Marketing 30 year rift - came down through the dialogue - two cultures - separate product budgets - EG for development and acquisitions
• Spirit of cooperation - big picture considerations - equal partners in innovation
• The team learning discipline requires the dialogue practice - teams learn through practice and performance cycle / loop
• Group intelligence - not group-think - in general, team learning remains poorly understood.
• We need to learn how to move into dialogue and open the way
• Track 0311 5:3

• There are no fully integrated examples of the five disciplines
• There are many places where people are making significant headway
• MIT learning centre established 1991. Projects to integrate the disciplines into how people manage
• Developing the new 1992 Lincoln Continental - team of 900 engineers - new generation model over 5 year period.
• The vision - creating a learning laboratory - moving between work and the lab. - performance and practice - to integrate the disciplines and create a learning org
• Developed a system diagram for the car development process, what goes wrong, vicious cycles,
• When there was a problem, people didn't talk about it - never report it in the main team meeting.
• Delay between when a problem is recognised by someone and when the problem is recognised by the main team. A core cultural issue - Trust. Shoot the messenger, deeply embedded. The leverage ability is lost through delay. Recognising reality. The delays and the way people interact.
• A year into the program - outsiders experienced people talking about the problems. New culture of openness and candour - operating outside the Ford cultural norms. Inside the team - they talked about current reality - openness, enthusiasm and shared vision
• The parts on time milestone - usually < 50% with the Continental team - parts on time was 88%. Wow! A real accomplishment. Design completed 10 month before manufacture. Customer driven quality awards.
• Dialogue - Check In - Hard results through the soft stuff. Learning laboratory an example of how the disciplines came together.

- Learning org is the journey

• How to overcome the power plays, game playing, back biting, orgs in down sizing mode, justifying existence, what goes on below the surface
• First step with us as individuals. Don't ignore the fears. Personal Mastery - Creative Tension. Current reality is neither good or bad. We don't yet know how to work with those forces.
• Our level of skill and understanding - comes back to us, and our skill and understanding
• Learn to "sail" in a safe place. Where can we find a safe harbour to learn in.
• Powerful lesson - fear cramps imagination - it is difficult to learn when there are threats, emotional tension - threats at a level we can live with.
• Where are our partners? What has heart and meaning to me? Now, what can we do? A process of community building. Communities are different than business
• Business is transactional - honest days pay for a days work - what is in it for me
• Communities - what can I contribute - people volunteer to communities
• Who do I know that cares about our Learning Org, Mental Models, Personal Mastery,
• People tend to form communities - an area where we can try approaching through dialogue rather than discussion. EG dialogues rather than negotiation - what if we were partners not competitors. Who are the natural partners?
• Groups who can start are groups with the power to take action . Identify a domain where you have power to take action. Practice the disciplines in these areas and Learn.
• What if I am not part of such a group - how do I find a group - need to participate to take action. EG find partners amongst staff in areas of power. Informal network to learn how to work in a different way - learning is about taking action.
• Most of our important learning is not from school or training.
• Work is about being us, learning, growing
• Beat the path as you walk it - there are not a lot of examples
• Start - what do we really want to create - this is a team activity.
• What is current reality. Learn how to work in a different way. Where is the stuck-ness?
• Difference between assumptions and current reality - appreciate the differences
• Event, pattern of behaviour, systemic structures. Re-design how work works. There is no set formula.
• Learn as you go - learning orgs is like this - have fun. What do we want to create?
• The people who truly care, stay at it. You don't know at first how far you can go.
• Find your partners and get started if you care about it
• Making change requires at least three people: one person will get creamed, 2 persons can commiserate, it takes 3 for the beginnings of a full fledged conspiracy.

Last modified 12/01/2006