The Fifth Discipline

I call systems thinking the fifth discipline because it is the conceptual cornerstone that underlies all of the five learning disciplines of this book. All are concerned with a shift of mind from seeing parts to seeing wholes, from seeing people as helpless reactors to seeing them as active participants in shaping their reality, from reacting to th

All too often, teams in business tend to spend their time fighting for turf, avoiding anything that will make them look bad personally, and pretending that everyone is behind the team’s collective strategy—maintaining the appearance of a cohesive team. To keep up the image, they seek to squelch disagreement; people with serious reservations avoid s

The ability to focus on ultimate intrinsic desires, not only on secondary goals, is a cornerstone of personal mastery.

Leaps of Abstraction.

we identified several specific ways such balancing processes can thwart otherwise promising change initiatives: control-oriented managers who are threatened by new levels of openness and candor; delays in metrics that show costs of changes but take time to show benefits; polarization and competition between converts to a new way of doing things and

First imagine that that goal is fully realized. Then ask yourself the question, “If I actually had this, what would it get me?”

we identified several specific ways such balancing processes can thwart otherwise promising change initiatives: control-oriented managers who are threatened by new levels of openness and candor; delays in metrics that show costs of changes but take time to show benefits; polarization and competition between converts to a new way of doing things and

Many shared visions are extrinsic—that is, they focus on achieving something relative to an outsider, such as a competitor. Yet, a goal limited to defeating an opponent is transitory. Once the vision is achieved, it can easily migrate into a defensive posture of “protecting what we have, of not losing our number-one position.” Such defensive goals

Organizations intent on building shared visions continually encourage members to develop their personal visions. If people don’t have their own vision, all they can do is “sign up” for someone else’s. The result is compliance, never commitment. On the other hand, people with a strong sense of personal direction can join together to create a powerfu