Peter M. Senge, November 2004

Peter Michael Senge (born 1947) is an American scientist and director of the Center for Organizational Learning at the MIT Sloan School of Management. He is known as author of the book The Fifth Discipline: The art and practice of the learning organization from 1990 (new edition 2006). He is a senior lecturer at the System Dynamics Group at MIT Sloan School of Management, and co-faculty at the New England Complex Systems Institute.

Biography[link]

Peter Senge 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. He also earned a Ph.D. from the MIT Sloan School of Management in 1978.^[1][2]

He was the Director of the Center for Organizational Learning at the MIT Sloan School of Management, and is currently (2005) on the faculty at MIT.

He is the founding chair of the Society for Organizational Learning (SoL). 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.^[3] He recommends meditation or similar forms of contemplative practice.^[3][4][5]

Work[link]

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 in Ford, Chrysler, Shell, AT&T, Hannover Insurance, Harley-Davidson since the 70s and 80s through today.

Organization development[link]

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 (as defined in Systemics) 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.^[6] 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'.^[6]

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.^[7]

Peter 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 advise is useful. It's essential to develop reflection and inquiry skills so that the real issues can be opened for discussion. ^[7]

According to Peter Senge, there are four challenges in initiating changes. There must be a compelling case for change. There must be time to change and help during the change process. Lastly, 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. ^[7]

Learning Organization and Systems Thinking[link]

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."^[6] 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.^[8] 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.

See also[link]

• Organizational learning
• System Dynamics
• Systems thinking
• Strategy dynamics
• Strategic management
• Organizational Communication

Publications[link]

Peter Senge wrote several books and articles. A selection:

• 1990, The Fifth Discipline: The art and practice of the learning organization, Doubleday, New York, 1990.
• 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, published in 2004
• 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

References[link]

External links[link]

Wikiquote has a collection of quotations related to: Peter Senge

• SoL, Society for Organizational Learning - which Senge founded
• Presence.net - another SoL web site based on his more recent publications
• Presencing Institute
• Systems Thinking in Action Conference, an annual event that Senge has keynoted for the last 19 years