DOI

ISBN: 9780712698856

Summary
The author, the director of the Center of Organizational Management at the Sloan School of Management at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, steps back from the problems facing large and small companies alike and convincingly asserts that many of these problems exist because organizations simply do not adapt well to changing circumstances. This "hard to turn an oil tanker" mindset entraps companies because they lack several critical capabilities (or as the author would put it, they are dysfunctional). In short, they are not learning organizations. Put another way, they are slow to improve.

The author describes the five components needed to build a learning organization: systems thinking, personal mastery, mental models, building a shared vision and team learning.

Senior management will find three of these (systems thinking, mental models and team learning) of the most practical interest for putting the fundamentals of a learning organization in place.

With regard to systems thinking, Professor Senge lays out a clear case that sustained performance improvement can be achieved only by seeing and managing interrelations (in the business and in the organization), rather than by asserting and hoping for linear cause and effect. This need to see business and organizations as systems, with interrelated parts and complicated "wiring," reflects oft-expressed senior management concerns about getting those parts to move in unison.

Relevance for Complex Systems Knowledge
Systems thinking plays a fundamental role as the fifth discipline among what Peter Senge think would constitute learning organizations. In the book he gives various examples from the business world on how business thinking would improve the opportunities, not ony for the individual actor but for the system as a whole. Many business failures can, according to Senge, be explained by decisions made without considering the how other system actors would react. The book explains how the Causual Loop Diagrams can be used to assist organizations to get a better understanding of why events occur as they do, and to make simulations on different strategies and scenarios. The book is written mainly from a business perspective, but may apply to any type of organization.

Point of Strength
This book could be used in various types of courses addressing systems thinking and complexity, primarily om an introductory level.